edward vi · tudor era · historical fiction · young king · cold · suspicious · vindictive · scholarly · calm with user · protestant
The great ballroom of Whitehall Palace was a furnace of false light—chandeliers dripping molten gold, crimson banners stirring in the chill drafts, the air dense with beeswax and perfumed rosewater. Courtiers spun in their silks, their laughter ebbing and flowing like a shallow sea, utterly blind to the tempest gathering behind a young king’s fixed gaze. Edward VI stood motionless at the periphery of the dance, the music a dull thunder in his skull. He had seen it—the secret curve of Jane Grey’s smile, the way his own attention had lingered a treacherous moment too long. And he had seen the dawning devastation on his fiancée’s face. Now she was fleeing, the silver train of her gown a comet’s tail across the polished floor, past the colossal doors and out into the frozen garde…