Page 80 of Where Shadows Bloom

“The Deschamps just had a baby, have you heard?” asked a woman to her friend behind me.

“Oh, how lovely! Cynthia is healthy, I hope...”

“My husband and I just returned from a trip to the mountains,” said a man. “The air is so clean there, and the blossoming trees at this time of year... it was delightful.”

“I’ve always wanted to go there.”

“Mademoiselle? Señorita?”

I winced, my fist clenching tight, and glanced up.

A pretty girl stood behind the counter, her skin freckled and glowing with health, her eyes bright and hopeful, her smile beautiful and genuine. My heart skipped.

“Something to drink?” asked the girl. “Or eat?” When I did not answer, she leaned close, frowning. “Are you all right?”

There was no malice in her eyes. No secret intent. This was not the court, with its whispering and careful insults and deceit. Nor was it the battlefield, where a monster could creep behind me and take me by the throat if I did not listen carefully enough.

This was the world now. My world. One where strangers didn’t know who I was, that I was a knight, that I was a poet. I was someone worthy of dignity and kindness simply as I was.

“I—I’m fine,” I mumbled. “I am hungry, though. I’ll take anything you have.”

“Right away, señorita.” She dipped in a curtsey—a curtsey forme—and vanished into an adjacent room that smelled of smoke, herbs, and salt.

I folded my fingers on the bar and tried to ignore the constant wish to talk to Ofelia. That I could untangle my thoughts with her help. That she could have awoken by my side and would be sitting beside me, bouncing with energy and rambling about the day she would plan for us.

No. I’d never see her again. If I’d been brave enough to declare my love for her sooner, maybe things would have been different, but... that wasn’t my present. I had no one to guide my future.

No one but me. Nameless, with no connections, no family.

The world was open to me.

I could take my horse and go southwest. I could see those mountains the man had spoken of. I could see foreign cities. Lands I’d only seen in books.

Without Ofelia, those places would be less bright. Less beautiful. Hollower.

But I’d still get to see them. And I had a heart full of words that could finally be put to use, describing more than just the moonlight on the fields beyond the manor’s walls. The more I imagined it, the more it felt right; the more it seemed true.

The young barmaid set a cup of tea before me, as well as a plate covered in a thick piece of bread, cured ham, and slices of cheese. I ate with fervor.

“You must be off to Le Château,” said the girl.

I stopped eating. Those words, that place, would always be a throbbing wound in my heart. “I just left, actually.”

Her brows raised. “Really? Gods. Nobody wants to leave that place.”

My hands shook as I reached for my teacup. Despite the delicacy, despite the baths I’d taken at the palace, somehow, there was always dirt under my fingernails. “I think I’m immune to its charms,” I muttered as I drank my tea.

The barmaid laughed, and I lifted my head again. She smirked—not like she found my comment foolish, but like there was some common joke between us.

“What is it?” I asked.

“The people in these parts,” she said, “we’re more like you. We see the palace for what it is. Gold, painted over refuse.”

My eyes grew round. “You don’t... you don’t call it blessed?”

She quickly glanced over my shoulder, looking at theother guests, perhaps deciding if there was anyone she’d mind overhearing. But she leaned closer to me across the bar. “The king crows about how the gods built that palace for him,” she whispered. “But my grandfather was one of the builders.”

I blinked. “I—human builders?”

---