Page 21 of Where Shadows Bloom

“Every day we celebrate His Majesty,” said Virginie with a smile. “He shares the blessings of the gods with us all. This palace is our sanctuary. Everything we have, it’s all thanks to him.”

It was all quite odd, I thought, having parties by royal command. But then again, our world was so dark, so cruel. Monsters lingered not too far from the palace gates. If Le Château was truly the one place where Shadows dared not go, why not rejoice in that fact? After all, we celebrated our grandest holy feasts every year during the bleakest winters. A little bit of hope and delight to shield us from the world beyond.

I longed for that. A beautiful, golden bubble to keep me safe from nightmares.

Virginie painted my lips red and daubed rouge on my cheeks and helped me into my matching blue bodice, lacing the back with nimble hands. Then she slipped on new stockings, bright yellow, with red ribbons holding them in place,and white shoes with crimson heels. I could barely believe that these were all real and for me—but I forgot about myself entirely when Lope emerged from her corner of the room.

She strode toward me with the elegance and control of a true noblewoman. Her broad shoulders were pulled back and her head was held high, exposing the long, graceful arc of her neck. A long black lovelock rested over her heart. Beneath her voluminous, sapphire sleeves, her pale forearms were also bare, covered in faint, silvery scars in the shape of claw marks.

My throat had gone dry. It had not occurred to me how she always kept herself so covered up. A soldier’s breastplate over a coat and breeches, a cravat at her throat, her hands often protected by leather gloves. Now I felt as if the pale touches of skin at her arms and shoulders would make my heart leap right out of my breast.

“Thank you, ladies,” I told both maids, and quietly dismissed them. They looked to each other, as if they had more to say or do, but deferred to my request, slipping out of the room.

“I’m sorry,” said Lope.

I coughed a laugh. “Gods, what for?”

“I—I am unused to this way of things. I am unused to... all of this.” She gestured to the chandelier, the furniture, the gowns. The painted-on blush on her cheeks was quickly overtaken by her skin flushing a true red. She bowed her head tome. “Forgive me. I’ll endeavor to adapt as quickly as I can.”

I swept her hands in mine. “You look like aqueen, Lope. You look so very beautiful—I can scarcely put it to words.”

She forced a smile. “Thank you.”

I could feel the discomfort emanating off her. She was solovely. Yet it was as if someone had painted over a portrait of the girl I adored.

“Here,” I said, dampening a handkerchief with a pitcher of water. I carefully pressed it to her soft lips, brushing away as much of the paint as I could. Her lips were left a little redder, but at least she looked like herself again. Nearly.

“Perhaps I can take those pins out of your hair,” I said.

Light entered her gray eyes. Her whole face was the color of the azaleas in my garden. “If—if you’d like, my lady.”

I shook my head with a smile. “What wouldyoulike?”

She blinked rapidly, like I’d said something truly alarming. “I prefer my hair pulled back,” she said softly. “It makes me feel like myself.”

I urged her into the seat before the mirror. She frowned at her reflection. But she tipped her head, looking at the pearl earrings they’d given her. “I don’t mind these, though,” she said.

With a grin, I smoothed back her hair. “That makes me think of that night I pierced your ears. You were so brave. AndInearly swooned from the blood.”

“I had to pierce my other ear myself,” she said, shakingher head. Her gray eyes crinkled as she smiled. “I wanted to match you.”

Back at the manor, when we spent time together, sitting and reading, I’d let her wear any of my earrings she liked.

They make me look like a pirate, she had said.

Smiling fondly, I plucked pins from her hair like I would have picked clovers as a child. As I swept her hair into its usual chignon, I asked, “Do you remember when I’d gather clovers for you in the garden?”

Her reflection smiled. But she kept her gaze averted from the glass. “I kept them in a jar at the barracks.”

My eyes widened. “You kept them?”

“For good luck, you said.”

What a marvel she was. Gentle and poetic and fierce and brave. The bane of any monster. But before us lay the court that Mother had always warned me about. A cruel, selfish place, she had said, a place that preferred fame and riches to kindness or truth.

Could my knight defend me from monstrous men?

Or was it my turn to protect her?

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