Page 10 of Where Shadows Bloom

Ofelia’s journey would be for love. This quest of mine would be for justice.

“What must we do?” I asked.

4

Lope

Darkness awaits us in a day’s time,

And I will follow her within.

Since the guards were commanded to keep Lady Ofelia in the house after nightfall, as soon as morning came, she expertly crafted our lie. She told the captain of the guard, Chevaleresse Beautemps, that the best way to ease her anxieties over her mother was to go into town and buy as many things as her heart desired. So she and I ended up with a wagon, two horses, and no questions.

She sat beside me on the driver’s bench, glancing over her shoulder at the manor, white as snow in the morning sun.

“If—when—when we find Mother, we’re going to stay there at Le Château. We’ll never see this place again,” Ofelia said.

It was true. This estate was my only home, besides anorphanage and a camp where knights like me were trained. The manor housed all my fondest memories. And the wall, my most horrid ones.

“Will you miss it there?” she asked me.

“No.” I flinched at the sound of my own voice; that I could so easily cast aside my old life, and that I could speak so harshly before Ofelia. But when I glanced at her, I found her watching me intently, her eyes alert and sunlit as they always seemed to be.

“This feels... like the beginning of something,” I murmured. “Like I’ve turned the page of a book and a new chapter is about to begin. I’ve never even seen beyond the nearest town before today.”

I searched the horizon, a sea of golden-green hills. We would follow the road north, where we’d eventually find the palace and whatever awaited us there.Possibilitylay before me. A world where I could do anything,beanything. The kind of world I dreamed of. The kind of world I longed to write about.A world as ripe and delicious as a crisp apple, begging for me to pick it and taste it for myself.

My sweetest dreams looked so much like that morning. Ofelia was at my side. For just a moment, I wasn’t a knight. Only her dearest friend.

Now that I was alone, now that the sun shone boldly and I did not have to take on the mantle of a knight, I felt that I couldbreathe.

“May I drive?” Ofelia asked brightly, holding out her hands as she sat beside me on the driver’s bench.

“Oh—you don’t need to trouble yourself with that, my lady.”

Her eyes became little crescent moons. “I want to. And besides, I can justtellyou want to write. You have that tiny smile creeping on the corner of your mouth, the one you get when you’re inspired.”

It was sweet and startling all at once to be known so well. My gaze whipped hastily from her back to the road, and I tried in vain to suppress that smile. I was her protector, not a poet.

She reached into the bag between us and procured my red leather notebook with the pencil tucked inside. For a split second, seeing her touch that journal made my heart jolt as I imagined her flipping through the moony love poems I’dalreadywritten for her.

“It’s just holding the reins, isn’t it?” With her free hand, she pointed at the road before us, straight and unending. “I can hold them for a half hour.” Ofelia batted her lashes at me like she was begging her mother for new books.

I relented and passed her the reins. She grinned and exchanged them for my notebook. Drawing the bloodred journal close to my chest felt like I was bringing my heart back to its home.

A smile dawned on my face as I took the pencil and lookedup, not as a navigator but as anartist.

Beyond this was the world, all of it, bathed in golden sunlight, rolling hills of yellow rapeseed. I wanted to pluck the horizon and wear it like a cloak; or drink it like a flood of gold, to let my body, all of me, become so bright andbeautiful.

I laughed. Poetry. Rushing toward me, words, words that I loved, came so easily in this brilliant light.

As fast as I could, I scribbled in my journal each beautiful, fleeting thought, and I realized,This is just the barest fraction of what could be.

More lay beyond. A palace. Cities. Other kingdoms. Valleys, mountains, caverns—oceans. Places I could see, places I could enjoy, not as a knight but just as a girl. Like Ofelia.

Ofelia, with her eyes bright as starlight.

As I touched the graphite pencil to the page, the words flowed from me like a burst dam.

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