Page 44 of Where Shadows Bloom

Soon, the king and Ofelia were eating together, chatting away about the past. About Ofelia’s mother and her life at Le Château. About the king and all he wished for Ofelia.

One thing was plain: he intended for her to stay.

Night fell, and a great feast was held to celebrate Ofelia. In this strange palace, royal dinner was a strange affair, too. The king sat at a table with Ofelia at his side. The table overflowed with food, roasted pheasant, warm bread, bountiful vegetables, sugared fruits, wines, and cheeses from all over the kingdom. But no one else sat at the table. Instead, the courtiers watched the supper, quietly speaking to one anotherand ogling the table and their hosts as a quartet accompanied the affair.

Occasionally, as she spoke to her father, Ofelia would look at me, would point to me—but the king would always touch her hand and redirect her attention.

Unlike the nobility, I did not find enjoyment in watching the king eat.

It was suddenly too much. The smells. The sounds. The bodies of strangers pressed so close to me. The distance of Ofelia. I slipped out of the king’s private dining chamber and into the corridor. All I needed was space. Just for a moment.

At night, the corridors were an odd dusky blue. It felt like I was walking through a dark sky. Instead of stars, candles floated in the shadows every now and again. I approached one of these lights—a tangle of candle flames.

It was a candelabrum in the shape of a woman, painted gold, her arms and her fingers molding and transforming into the candlesticks that bore the flames. The candles were decorated in crystals, and the woman’s face was still and serene. Happy to be a decoration in the king’s hallowed halls.

I tore my gaze away from the display, bile rising in my stomach.

The farther I walked, the more I glanced out the windows. The garden was so dim, lit only by a few torches. Each flickering flame was a potential Shadow. And something told me that even if I hadn’t seen them, even if the king ignored them,therewereShadows roaming those allées.

If this palace was to be Ofelia’s home, and my own, for the near future, I wanted to know it better than my own heartbeat.

I plunged deeper into the dark halls, passing paintings that looked faceless in the shadows of the night. When I found a small, simple candelabrum, sitting on a table, I lifted it up, using it to light my path.

The first thing illuminated was the painting above me. It was of a man riding a white horse, his sword held out, positioned perfectly behind the steed’s head so that it resembled a unicorn. I raised the candelabrum farther, and my insides twisted at the face above me, watching over me—the king. And yet... and yet here, his hair was the same chestnut shade as Ofelia’s. I tried to remember her stories, anything about why the king, a young man, would have white hair. She would have called it some mark of the gods, I thought. But there were other stories of hers—ghost stories, where those who had seen something truly frightening lost all the hue in their hair in one night. I canted my head, looking at the proud, haughty face of the young king, victorious in battle.

What washeafraid of?

Behind me, there was a soft murmur.

I whirled around, wielding the candelabrum like a blade. “Who’s there?” I said.

The only faces around me were the paintings, dozens of paintings of the king. My heart was pounding in my throat. Iglanced back in the direction from whence I’d come. Perhaps it had only been the chattering and the music from the king’s dinner. But I was so far from the party now.

I took a shaky, steady breath. One voice within me, the colder one said,You’re a knight, damn you; stop trembling in your boots!And the other voice said,Perhaps in your fatigue you imagined a voice.

Fairy tales and ghost stories. I needed to be vigilant for Ofelia. I turned to stride back toward the dinner party.

A note floated through the air, bright and faint, like fading sunlight.

I jolted to a stop. If the song lasted another second, another two... then it was real, I vowed.

And it did. But it wasn’t just music.

There were words.

“Farewell, my love; farewell, my heart! Farewell, my hope!”

Once more, I spun back, holding out the candelabrum. The hall extended onward. The voice remained like a thin, silvery thread....

I followed it. I kept one hand in my pocket, upon the hilt of the penknife.

The song continued, a lone voice raised high. No instruments supported the singer, this mystery woman.Perhaps it is a courtier singing to herself in her bedroom, I thought. But the music was imbued with such passion, such agony, that I couldn’t ignore it.

Step-by-step, the voice became louder.

“Since we must serve the king, we must part forever,” sang the woman.

Around another corner, I saw, for the first time in an eternity, people. Two men, standing guard outside a door. Black and gold in the light of my candelabrum.

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