Free Secret History of Elizabeth Tudor, Vampire Slayer by Lucy Weston

set apart, observing all that happens as the young man draws a knife from beneath his doublet and comes ever so slowly toward me. Cecil raises an arm—slowly, so slowly. Guardsmen move toward us, but they may as well crawl through quicksand. Every action and reaction that should happen in the blink of an eye plays out instead across a vastly longer horizon of time. Only I appear to be unaffected.
    A shadow moves on the edge of this strangely stilted scene. With it comes a frisson of sensual awareness. The caress of air against my skin, the rhythm of my own heart, the sudden warmth rising in my body, all threaten to fill me with languor I can ill afford. I glance to the side just as Mordred appears. He looks much the same as he did in the garden, even to his chiding smile. Once again, the rush of attraction that overwhelmed me before in his presence threatens to take command. The realization of how powerfully I am drawn to him at once excites me and fills me with dread.
    “Really, Elizabeth, you should take greater care. Or at least insist that those you entrust with your safety do so.”
    I draw breath, remind myself that I am Queen, and face him squarely. “What do you know of this?”
    “I? Only that this fellow—he was sent by the Pope, but you have so many enemies that scarcely matters—reached our fair shores a fortnight ago and has been making his way toward this moment ever since. None of your protectors discovered him, no one prevented him from entering into the very heart of your palace, and—if not for my interference—no one would have stopped him from killing you.”
    He points at the young man, who stands now with his right arm raised, the knife gleaming in the rays of winter sun streaming through the high windows of the gallery. The hatred that contorts his face chills my blood.
    “This is where you die, Elizabeth. Cut down a single day after your crowning. Your people will have scant time to mourn you before they can think of nothing but their own survival.”
    This cannot be happening—I think. Having lived in the shadow of death for so long, I would have thought myself accustomed to the possibility that I can die at any moment. But face-to-face, quite literally, with my own mortality, I can scarcely grasp it. I stand frozen, staring with unwilling fascination at the final moments of my life.
    Mordred shakes his head at my folly. He takes my arm and draws me off to the side of the gallery. “Consider this an illustration of our partnership, Elizabeth. When we reign together, you will be invulnerable. But until then—”
    The supreme note of certainty in his voice returns me to myself, the realization that he considers it a foregone conclusion that I—poor, weak creature that he assumes me to be, for I have given him no reason to think otherwise—will fall in with his designs without demur. Pride can be a stumbling block, but it can also be a great source of strength in the darkest times.
    I take a breath, another, and feel the veil of fear and disbelief that has paralyzed me dissolve.
    Feel something else as well. Rising within me, a sense of light and strength that sings as it comes, as though all of Creation reverberates to a single, irresistible note. On the crest of that ethereal music, I strike.
    “Never!” I exclaim. “I will never become as you! Slayer of your own father! Consorter with evil!”
    I raise my arm and the light sings. I have my father’s crown but truly it is my mother’s blood that drives me in that moment. Blood that poured out on the scaffold, soaking into the land, nurturing my realm with all the love and care she would have given her own child had she been allowed to live.
    Power gathers within me, shoots down my arm, and leaps across the small distance separating me from Mordred. A beam of silvered light strikes him full in the chest.
    He reels back, staring at me in astonishment. With a snarl, he raises his own arm and sends at me a suffocating black cloud that