Chapter Sixty-Six Cleves
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
Cleves
Keep running, Johana had told her. Keep running.
All she has ever done is run, even when she thought she was a bastion.
She runs now, keeping low as she dodges between soldiers and courtiers, monsters and men, trying to reach the far side of High Hall’s vast banqueting hall, and the great doors that lead to safety.
In the midst of it, she spies Howard gather Goldfoot’s body to her chest and crawl away from the siblings as they battle for control of a country that was never truly theirs.
She feints to one side as Brandon turns into a monster, his tale lashing dangerously close.
She reaches Seymour as Cecilia’s body is flung, doll-like, across the hall.
She lands, eyes open, in front of Cleves and Seymour.
At the sight of the monsters and their dead monarch, courtiers and soldiers alike scatter, discarding their weapons and rushing for the doors. Cleves cranes her head above them all, looking for the others.
“Howard needs us,” Seymour says, able to see far more easily than Cleves.
They join hands and run for their young sister.
Everywhere she looks there is spattered blood, for the rage is upon the monsters.
All she can hear is the drumbeat of boots and her childhood, looming, looming.
Through it all, she thinks: where is my power?
No light flickers across her skin. No phoenix-warmth spreads through her veins.
Howard is edging around the side of the hall, but she has not escaped the creatures’ notice.
The one that was More turns towards her.
Cleves has never trusted the influence wielded by mortal men who pledged themselves to Cernunnos, even before she knew the truth.
He towers over Howard now, the very embodiment of that influence.
Such men get too much satisfaction from putting women in their place. And Howard is all alone.
Not alone. Aragon and Parr, on the other side of the hall, are racing towards her. They reach her at the same time as Cleves and Seymour. Five queens, tired and bloodied, together.
The banqueting hall falls eerily quiet.
They are hemmed in. The ancient stone wall of the original palace on one side, and four monsters between them and the great doors.
The only noise is the rasping breath of the beasts.
“Why do we not have the divine power?” Parr is saying. “I thought it would be ours to command.”
“I had it momentarily,” Howard says. Her face is streaked with dirt and tears. She is still clutching Goldfoot. “But I could not keep it.”
Aragon hits the wall with her fist. “It is a godly power. Just because it is now ours does not mean we will be able to command it easily. We must master it over time, as with any skill.”
Cleves stands before them, her arms spread like a shield, as the monsters gather. “Well, that is inconvenient,” she says. “I rather think we might need it to get out of here alive.”
Keep running, cousin.
It comes to her then. The impossibility of her being both castle and runner. She has been doing it all wrong, all these years, building walls around herself to run away.
“What do we do?” Seymour whispers.
Cleves closes her eyes. Seymour’s breath is on her shoulder, as real as her own heartbeat.
Beneath it, she feels something else: Cnothan.
Home. Her link to it is stronger than ever; the divine bond that had been poisoned by Henry for so long, now renewed.
It calls to her like a child cries for its nurse.
She does not need to look, or to hear her fellow queens’ gasps, to know that light is consuming her body.
Cleves whirls round, taking in her companions. She crushes Howard to her chest and whispers into her hair, “You have nothing left to prove, but I ask you one final favour, little sister. Protect Seymour for me.”
“What?” Howard says, pulling away, frowning.
“Promise me, sister.”
Something settles in Howard’s expression. She understands. “I promise,” she says.
Cleves kisses Seymour. “Go. I will hold them off for a little while.”
“Cleves—”
“Go!”
Cleves turns to the gathering beasts, the divine power flickering brightly across her body, telling her that she is precisely where she ought to be, and precisely who she was always, always supposed to be.
She clenches her fists before her, steadying herself for what is to come. Light pools inside her hands. She thinks of a wall, thick and strong like marble, and she opens her hands.
From her palms erupts a wall of light that shimmers from pearlescent to the purple-black of a jay’s feathers. The bordweal light, as it was always intended to be. It stems from the part of her that longs for home, whether that is Cnothan, or Ezzonid, or the woman she adores.
She can barely see the monsters, but can feel them prowling beyond the power’s wall. One of them lunges at it, and is rebuffed. She feels the attack as a crush, deep in her belly, as though something is inside her, eviscerating her gut.
The light wavers, but holds.
She moves with the other queens, holding back the monsters, until they reach the doors of the banqueting hall. She can smell the roses and the light, fresh air of High Hall’s gardens beyond.
“Come, Cleves!” Aragon calls.
She glances back. All of them are through the doors. Seymour is reaching for her. Howard, keeping her promise, has one hand upon Seymour’s arm. She alone of them understands what is about to happen. She nods at Cleves, a little lift of the chin that says, Well fought, sister.
There is another lurch in her stomach. The monsters are attacking once more. She will not be able to keep this wall up for much longer. And when it comes down, there will be nothing preventing them from following the others. She must buy them more time.
She probably should have kept Johana’s gift, but perhaps it will keep Seymour safe through the war that is to come. Yes. That is as it is meant to be.
She has sought safety above all ever since the soldiers. Safety above happiness, safety above companionship, safety above love.
“Come on!” Seymour says.
Cleves smiles at her, and says what she has never said before: “I love you.”
Seymour launches herself towards Cleves, even as Howard and Parr seize her round the waist.
“I love you,” Cleves says again, her throat thick with it. With one hand, she heaves the doors of the banqueting hall shut.
The sound of Seymour’s screams dims, leaving only the sound of the tap tap of the creatures’ claws on the flagstones.
Slowly, Cleves turns, wielding the fading power of a goddess newly risen. All four beasts are bearing down upon her now. There is only them, the bodies of the foolish dowager queen and her upstart brother, and Cleves. All else is still. All else is calm.
“No more running,” she says, lifting her chin, stilling her trembling hands.
Her chest grows hot as the monsters strike.
No more running.