***mature content warning - sexual themes***

I can barely hear the hoof beats over the pounding of my heart, but I can feel them reverberating through my body as I urge my horse faster. We weave between the still and silent trees, and the quiet seems a stark contrast to our mad, directionless charge. I don't know where we are, I don't know where we are going, all I know is that we have to go fast and god forbid we falter, because two pitiless men are close on our heels and they carry my death in their hands. My horse is smaller and more agile so right now we have the lead, but I can hear them getting closer, their voices calling out to one another, egging each other on. The woods are a blur of colour and I can barely register what lies ahead of us before we pass it by, I merely duck away from branches and hold on tight. We jump a fallen log, my horse stumbles and panic freezes my lungs for a terrifying moment as it seems like we are going to fall, before the horse catches itself and keeps going. The trees claw at my face and arms and hair, as though the whole forest is in cahoots with the men chasing me, but I barely feel it.

We plunge though a shallow, icy stream and the spray soaks my skirts, but my horse crosses it easily and climbs the soggy bank on the other side without a hitch. I glance back; they are heavier and their horses are larger, so hopefully the mud will slow them down a bit more, even if for just a fraction of a second. They've already dropped back a few paces than they were before and we have left the stream behind by the time they reach it. I feel a flutter of hope. We could outrun them. I might survive this yet.

I am overcome by a sharp, blinding pain as my head is snapped backward, and white spots flash across my vision. I fall, flung from the saddle by a branch to my head, and I land on my back. The air is snatched from my lungs. I gasp, pain burns like fire thorough my limbs and I can't breathe, oh god, I can't breathe, my lungs are punctured balloons, I can't move, but I have to get up,get up, they're coming!

There is a commotion of hooves and leaf litter as my pursuers reign in their horses, and they dismount with two great thumps. I am sucking tiny mouthfuls of air back into my lungs and my heart is beating so hard I'm afraid it will burst as I helplessly grasp at my surrounds, trying to drag myself to my feet, or just away from them. I find a log and wrap an arm around it as I hoist my torso off the ground and drag my knees towards me. Something pushes firmly down on my head. A hand.

'Don't get up just for us, your Grace,' a voice sneers. 'We like you better on your knees.'

Sebastian

Tracking has never felt so excruciatingly slow before. I want to plunge headlong into the trees, to fly across the ground as fast as my horse can go, and then faster still, and it's taking all of my self-restraint to keep myself from doing so. Speed won't help if I never find them, and so I stop, check the trail, follow the crushed foliage and hoof prints, and all the while the seconds slip away no matter how tightly I try to hold onto them. Too much time is passing, damn it, who knows what might be happening. I try not to follow such thoughts or I will work myself into a panic, but every moment I'm fearing for her, for her terror, her pain, for whatever she could be suffering, and I curse Francis for wasting time, the Guard Captain for allowing the assassins anywhere near Mary, the woods for being so enormous, myself for not being quicker, more discerning, a better woodsman, for fumbling with the reigns here and tripping over a tree root there. And Mary, for going stampeding into the bloodwood with two men she doesn't know.

After an eternity, when I am far deeper in the woods than I would ever wish Mary to be, I come across something that makes my blood run cold. The tracks change. Up until this point it looked like they were merely riding in the woods, fairly consistent in their direction, the pace fast but not panicked. But what I see now is a churning up of the ground, as though they suddenly dug their heels in, and the trail becomes haphazard, swerving around trees and crashing through undergrowth. The three riders are traveling less in a group and darting about more, as though trying to take short cuts to head the leader off. Whatever happened here gave Mary cause to run, and the assassins are in pursuit.

Fear is a distraction, and panic is the enemy of focus, but I am beyond reasoning now. I urge Lady into a gallop. She bolts forward, her ears pressed back against her head in response to my anxiety, and I bend low to her neck and press my heels harder into her sides. My thoughts are no longer coherent, all I know is that I need to get to Mary, now. And then I feel it, the same presence as this morning by the basin, something lingering at the corners of my mind, a raw, primitive fear, mingling with my panic for Mary but separate. This fear is instinctive and without reason, attached to no knowable object, and I feel it deep down in my bones. All thoughts flee my mind like startled birds and suddenly I leave the trail completely and strike out in a different direction, still operating at a gallop, but trusting Lady to find her way through the trees. I tweak our course as we go without thinking, concentrating on speed and trusting our direction to whatever it is that guides me. I slow our pace to cross a stream, and as we are picking our way through the stones and mud the presence leaves me and my clarity is gone. I reign Lady after we cross the stream to catch my breath and recollect myself after what just happened. Her flanks are heaving and damp with sweat and I rub her neck as I search desperately for some sign that three riders have recently passed this way, but then I see them. I'm standing at the top of a gentle incline, and below I can see two men approaching one dark-haired girl. Mary holds a sword out before her, and one of the men also has one, but the other one is unarmed and limping. I have the high ground. This will be swift.

