She sighed heavily and sat on the corner of the bed, careful not to jostle the children’s sleeping forms. As her fingers brushed a strand of hair back from Hans’s brow, then adjusted the blanket on Nickel’s shoulders, she hoped with all her heart that pleasant dreams would not elude them.
“I will find a way to give you peace,” she whispered. “I will not let you toil here forever. And until that day comes, I promise, I will tell you the happiest of stories to take your minds away from all of this. Where the heroes are victorious. The villains vanquished. Where everyone who is just and kind and brave is granted a perfect finale.” She sniffed, surprised when another tear clung to her eyelids. She’d begun to think she was empty of them.
She was tempted to lie down, curl her body into what little space was left for her, and try to let her thoughts settle with all that had happened in a short twenty-four hours.
But she could not sleep.
There was still something she had to do before this disastrous day was over.
A wardrobe had been stocked with fine gowns and cloaks, all of them in tones of emeralds and sapphires and bloodred rubies. All much too fine for a miller’s daughter.
What would her father think to see her in such things?
No. She slammed her eyes shut. She could not think of him. She wondered if she would ever be able to properly mourn him. He was just one more jewel in her crown of guilt. One more person she’d failed.
“Stop it,” she whispered, pulling a dressing gown from the wardrobe. She left the candle on the nightstand, so that if the children awoke they wouldn’t find themselves surrounded by darkness in an unfamiliar room.
Then she slipped out of the tower. She was not sure how to get to the roof of the keep, but she was determined to follow every staircase until she found the right one.
Except, as she rounded the bend of the spiraling steps, she spotted a figure leaning against the doorway.
She froze, bracing one hand against the wall.
Gild stared up at her, clutching a bundle of fabric in his arms. His sleeves were pushed up past his elbows and she could see lines of red welts where the gold chains had wrapped around him. There was tension in his shoulders. His expression was too careful, too wary.
She wanted to rush into his arms, but they did not open to her.
Her mouth opened and closed a few times before she found words. “I was coming to free you.”
His jaw tensed, but a second later, his gaze softened. “I was starting to make a bit of a ruckus. Moaning. Chain-rattling. Typical poltergeist stuff. They finally got tired of listening to me and brought me down around sunset.”
She eased down the steps. A finger reached for one of the marks on his forearm, but he flinched away.
She pulled back. “How did they do it?”
“Cornered me outside the tower,” he said. “They had the chains around me before I knew what was happening. I’ve never had to worry about that before. Being … trapped like that.”
“I’m so sorry, Gild. If it wasn’t for me—”
“You didn’t do this to me,” he interrupted sharply.
“But the gold—”
“I made the gold. I designed my own prison. How’s that for torture?” He looked briefly like he wanted to smile but couldn’t quite figure out how.
“But if I’d told the truth … at anytime, if I’d just told the truth, rather than asking you to spin the gold, to keep coming back, to keep helping me—”
“Then you would be dead.”
“And those children would be alive …” Her voice cracked. “And you wouldn’t have been chained to a wall.”
“He cut out their hearts. He’s the murderer.”
She shook her head. “Don’t try to convince me that I’m not at fault for this. I tried to escape, even though I knew … I knew what he was capable of.”
They stared at each other for a long moment.
“I should go,” he finally whispered. “The king might not like to see his future bride cavorting with the resident poltergeist.” The bitterness was tangible, his mouth twisting as if he’d bitten something sour. “I just wanted to bring you this.” He thrust the fabric toward her, and it took Serilda a moment to recognize her cloak.
Her old, ratty, stained, beloved cloak.
“I patched the shoulder,” he said sadly, as Serilda took it from him. Unfolding it, she saw that the place where the drude had torn the fabric had indeed been mended with a square of gray fabric, almost the same color as the original wool, but softer to the touch.
“It’s dahut fur,” he said. “We don’t have any sheep here, so?…”
She squeezed the cloak to her chest for a moment, then slung it over her shoulders. Its familiar weight was an immediate comfort. “Thank you.”
Gild nodded, and for a moment she worried that he really would go. But then his shoulders sank and, resigned, he opened his arms.
With a grateful sob, Serilda fell into them, tying her hands around his back, feeling the warmth of his hold spreading through her.
“I’m scared,” she said as her eyes filled with tears. “I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
“I am, too,” he murmured. “It’s been a long time since I felt scared like this.” His hands rubbed her arms, his cheek pressed to her temple. “What happened in that throne room? When he dragged you away, I thought”—emotion clogged his throat—“I thought he’d kill you for sure. And then you both come back out and suddenly he’s calling you our queen? Saying you’re going to marry him?”
She grimaced. “I hardly understand it myself.” She clawed her fingers into Gild’s shirt, wanting to stay here forever. To never face the reality of life in this castle, at the side of the Erlking. She couldn’t begin to fathom what future awaited her or the children she’d left behind in that room.
“Serilda,” said Gild, more sternly now. “Truly. What happened in that throne room?”
She pulled away so she could see his face.
He deserved to know the truth. She was going to have a baby—and he was the father. The king wanted to keep it for his own. He wanted to bring Perchta back from Verloren, and he wanted to gift her the newborn child that was growing in Serilda’s womb.
Their child.
But she thought of the children with the holes in their chests. How much they’d already suffered.
If the king ever found out she had not lived up to their agreement, those children would be made to suffer for it. He would never let their spirits be free.
She chose her words carefully, watching Gild’s reaction, hoping that he might be able to see the truth hidden in her lies.
“I managed to convince him that I cannot spin gold anymore, but that … my child, when I have a child, will inherit Hulda’s gift.”
His brow furrowed. “He believed that?”
“People believe what they want to believe,” she said. “Dark ones must not be so different.”
“But what does that have to do with …” His eyes darkened with dismay. When he spoke again, there was a new edge in his voice. “Why does he wish to marry you?”
She shuddered at the implication. At the lie she needed him to believe. “So that I can have a child.”
“His child?”
When she didn’t answer, he snarled and started to pull away. Serilda tightened her grip on his shirt, clinging to him.