Page 34 of Where Shadows Bloom

And yet his own people were tormented by monsters. I managed the one-beat chuckle that I always gave when some superior expected a laugh. “Quite, madam. Excuse me.”

Following Ofelia’s suit, I piled up several golden tomes and carried them over to the large table where she’d splayed out hers. Eglantine settled at a nearby table with a tome ofher own, and Ofelia sat close to me in a painted-gold chair, running her finger down a column of text. The way her forehead scrunched together reminded me of bunched satin, and I found it terribly lovely.

I turned my attention forcibly to the page of the records in front of me, detailing the strategy the king had devised himself as he prepared to sack some vast, foreign city. But my gaze was pulled to a watercolor painting on the following page, one so vivid, so detailed, it was like a window had been placed between the pages of the book.

The sky was a soft robin’s-egg blue, with fat, fluffy clouds shrinking and pulling apart on the horizon. Beneath the sky, in a perfectly straight line, was a massive body of water, shimmering in the sunshine, stretching from the left page to the right. Beneath this was sand, a strange, pale shade of pink, like it was made of petals. A line of text was written beneath, “The southern shores were claimed and now belong to His Majesty’s blessed kingdom.”

This was the ocean.

Carlos had longed to see this place. I had thought him mad for wanting it. For thinking it was possible to ever go to such a beautiful, perfect, faraway place. A place set aside for kings.

And here I was, looking at it.

I pressed my fingertips to the page, feeling dried ink and not the wet, shifting surface of the ocean like I imagined.

Before I could drown in my thoughts again, I shut thebook and took a deep breath. I turned my gaze to Ofelia. Ofelia, whose heart I would rather fear for than my own.

She glowered down at the book before her. Her cheeks were flaming a deeper and deeper red, and when she blinked, looking to me, her eyebrows were furrowed and her brown eyes glimmered. “Maybe I’m mistaken,” she said. “The—the date, it doesn’t make sense.”

I frowned. “My lady, I don’t understa—”

She rose from her chair, lifting the book with trembling hands. She heaved a deep breath and dropped the book onto the table before me with a coarse thud, pointing to a line in the text. She leaned over my shoulder, her lovelock tickling my bare skin as she read, “Of the number who happily gave their lives in the foreign lands for the service of our blessed king, whose campaign began in the year sixteen hundred and forty-two, on the day of the twenty-fifth of May—”

She interrupted herself and moved her finger to point at a name near the bottom of the list of the dead: “Luc de Bouchillon, July 1642.”

“Eglantine,” called Ofelia, her voice crumbling, “there’s a mistake in this book. It—it says that my father died in the summer of 1642, but that couldn’t be. That couldn’t be, because I was born in... I was born in...”

Her lips moved, but no more sound came forth. But I knew the date well. We shared the exact same birthday: August 1, 1643.

More than twelve months after Ofelia’s father’s death.

My blood went cold at the insinuation. I tried my best to keep my expression stony for Ofelia. All the while, I thought,Who, then, is her father?

Eglantine’s eyes grew wide, and she glanced from Ofelia to the book. “Count Luc de Bouchillon,” she mumbled to herself. She snapped her fingers, pointing. “His—his wife, she was a—a composer? A singer?”

“A painter,” said Ofelia. “I don’t understand. If Father died a year before I was born...”

Ofelia brushed tears from her eyes, though I longed to do it for her myself. I hastily passed her a handkerchief, and when Eglantine touched a hand to her shoulder, she began sobbing in earnest.

“Perhaps there is a mistake,” Eglantine said softly. “But... you did not even know this man. Whether or not he is your father does not matter—”

“Mother told me!” she snapped, her left hand curling into a fist on the tabletop. “They were married. They were in love; they fell in lovehere. How could—” She cut herself off.

Yet according to the gossipers’ stories... Marisol had fallen in love with another.

A mosaic of facts was piecing itself together in my head.

The countess. The king. A baby, raised as far from the palace as possible.

Ofelia’s hand covered her mouth, as if the realization hadstruck us both at the same time. She looked to me, desperate, frightened. My heart beat against my breast, wanting to fly to her, to comfort her.

The deep clanging of bells sounded in the distance. I turned to the sound—near the palace gates.

“His Majesty has returned,” Eglantine said. She looked to us, her brow wrinkling almost apologetically. “We’ll all be expected to attend his homecoming celebration.”

Ofelia slowly wobbled to her feet, her cheeks still red and tearstained. “I need to speak to him.”

Eglantine’s eyes widened behind their spectacles. “You mean to approach His Majesty?”

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