"When I was very little my father used to carry me in his arms, he used to tell me that I was his favorite. I said 'but I am your only child, daddy' then he looked at the child next to me and I knew. My father was just like my lady mother said to her best lady in waiting, Lady Willoughby, a man who plants his seed in every belly he sees fit. 'Because he's the king that's why' Lady mother said. And I was too stupid to realize the truth. My father, my own father locked me in this room for doing the exact same thing he did and continues to do with every woman that crosses his path!" She laughed madly. "It's a miracle that he doesn't do it with every man." Though she wouldn't be surprised. Some men liked to fuck everything that moved.

"My lady if you continue like this, it could upset the child."

Mary pushed her away. "Do you think I care what my child thinks? It will be born a bastard just like me and hated by everyone just like me!" She laughed madly. "I should have known my father was never going to honor his promise. He was always telling my aunt and my namesake that he'd married her to whomever he liked." She laughed harder. "That in itself was a sign he was going to stab her in the back just like he did with his grandfather when he promised him he'd never married the Spanish Princess. Henry VII would have let my mother rot if it wasn't for my father. He went against his councilors' advice and married her and then invented that story that he begged him to marry her. I should have known he would have never let me out of here." She knelt to the floor. "I am going to die here. My baby is going to die with me."

"Mary, you are not doing yourself any favors. I beg of you, please return to bed. If your father comes and visits you in this state, he will have all our heads, not just yours."

"I don't care. I want him to suffer just as I suffered and I want every one of his subjects so he can see what it feels to have nothing left."

Susan didn't say anything. Her friend was speaking out of grief. After another long rant, she managed to get Mary to rest. A snowy owl and golden bird watched as the former Princess of Wales slept. Everyone was unaware of their existence except for Mary. She had these guardian angels watch over her, her entire life. When she was sad or felt unable to join her hands in prayer, she turned to them knowing she could always rely on them. This time however, her heart felt completely empty.

There was nothing. No sorrow, no hatred. Nothing.

Nothing would save her. She was going to die and her lover was going to die as well. I was so stupid. She thought. To fall in love and not face the consequences. All these years she had confronted Anne Boleyn, her father's countless other mistresses and felt superior because of her blood, her lineage and her virtue but she turned out to be the same as them.

Climbing out of the bed and stepping into one of the boxes someone carelessly left behind, she put her hands on the stained glass. Tomorrow she would watch him walk toward the scaffold. Her father would be there. The bastard couldn't miss a spectacle like this. And the day after it would be her turn.

"Someone please save me." She said, getting down and back into her bed.

"Just say the word and we will." Mary looked up and saw those birds again. She narrowed her eyes. Have I finally gone mad? Guessing her thoughts the two birds shook their heads lightly. The snowy owl passed through the window followed by her sister, the golden bird.

"What … How can this be?"

"Search your heart Your Highness, you will find all your answers there."

Mary closed her eyes. She was back to when she was a baby. A memory she had revisited when she met her husband, and a second time when she married her lover, a year after Philip died.

Her mother tucked her in her sleep. She kissed her head. Or so she thought. The image changed and she saw a woman with hair as white as her face. Her eyes an icy blue. She was beautiful, she thought and raised her hands to her. Her skin felt cold but when she kissed her again, she felt warm. Another woman came. She was even more beautiful but her heart was cold, devoid of any love and warmth and Mary began to cry.

"She will do." She said and touched her forehead. Mary felt pain and screamed for help. Her body was on fire and then just as it had come, it stopped.

She opened her eyes and returned to the present. "It was you. You were the ones watching over me."

"We had to." Ravena said. "You were always looking after us when nobody else wanted. After we lost our powers, we were in danger of being hunted by the Inquisitors. But you saved us with your laughter. You have a great power Princess and you will pass that power to your children."

"I don't get it … My children? How-How can you know what I am having? The best doctors haven't been able to determine that."

"The doctors are steeped in religion, you are too smart to fall for that." Ravena transformed back into her human form. "Or maybe you are still stupid. Your grandmother certainly was and look where she is now."

"Sister." Freya chastised, glaring at her. She morphed back into her human form as well. "We cannot stop what has been started. The curse that killed my child didn't kill her spirit, it was reborn in you."

"I-I don't understand."

"I told you she'd be too stupid. I should have cast a bigger curse on her." Ravena said sitting on one of the empty chairs. She put a spell on her silly maids so they wouldn't wake up until the following morning. "Pity, she is the fairest of them all. At least she will die still fair."

Mary paled as she said the word 'die' and put her hand on her stomach.

Ravena put her hand on her cheek. Once again, despite it being cold, it filled her with warmth. "You will die but your children won't. The future of this world and our family will rest with them. We will protect them I promise."

"I don't want to part with them. Please, if you are who you say you are, save them."

Freya withdrew her hand, smiling and giving her a look of disappointment at her daughter. She had reincarnated into a life of royalty, where she was meant to inherit her father's kingdom, but once again, fate had acted against her. The only thing that could save her was her children.

"We cannot. It has been decided." Freya said, and like before, turned her back on her daughter along with her sister, and disappeared into the night.


