“Papa? Did she … did they ever find her?”
She couldn’t bring herself to say her body, but he knew that’s what she meant. He shook his head. “Never.”
She exhaled, not sure if this was the answer she’d wanted or not.
“I knew what had happened the moment I woke up. You were so little then, you used to snuggle in between us during the night. Every morning I would sit up and spend a moment smiling at you and your mother, fast asleep, wrapped up in the blankets, my two most precious things. I would think how lucky I was. But then, the day after the Mourning Moon, she was gone. And I knew. I just knew.” He cleared his throat. “Maybe I should have told you all this a long time ago, but I didn’t want you thinking that she’d left by choice. They say it’s a siren song to those with restless souls, those who yearn for freedom. But if she’d been awake, if she’d been in her own mind, she would never have left you. You must believe that.”
She nodded, but she wasn’t sure how long it would be before she fully grasped everything her father was telling her.
“After that,” he continued, “it was easier to tell people that she’d gone. Taken her few valuables and disappeared. I didn’t want to tell the rest of town about the hunt, though with the timing, I’m sure there are those who guessed the truth. Still. With you and your … your eyes, there was enough suspicion already, and with all the stories of the hunt and the vile things the Erlking does, I didn’t want you growing up thinking about what might have become of her. It was easier, I thought, to imagine her off on an adventure somewhere. Happy, wherever she was.”
Serilda’s thoughts churned with unanswered questions—one louder than them all.
She had been behind the veil. She had seen the hunters, the dark ones, the ghosts that the king kept as his servants. Her heart thundered as she dug her fingers into her father’s wrist. “Papa. If she was never found … what if she’s still there?”
His jaw tensed. “What?”
“What if the Erlking kept her? There are ghosts all over that castle. She could be one of them, trapped behind the veil.”
“No,” he said fiercely, rising to his feet. Serilda followed, her pulse rushing. “I know what you’re thinking, and I won’t allow it. I will not let that monster take you again. I won’t lose you, too!”
She swallowed, torn. In the space of a few moments she felt an urge rise up in her. The need to return to that castle, to find out the truth of what had become of her mother.
But that desire was dampened by the horror in her father’s eyes. His flushed face, his shaking fists.
“What choice do we have?” she said. “If he calls for me, I must go. Otherwise he will kill us both.”
“Which is why we must leave.”
She inhaled sharply. “Leave?”
“It’s all I thought about since you left last night. When I could keep myself from imagining your body left dead by the road, that is.”
She shuddered. “Papa—”
“We will go far away from the Aschen Wood,” he said. “Somewhere you will be left alone. We can go south, all the way to Verene if we must. The hunt mostly keeps to rural roads. Maybe they won’t venture into the city.”
A humorless laugh escaped her. “And what would you do in the city, without the mill?”
“I would find work. We both would.”
She gaped, bewildered to see that he meant this. He meant to leave the mill, their home.
“We have until the Crow Moon to make preparations,” he continued. “We will sell what we can and travel light. Lose ourselves in the city. When enough time has passed, we can see about going farther, into Ottelien, perhaps. As we get farther away, we will ask what tales people tell about the Alder King and the wild hunt, then we will know once we are no longer in his domain. Even he can only travel so far.”
“I’m not sure that’s true,” she said, thinking of the rubinrot wyvern mounted in the castle’s great hall, which supposedly had been hunted all the way in Lysreich. “Besides, Father … I’ve seen nachtkrapp.”
He tensed. “What?”
“I think they’re watching me, for him. If they think I am trying to leave, I don’t know what they’ll do.”
His brow furrowed. “We will have to be very careful, then. Make it seem like we’re only leaving temporarily. Not draw any suspicion.” He considered for a long moment. “We can go to Mondbrück. Pretend that we have business there. Stay at a nice inn for a few nights and then, when the full moon comes, we’ll sneak away. Find refuge in a … barn or a stable. In some places, they put wax in their ears to block out the call of the horn. We will try that, so that even if the hunt passes near, you will not hear their call.”
She nodded slowly. There were doubts crowding into her thoughts. Warnings from the coachman. Images of a cat toying with a mouse.
But she had so few options. If she continued to be called to the castle, eventually the Erlking would discover her lies, and he would kill her for them.
“All right,” she breathed. “I will tell our neighbors about our upcoming trip to Mondbrück, and no doubt it will reach his spies as well. I will ensure that it is plenty convincing.”
He took her into his arms, squeezing her tight. “This will work,” he said, his voice thick with desperation. “After all, he cannot summon you if he cannot find you.”
Chapter 18
The dream was a spectacle of gems and satin and honeyed wine. A gilded party, a grand celebration, sparkles in the air and lanterns hung from the trees and pathways scattered with daisies. Laughter tripping through a lush garden surrounded by tall castle walls that glittered with merry torches. A joyous occasion, brilliant and whimsical and bright.
A birthday party. A royal fete. The young princess stood on the steps adorned in silk and a beatific smile, clutching a gift in both arms.
And then—a shadow.
The gold melted away, flowing down into the cracks in the stone, out through the gate, until it filled the bottom of the lake.
No. It was not gold at all, but blood.
Serilda’s eyes snapped open, a gasp filling her mouth. She sat up and reached for her chest, feeling a pressure there. Something pressing down on her, squeezing her life away.
Her fingers found only her nightgown, damp with sweat.
The dream tried to cling to her—its misty fingers sketching the nightmarish scene—but already the memory was fading. Serilda’s eyes roved around the room, searching for the shadow, but she did not even know what she was looking for. A monster? A king? All she could remember was that feeling of dread, knowing that something horrible had happened and she could do nothing to stop it.