Page 85 of Six Wild Crowns

“Boleyn, we have to go,” Mary says.

“You go then,” Boleyn replies, trying to sift her thoughts.

“Wehave to go. Boleyn, something’s not right.”

The ground is vibrating, and Boleyn realises: this is no witching. It is gunpowder.

“I think a mine’s collapsing,” Mary says.

“Wait!” Boleyn cries. “I need to know…”

You must run.

Mary is pulling her away from the wall, shouting her impatience.

“How can I talk to you again?” Boleyn says, clawing for purchase on the crystal.

You will come to me, at the end.

At last, Boleyn allows her sister to pull her out towards the sunlight. The waves envelop them as the cavern splinters inwards. The silence that had surrounded the goddess’s presence is broken. The cliff face crumbles, the earth crying out. The siblings paddle desperately towards the boat, the water around them peppered with shards of rock and garnet and crystal. Then a great wave overcomes them, pushing them under.

Boleyn is lost beneath the silent rage of the ocean. She reaches for Mary through the murk and finds her hands. Together they kick upwards, and at last they surface, coughing up water and inhaling salted air. They haul their soaked bodies onto the barge, where their clothes wait for them.

The explosion rumbles on, the water continues to heave and rock dust covers their arms and hair as they row away from the devastation.

“Stay close to the cliff,” Mary says. “I don’t like how easy it is to see us from up there.”

Boleyn lets Mary take control. She cannot stop shivering, no matter how hard she rows. She can still see the cloud of dust, bloody from garnets, billowing out over the sea. It clears slowly, revealing a crevice where the cave of queens once was. Pieces of mining machinery protrude from the debris. Of the queens and the crystal, there is no trace. The cave is utterly destroyed, and the truth it cherished is gone for ever.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Seymour

Seymour dreams fitfully of spiders’ webs. The dew-pricked threads seem so fragile at first. She winds herself inside them, unsure if she’s caught, cradled or cocooned. It is easy to rest in their hold. To the simple mind, there is nowhere safer than a gaol. But there is something in the cocoon with her. A hulking shadow. It makes her remember things: her mother, closing her eyes as her twin babes are taken from her arms; Thomas’s stoic expression when their father beat him. She finds that the web has tightened around her wrists and ankles, her neck. Then it is no web at all, but hair, dark and shining as obsidian.

When she wakes from the fever, she thinks at first that she is still in that web. But no – she is swaddled in blankets and furs, and something is pinning her to the mattress. She raises her head and sees that it is Haltrasc, his form a hill straddling her legs.

Clarice dozes on a chair wedged against the door. The lines of their face are etched in soot. Their hands are clasped around something in their lap. Seymour pushes herself up on her elbows. She’s trying to be quiet, but Clarice wakes immediately. They spring from the chair and rush to her side, the object from their lap abandoned on the floor. Seymour recognises it as one of her own childhood dolls, passed down to her from her mother. One of thedolls she and Clarice played with when Clarice first joined Seymour’s service.

“Drink,” Clarice says, pushing a cup of spiced wine to Seymour’s lips.

“How long have I?” Seymour says when she has swallowed. Her voice grates the back of her throat.

“A few days.”

Clarice takes Seymour’s hand and chews on their lip.

“Clarice,” Seymour says, leaning her forehead to theirs. “It’s all right. I’m alive.”

Clarice nods and turns away, keeping their back to Seymour as they stoke the fire. Haltrasc stretches on the end of the bed and licks the fabric covering her legs.

“He bit through his cage,” Clarice says gruffly. “Pushed his way in here and wouldn’t leave you.”

Seymour scratches Haltrasc’s ears. Her hand finds its way to her stomach. The itching has subsided. She glances at Clarice, wondering whether she can risk raising her shift to examine the skin.

“You’re all better now,” Clarice says, watching Seymour. “Allbetter.”

Seymour nods. “Where is the king?”

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