Chapter 42
Anne
Anne caught Lina as she stumbled backward. The two of them sank to the floor, and immediately Anne’s hands were slick with blood. The hilt of Henry’s knife was buried in Lina’s chest, and all Anne could think was no, no, no, not now, not like this.
Distantly, she saw Henry fall, clutching his shoulder. But she refocused on Lina, whose blue eyes stared up at her in shock and pain and something that scared Anne even more…resignation.
“I can fix this,” Anne said, combing through her memories for a spell from her days at Santa Cruz, even though she already knew she could not heal a wound like Lina’s.
There was too much blood, and there would be even more if she removed the knife to try to knit Lina’s organs and muscles and skin back together.
Lina shook her head. “No. Let us not lie to each other now. We wasted enough time doing that in the beginning.”
Anne was torn between holding Lina in her arms and rising to her feet to curse Henry into oblivion. “He has taken everything from me,” Anne whispered to Lina, tears beginning to fall. “He can’t have you too.”
“Silly girl. He never had me, and he doesn’t now.” Lina took a shuddering breath, and Anne tried not to notice how each rise and fall of her chest spilled more blood. “No. He doesn’t have me. We have each other.”
“Yes. Yes, we do.” Anne wove her fingers through Lina’s, gripping tight.
“Promise me one thing,” Lina said. How had her voice already grown so faint? “Watch over Mary. Keep her safe for me.”
Anne pressed her lips together to hold back a sob, then nodded. “Of course I will. And one day, when the time is right, I’ll tell her all about us, and the Sisterhood, and everything we did together.”
Lina’s smile was tight. “Thank you. I have a feeling she’ll need you, just as I did.”
It seemed to happen in an instant. Lina was smiling, her eyes bright. If Anne hadn’t looked beyond her friend’s face, she wouldn’t have known there was anything amiss. And then Lina’s smile faded. The light in her eyes went out. And she was gone.
Lina had always said her heart was frozen, that the ice inside kept everything—emotions and pain and suffering—at bay.
Anne had known it wasn’t true, for though Lina could be cold, she could also be loving and generous and kind and warm.
But now, now she wished for a drop of Lina’s ice to soothe her own broken, burning heart.
Anne could have sat there for a thousand years, until Lina’s blood dried and her body went stiff and cold.
She could have sat there until her own body wasted away, until she and Lina were nothing more than bones and dust.
But Henry had gotten to his feet and was calling for his guards.
The door opened behind Anne, and she turned, expecting to see soldiers come pouring inside.
But it was only Parr, whose face bore confusion, then shock and sorrow when she saw Lina lying in Anne’s arms. Parr reached for something at her waist—a knife or a vial of poison, Anne wasn’t sure—but Anne shook her head.
“No,” she croaked. “Leave us.”
“Catherine!” Henry shouted, turning his rage on her. “Have you lost your damned mind? Get me my guards!”
Parr’s eyes flicked from Henry to Lina to Anne, who nodded. And then she closed the door once more. This time, Anne heard the click of the lock.
Henry hobbled past her, clutching his shoulder, red seeping between his fingers.
He didn’t even look at Lina. With his good hand, he banged on the door, yelling for Parr or anyone else who could hear.
Anne knew it was only a matter of time before someone heard him or the sleeping potion Parr had given his men wore off.
With heart-wrenching care, she lowered Lina’s body to the ground. She didn’t want to let her go, didn’t want to move or stand or walk. But she did.
“You,” she said, the sharpness of her voice enough to stop Henry’s shouting.
He looked at her as though he had forgotten she was there, then glanced toward the wall where he had hung the old swords of his ancestors.
Anne remembered how he would brag about the collection, how much needless war and death those blades represented.
Henry made a move toward the nearest sword, but Anne froze him in place with a guttural curse, the cut she’d made earlier to steal his breath still open and bleeding.
“Don’t move,” she whispered, and nearly laughed at the sight of Henry’s horror.
The king was a statue of agony, teeth gritted, chest torn open, and his uninjured arm reaching toward the salvation of a blade. Only the blood dripping from his shoulder and his wild eyes marked him as a living man.
A dark, dangerous energy crackled in the air around Anne. She could kill him a thousand ways with a thousand curses. But she followed his gaze to the swords, and she smiled.
She crossed the floor slowly, intentionally, letting Henry watch her and put the pieces together.
Blood trailed in her wake—her own and Lina’s—leaving a smear of scarlet along the floor.
Anne chose the largest, sharpest blade, one she never could wield on her own, not if she hadn’t studied with Gisa all those months.
It was made of heavy, shining steel with a golden handle inlaid with three dark sapphires the color of Lina’s eyes.
Anne wrapped her hand around the blade, letting it cut into her skin.
A spell for strength flowed from her lips, and Anne felt new power race through her veins.
She raised the sword with a single hand, its weight lighter than a walking stick in her grip. When she walked back toward Henry, she pointed the blade at his heart and met his terrified eyes with her own.
“This is for all of us,” she said. She put every shard of Lina’s ice and every spark of her own fire into the words. She thought of Elizabeth, of Mary, of Anna, of Kat, of Parr…even of Jane Seymour, so long dead and buried that she was nothing more than memory.
And then, with one smooth, terrible motion, she beheaded King Henry VIII.