"When my mother was young she said she used to play with her brother Charles endlessly and her twin sister Eleanor. She would whisper into the night 'look at me, I am here'. My grand-aunt Marguerite would watch over them and express how proud she was of them." Mary smiled as she looked down at her two babies. "One day you will see all of it. Your half brother will take you there, and you will see the world for what it is and not what your granddaddy thinks of it."

Susan looked with worry at her friend. She was losing her sanity. Her stepson had come to visit her and promised that he'd take good care of her babies, but she was unsure he would. He hated her. Eustace said he would not be kind to her. He never liked sugarcoating the facts, but he hoped that if his scheme worked, then he'd think differently of her. Unfortunately that didn't happen and he blamed her for what she and his father were about to face.

He looked so much like him. He even acted like him. His bearing, the way he passed his hand through his hair, it was like looking back at a younger version of Eustace Chapuys, that she thought she was dreaming when she saw him.

"Eustace?"

"No, my name is Etienne Lemaitre." He said. "Pleased to make your acquaintance Madame."

Mary nodded. Of course. He looked so much like him, but his hair was darker and his eyes didn't bear the warmth that Eustace bore her every time they lay together, or the amusement he gave to his betters when he confronted them and made them look foolish. This young man bore her nothing but hatred and evy.

She was his age, a royal born and bred. Her father was known for his cunningness, he would have never risked his life for anyone, much less someone his master cared less since his wife, the Empress, died. It had to be witchcraft, what other explanation could there be?
Mary wished she could tell him the truth, but she suspected that even if she could, he wouldn't believe her.

Mary placed a hand instinctively on her stomach as the guards stepped away and let him get closer to her. "Why have you come here?"

"The King asked me here, and I received a special passport from His Imperial Highness your cousin, to look over your child once it is born."

She should have guessed that was it. Hope surged through her and she gave him a smile of gratitude. "Thank you for doing this, you do not know how much this means to me-"

"Not for you." He interrupted her.

"For my father. I am doing it for my father and for my brother or sister's sake who are in no way guilty of any of this."

She recognized the hatred he bore for her as his dark green eyes bore into her dark grey ones.
"I am sorry if I have caused you any pain."

"My father loves you. He loves you as he never loved me or my mother. He is dying for you. He could …" There were tears in his eyes. "He could save himself, there are ways to save him, not you but him. He is dying because he can't live without you, because he will follow you wherever you go."

"I am sorry." She sniffed, wishing to cry but no tears came. "I never meant this to happen."

"None of your supporters meant this to happen. I am sure of that 'Your Highness'. Many of them are still mourning their loved ones' deaths who haven't been given a proper burial, whose heads have now begun to rot."

"Before you judge me more, tell my child that I will always be with him or her and tell it that I love him."

"She or he will know that. I will make sure it knows who its parents are, that they died together because they loved each other."

Mary smiled weakly at Eustace's son. "Thank you" she whispered and then returned to bed feeling extremely tired.

Mary felt deeply ashamed after he left. She dreamt of him, refusing to hold her child after it was born. And her child lifting its arms, begging for someone to hold it but nobody came. No doubt her stepson had been disturbed by her lack of emotion. 'She never cries' her father had said. When Etienne stepped closer to her, wishing to feel the baby's kick, she tried to will the tears down her cheeks but they never came. Am I being cold? Unfair to this poor youth? He left her rooms disappointed. His father was languishing in a worse room than her, and here she was, unable to shed one tear for the man who'd risked everything for her.

What sort of life my children will have? She kissed their foreheads and lulled them to sleep. The girl was just like Eustace, fearless and watchful of everything, while her son was impatient like her.

"I swear to you. I will never let you go." If what Ravena and Freya said was true, then her soul would live on and whatever happened, she would watch over them.

Freya and Ravena would take good care of them, but she couldn't trust them. The two sisters wanted them because they'd cursed Mary with their gifts so she could pass it unto them. It stung, but she took the risk of leaving them with their brother.
As much as he blamed her, Etienne would love and protect them and keep them safe from court intrigues; and if their powers manifested, he'd made sure to keep them hidden from the public.

The door to her room opened. Lord Hertford and Sir Henry Seymour came in and told her they'd come for the children. She nodded and steeling herself, handed them, telling them their names so their brother would know.

Mary's heart broke into a thousand pieces as she heard their wails. Is this what my grandmother felt when they executed Thomas More? Catherine of Aragon had been a formidable woman. She'd taken care of her when her mother was unable to. She read to her and prayed with her. She was well into her forties when she gave birth to her last child, a child who was now the mockery of court but her father still kept around, to remind everyone of his generosity.

She thanked God that he was not going to do the same to her children.

Tomorrow Eustace would witness her husband and lover be executed. She didn't wish to see his head roll down the wooden platform into the stone cold floor, but another part of her, the one (she guessed) she inherited from Freya, wanted to, so she could feel hatred for her father and wouldn't be filled with fear when she faced hers.

She smirked as she thought of Ravena and Freya's faces when they learn what she'd done. Her last days would be a living hell, assaulted by nightmares and forced to relive every beating, every threat she faced with her first and fourth stepmother, but she didn't care. For once in her life, she had done something that was of value to another person and that brought her peace.