The unarmed one runs when the sound of hooves alerts them to my charge, and the other one fumbles to change direction and face this newest threat. His mistake is turning his back on Mary, who makes a swing for his sword arm. She strikes true, and the man screams in pain before I fell him with one sure slash. His body hits the ground with a heavy thud. I take the other one down as he runs towards his horse in a flurry of steel and blood and I reign Lady in as he falls. He twitches and gurgles for a few moments before his body is still. I take a moment to steady myself as I watch him die and try to calm my racing heart. Two more lives I have stolen before their time. For a moment, I disregard everything I had to kill them for. Who were these men? What drove them to this death in an attempt on the life of the Queen of Scotland? They were boys once, infants. They had mothers, fathers, maybe wives and children. And now they will never speak another word or draw another breath. Because of me.

I dismount and peer at the squat face, the stubble, bushy eyebrows and a nose like a mushroom, before passing my hand over his eyes and closing them. My immediate concern is the living, not the dead. When I look back to where Mary was standing, I see the discarded sword, but no sign of her.

'Mary?' I call. There is no reply, but I can hear her gasping and I follow the sound. She is sitting behind a tree, out of sight of the bodies, her arms wrapped around herself as she gasps for breath. I can see that she's trembling and I begin mentally unpacking the contents of my saddle bag for something to help with shock. I bob down beside her.

'Mary, it's okay, it's me. I'm not going to hurt you.' Her trembling grows more violent as I stretch out my hand, but she takes hold of it. 'Easy now,' I croon, as though to a spooked horse, and I creep up next to her, sitting down in the leaf litter. 'Are you hurt?' I brush hair away from a gash on the side of her forehead that is slowly seeping blood. 'That looks painful.'

'I fell f-from the h-horse...' The word becomes a sob, and she is crying and gasping, caught somewhere between terror for what she's been through and relief to be alive. Each gasp seems powerful enough to rent her in two, so I put my arms around her and hold her tight in response to some vague notion that I can hold her together.

'It's okay, Mary, shh, you're safe now, you're okay,' I chant, though it's probably more for my own comfort. The relief washing through me is a heady drought and I begin to believe it, that's she's safe, that I reached her in time, that I can be rid of the dread I have been carrying like cold porridge in my stomach. I want to laugh or punch something or leap into the air, but instead I press my face into her hair and hold her tightly. God, she smells good, even covered in mud and the sweat of fear.

She turns her face up to me and I barely have time to take in her tear-bright eyes before she's kissing me. Hard. I cannot breathe, I cannot think, I am rendered completely helpless by her lips, by her scent, by the sweetness of her breath and the way it quivers in her mouth. All I can do is kiss her back. My hands are full of her, of her softness and her warmth, and they are on her waist, her back, her thighs, searching until they find her skin, rippled with goose bumps beneath her skirts, and her arms are around my neck, dragging me in.

'I'm burning up,' she gasps against my mouth. 'You're burning me up.'

Then I'm leaning into her, onto her, she's on her back and my body is pressed against her and my lips are on her white neck, on her collar bone, on the soft skin at the top of her breasts, and she arches her back and pulls me closer still. Her skirts are around her waist and her bodice comes away in a ripping of fabric and I'm tearing at the laces of her corset like some kind of wild animal. Her breasts, oh god, rose-pink nipples against cream, hard against my tongue, and she's gasping and sobbing, hands in my hair as I take everything I have wanted so terribly for so long.

I'm tugging at my breeches with one hand, my other hand on her, on her, and as she's gripping me with her legs when I pause. This is wrong, isn't it? Though I can hardly remember why. Then she gasps my name and I am lost.

Afterwards, we lay in silence for a moment that warps and behaves in a way that has me questioning the very nature of time. It seems longer than the entirety of my life before now, and yet I know it is passing too quickly. I hold her to my chest, her dark hair draped across me and her face turned away, trying to embed the way her breath on my skin feels into my very bones, and waiting for the regret that will surely come and desecrate this sacred ground. I wish she would look at me.

We both begin to tremble, this time with cold, but still she doesn't move. Maybe she is as aware of the fragility of this moment as I am, dangling in a place between places, a time between times, straddling the worlds of before and after. It is safer here in nowhere than it is in after, and we cannot go back to before. I would like to hide here in this moment forever, the foliage of the woods sheltering us from the full knowledge of what we have done.

Finally she stirs, sitting up with her back to me, gathering her torn bodice to her chest.

