Free Reign: The Haunting by Lily Blake

Chapter One
    Inside his gleaming burgonet helmet, Francis could hear nothing but the beating of his own heart. The roar of the crowd was silenced and he saw nothing and no one, he could think of only the task at hand. The blood that ran through his veins, that pounded so hard it deafened him, was the same blood that flowed through the veins of the man he saw in front of him.
    Narrowing his eyes, Francis focused on the king. He had been left with no choice. Henry was mad—it was clear to all now and it was only a matter of time before France’s enemies heard tales from court. He couldn’t risk exposing his country to such a show of weakness, her armies were depleted after Henry’s campaigns and the royal debts ran wild, deeper than even Francis’s mother’s rich Medici pockets could bear. Moreover, Henry had set his sights on a new prize, Francis’s wife, Mary. Participating in this joust was foolish, perhaps, but Francis cared little for the risk to his own life when he saw his wife in danger and while Henry’s sanity continued to slip away, she was absolutely in danger.
    His horse moved uneasily, unused to the weight of her new rider. Only she knew the truth. As far as the baying crowds were aware, the man facing the king in the joust was the heroic Lord Montgomery, but behind the shining steel of his helmet, if Henry only cared enough to look, he would see the blue eyes of his own son. Approaching the starting position, Francis sat low on his mount, his lance held high. The beat of his heart grew faster as his breath became shorter. His father circled the grounds on his horse, enjoying the applause of his people, before settling her down, taking his lance, and preparing to begin.
    But there was no preparing for what came next. It all happened too fast, the thunder of hooves, the smell of dirt and straw mixed with the leather of his saddle and the movement of the horse. The lance was heavy in his hand, sailing through the air until it found its target. Until it found the king…
    Francis woke with a start, his shirt sodden with sweat. Every night since he had taken his father’s life, it had been this way. The dreams, the nightmares would not let him be. He felt it over and over, the lance under his arm, sinking into his father’s skull, the silence, and then the screams. It was all too much.
    â€œWhat is it?” Mary stirred beside him, wiping sleep from her eyes. “Is everything all right?”
    â€œEverything is fine,” he said, willing his voice to remain calm, pasting a smile onto his face. “It was just a dream.”
    â€œWas it?”
    He looked across at his wife, but instead of seeing Mary’s fair skin and dark hair, he saw his father in her place, a bleeding hole where his eye should be and their white silken sheets stained with blood.
    â€œBeware wild roses that reveal your secrets,” Henry said, staring straight at his son. “Blood will have blood, my son.”
    â€œNo!”
    This time Francis woke for real, his arms and legs tangled in the bed linens, Mary cowering in the corner of the bed, clutching a pillow in front of her.
    â€œFrancis?” she whispered, fear in her pretty eyes. “What’s wrong?”
    â€œIt was a dream.” Francis pushed his hair away from his face and climbed out of the bed. “I’m sorry if I scared you.”
    â€œYou were saying the queerest things.” Mary followed him over to the window and rested her hands against his soaked shirt. “About your father?”
    When he discovered that Catherine and Mary had plotted to kill his father, to poison him and push Francis onto the throne, he had been appalled. How could the two people he trusted most in the world plot, against the king, his father? His mother, perhaps, but not Mary. The madness that had overcome Henry had made villains of them all. But in the end he saw there was no other option. In his madness, Henry risked