It felt like a blast of icy wind cutting through her core.
Serilda gasped. The children backed away, gawking at her wide-eyed.
“I-it’s all right,” she croaked. Gild had told her that he could pass through ghosts. He had tried to pass through her when they’d first met. Squaring her shoulders, Serilda tried to be more conscious of the physical limits of her body. She reached out to them again. They were more hesitant, but as Serilda’s hands found their arms, their cheeks, their hair, they again pressed into her.
It was awful touching them. The sensation was a bit like handling dead fish—cold and flimsy and slippery. But she would never tell them that, and she would never shy away from their embraces or from doing all she could to comfort and care for them.
“I am sorry,” she whispered. “I am so sorry. For everything.”
“What did he do to you?” whispered Nickel, tenderly placing a hand over Serilda’s wrist, where the hole from the arrow had stopped bleeding.
“Don’t worry about me. And try not to be afraid. I’m here, and I won’t leave you.”
“We’re already dead,” said Fricz. “Not much more he can do.”
Serilda wished that were true.
“That is enough, children,” said the Erlking, his shadow falling over them. As if he’d heard Fricz’s comment and was eager to prove just how wrong the child was, the Erlking flicked his fingers. As one, the children backed out of Serilda’s embrace, their spines stiff, their expressions dulled.
“Emotional creatures,” the Erlking muttered with disgust. “Come.” He beckoned for Serilda to follow as he descended the steps toward the spinning wheel in the bailey’s center.
Stomach in knots, she stooped to place a kiss on each of their heads. They seemed to relax, whether from her touch or the Erlking’s losing interest in controlling them, she didn’t know.
With a ruffle of Nickel’s hair, she turned and followed the Erlking, daring to glance up toward the wall of the keep. Gild was still there. There was pain on his face, and the hollow place in her chest yawned open.
“Hunters and guests, courtiers and attendants, servants and friends,” bellowed the king, drawing their attention. “There has been a change of fortune tonight, and one that pleases me greatly. Lady Serilda will no longer be presenting a demonstration of her gold-spinning magic. After much contemplation, I have determined that such an act is beneath that of our future queen.”
Silence greeted them. Furrowed brows and twisted mouths.
Overhead, a puzzled look intruded into Gild’s agony. Serilda’s hands itched with the desire to run to the top of the keep’s steps and tear down those chains, but she remained where she was. She forced herself to look away, to face the demons, the specters, the beasts gathered before her.
As Serilda stared, she realized that while this might be an audience of the dead, there were few elderly among them. These ghosts had met traumatic ends. Their bodies bloated with poisons, scarred with wounds, many still bearing evidence of the very weapons that had ended them. Some were sickly and covered in welts, some swollen and puffy, and others gaunt from starvation. No one here had died peacefully in their sleep.
Everyone here knew what it was to hold fear and pain inside them.
For the first time, Serilda felt how sad it all was, to live an eternity with the suffering of your own death.
And she was to be queen of it all.
At least, until this baby was born.
Then she would probably be killed.
“Lady Serilda has agreed to take my hand,” said the Erlking, “and I am most honored.”
Confusion reigned over the courtyard. Serilda held perfectly still, afraid that if she moved, it would only be to lunge at the king and try to strangle him. Surely no one would be fooled by such a preposterous notion. That she was in love with him? That he was honored to be her husband?
But he was their king. Perhaps it didn’t matter if anyone believed it or not. Perhaps they’d all been trained to accept his word without question.
“We will begin preparations for the ceremony posthaste,” said the Erlking. “I expect you will all bestow on my beloved the fealty and adoration due to the one I have chosen for my bride.”
He intertwined his fingers with Serilda’s and lifted their hands, showing off the gaping hole in her arm.
“Behold our new queen. Long reign Queen Serilda!”
There was laughter in his voice, and she wondered if any of these ghosts could sense it as their voices rose, still uncertain, to repeat the chant.
Long reign Queen Serilda.
She stood dumbfounded, faced with the absurdity of this farce. The Erlking wanted this child as a gift for Perchta. But he had already cursed her, trapped her inside this castle. In eight months, he could take the child and she could do nothing to stop him. He could still tell everyone that the baby was his progeny.
But why marry her? Why make her queen? Why put on this charade? Soon he hoped to bring Perchta back from Verloren, and clearly it was she who would be his true queen, his true bride.
No—there was more to his intentions than simply wanting to give her newborn child to the huntress. She could feel it. A thread of warning curled in the pit of her stomach.
But there was nothing she could do about it now. Once she had seen Gerdrut to safety, she would try to muddle through whatever secrets this demon still harbored. She had until the winter solstice to figure out how she would stop him.
Until then, she would do what was asked of her. Nothing more. She certainly wasn’t going to make charmed eyes at him and swoon every time he entered a room. She wasn’t going to giggle and preen in his presence. She wasn’t going to pretend that she wasn’t a prisoner here.
But she would lie. She would tell them all that he was the father of her child, if that’s what he asked.
Until she could figure out how to free the spirits of these children, how to free Gild, how to free herself.
How to kill the Erlking.
As the chant rose in volume, he bent toward her, pressing a porcelain smooth, ever-cool cheek against hers. His lips brushed the corner of her ear and she fought down a shudder. “I have a gift for you.”
He turned them back to face the steps. Her horrified gaze swept up to Gild, but his chin had fallen against his chest, strands of red hair hiding his face, almost golden in the sun.
“Every queen requires an entourage,” said the king. He gestured toward the children, then curled his finger, summoning them forward.
Hans straightened and put himself out in front of the others, clutching Anna’s hand.
“Come now. Don’t be shy,” said the king, sounding almost sweet.