'We should head back,' she says quietly, her voice hoarse. I follow her lead and sit up, struggling into my breeches and straightening my clothing as best as I can.

'Of course. You must be freezing,' I say, stupidly, wishing for the eloquence of the poems in the book by my bed. Though even if I were a poet I'm not sure I would find the words I need. 'Mary, I-' I begin, but she winces away from me, pressing a hand to her face.

'Don't,' she pleads. 'Don't say anything. Please. Let's just go home.'

'We don't have to go back,' I suggest, trying to catch her eye, my hands itching to reach out to her. 'We could go… somewhere else.' It's funny how difficult it seems to simply take her hand now, when minutes ago I was…. Well, nothing seemed difficult then.

Her reply is flat, toneless. Resigned. 'We do have to go back. I have to go back to my…. my husband. And to the countries who look to me as their ruler. I am a queen. I will always have to go back.'

So we do go back. It takes a little time to coax our skittish horses back to us, but before long we are mounted and moving through the quiet woods, every step bringing us closer to the reckoning and further from the blissful oblivion of the forest floor. There is nothing I want less than to go back. I spend the majority of the ride trying to find the nerve to break the silence that has settled over us, but I can think of nothing to say that will make anything any easier. I won't tell anyone, Mary? You can go back to Francis and your phony marriage and leave me in the woods, where I will dream of you? Would that make you happy? If I took back the heat, doused the flames we have ignited and left you shivering, without me but safely back in the world you came from, would that make everything right? What if I said I love you, Mary? Come with me and we will create the world anew, somewhere far from here, where there are no thrones to contend with, no schemers and no plots, where I can keep you safe. I'll build you a house in a shaft of sunlight and I'll bring you poppies every day. We will make love in the warm, dreamy mornings and fill our days with gentle peace, with kisses on your cheeks and light shining in your hair, with smiles on your lips. And I will never, ever, leave you alone at night.

I reign Lady in when we finally break free of the woods to find the château looming large before us, beautiful and demanding in the golden light of the late afternoon, and Mary follows suit. We sit for a few minutes, just staring up at it, and I can't seem to get enough air into my lungs. I feel as though the air is thicker here, and will continue to get thicker the closer I get, until I eventually suffocate. A breeze rushes by, back towards the wood, running its cold fingers through my hair, luring me back the way I came.

'I'm not sure I should go any further,' I say softly.

Mary is quiet for a moment, and I almost think that she agrees with me, but then she says 'please come with me, don't make me do this alone.'

With a sigh, I nudge my horse onward.

Francis

It's been hours, almost an entire day, and there's been no news. I've got soldiers combing the château and grounds, the town, the wood. And not a single shred of evidence has turned up to indicate where she might be. I feel so useless, enshrined in the throne room and entrusting her rescue to other. I should be out there with them. But exposing another monarch to whatever enemies are responsible for Mary's disappearance won't help anyone. Or so my mother tells me.

'Francis, sit, eat,' she orders, motioning to the excessive amount of food on the table that has been brought for my solitary self.

'I can't.'

'You have been pacing that same length of floor for an hour. If there were any clues to Mary's whereabouts there, you would have found them by now.'

'This is not a joke,' I fume, storming towards her, and she holds her hands up defensively.

'I know it's not, and I'm taking it very seriously. But what good will you be to Mary if you're weak from hunger? You need to be sharp and vigilant when making decisions in troubled times. So sit. Eat.'

I glare at her for a moment, then do as she bids. I'm being served stuffed quail when the doors burst open and Greer comes racing in, her face flushed. She pauses to take in the scene, and I'm immediately embarrassed. What must she think of me, casually feasting like all is right in the world? I stand quickly.

'I'm sorry to interrupt, your Grace, but she's back! She's safe,' she says excitedly.

'Thank heavens. Where is she? Is she hurt? What happened?' I say, relief flooding through me, allowing my tense muscles to relax.

'I don't know anything yet, I just saw them riding across the lawns. Follow me.'

My mother and I follow Greer through the halls at a run, and emerge outside into the golden light of late afternoon. As my eyes adjust, I pick out two horses not so far away, and Mary being helped to dismount. And who is lifting her from the saddle? Sebastian of course. He lowers her to the ground, but then she appears to stagger, like her legs won't hold her. Without hesitation he scoops her up in his arms and carries her towards us. I know I'm supposed to be grateful to him right now, but I want him away from my wife and out of my sight as quickly as can be achieved.

I run towards them, gravel crunching beneath my feet, and when I reach them I take Mary from him. For a moment it almost feels like he isn't going to relinquish her, but we lock eyes and he lets go, his arms falling limply to his side.

'Thank you,' I manage to say, before carrying Mary back towards the castle.