Skepticism still clung to his porcelain features, but they were quickly overshadowed by a fury unlike anything she’d ever seen.
Serilda tried to shrink away, but he did not let go.
Instead, he yanked her to her feet and started toward the castle keep, all but dragging her in his wake. “Redmond!” he bellowed. “You are needed in the throne room. Now.”
Chapter 53
The Erlking threw Serilda down into the center of the throne room and marched onto the dais. She pushed back her hair to look up at him.
Fear thrumming through her, she swallowed hard and rose to her knees. “Your Darkness—”
“Silence!” he roared. He looked like a different creature altogether, his face contorted into something decidedly unlovely. It hardly looked like him, who was usually so full of elegant composure. “This is a great disappointment, Lady Serilda.” Her name sounded like a snake’s hiss on his tongue.
“With all due respect, most people see babies as a gift.”
He snarled at her. “Most people are idiots.”
She clasped her hands pleadingly. “I could not have foreseen this. It was …” She shrugged. “It was only one night.”
“You spun the gold not a month ago!”
She nodded. “I know. This happened … not long after.”
He glared at her, looking like he wished he could reach straight into her womb and rip the alien creature out with his fist.
“You summoned, Your Grim?”
She glanced over her shoulder to see a ghostly man in a long-sleeved tunic. Half his face was bloated, his lips fat and tinged purple. Poison? Drowning? Serilda wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
Removing the hunting crossbow from his back, the Erlking sank onto his throne and used the weapon to gesture carelessly at Serilda, still on her knees. “The wretched girl is with child.”
Serilda flushed. She knew she shouldn’t have expected the king to respect her privacy, but still—this was her secret to tell. And for now she was only interested in telling it in order to save Gerdrut.
And, she thought, her child.
Her child.
Again her fingers went to her stomach. She knew it was far too early to feel anything. There was no rounding of her belly, and certainly no movement within. She longed to run home, to talk to her father and ask him everything he could remember about her mother’s pregnancy—until she remembered that he was not there, and unspeakable sorrow crashed over her.
Papa would have been a wonderful grandfather.
But she couldn’t think of that now, even if the man responsible for her father’s death was standing before her. Even if she despised him with every bone of her body. Right now, she needed to think only of saving herself. If she could survive this, then someday she would have a beautiful child to dote on, to love, to raise. She would be a mother. She’d always loved children, and now, to be able to care for this innocent baby. To rock them to sleep and tell bedtime stories long into the night.
But—no, she reminded herself.
The child would have to be given to Gild.
What would he think when she told him? It was all so surreal, so impossible.
What would he do with a baby?
She almost laughed. The idea was simply too preposterous.
“Lady Serilda!”
She snapped her head up, lurching back into the throne room. “Yes?”
To her surprise, the Erlking’s cheeks were actually flushed. Not pink so much as a subtle grayish blue against his silvery skin, but still, it was more emotion than she would have thought he was capable of. His right hand was gripping the arm of the throne. His left held the crossbow, its tip rested against the floor.
Unloaded. Thankfully.
“How long, exactly,” he said slowly, as if speaking to a simpleton, “have you been in this condition?”
Her lips parted with, finally, an actual lie. “Three weeks.”
His sharp gaze darted to the man. “What can be done?”
The man, Redmond, inspected her with arms crossed. He pondered for a moment, before offering the king a shrug. “This early, should be but a tiny thing. Maybe the size of a pea.”
“Good,” said the Erlking. With a long, annoyed breath, he sat back against the throne. “Remove it.”
“What?” Serilda launched herself to her feet. “You can’t!”
“Surely I can. Well … he can.” The Erlking’s fingers danced in the man’s direction. “Can’t you, Redmond?”
Redmond grumbled to himself for a moment as he opened a brown sack at his waist and pulled out a small bundle of fabric. “Never have before, but I don’t see why I couldn’t.”
“Redmond was a barber by trade,” said the Erlking, “and a surgeon as required.”
Serilda shook her head. “It will kill me.”
“We have very good healers,” said the Erlking. “I will ensure that it doesn’t.”
“Probably won’t ever carry a babe again,” added Redmond. He looked at the king, not Serilda. “Suppose that’s all right?”
“Yes, fine,” said the Erlking.
Serilda let out a dismayed cry. “No! That is not fine!”
Ignoring her, Redmond paced to a nearby table and unspooled the fabric, revealing a series of sharp tools. Scissors. Scalpels. Wrenches and pliers and terrifying things that Serilda didn’t know the names for. Her knees quaked as she stepped back. Her eyes darted around and for the first time she realized that the bloodied gateway was gone. Her path to the other side of the veil.
Surely it was still there. She had opened it once, she could open it again. But how?
Then, another sobering thought.
Gerdrut.
She still hadn’t saved Gerdrut.
Where was he keeping the child? She couldn’t leave her, not even to save herself, not even to save her baby.
“It’s been a while,” mused Redmond, holding up a tiny blade. “But this should do it.” He glanced at the king. “Is it to be done here?”
“No!” Serilda screeched.
The Erlking looked irritated with her outburst. “Of course not. You can use one of the rooms in the north wing.”
With a nod, the man started gathering up his tools again.
“No!” she shouted again, louder this time. “You can’t do this.”
“You are not at liberty to tell me what I can and can’t do. This is my kingdom. You and the gifts of Hulda belong to me now.”
The words might have been a slap for how they left her speechless.
She drew herself up, solidifying her legs beneath her. She had one chance to persuade him. One chance to save this unborn life inside of her.
“No, my lord. You can’t do this because it won’t work. It won’t bring my magic back.”
His eyes narrowed. “If that is true, then best slit your throat and be done with the both of you.”
She tried to hide her shudder. “If that is your will, I cannot stop you. But do you not think that Hulda might have an intention for this child? To take its life so soon, you are interfering with the will of a god.”