Cursed, p.17
Cursed, page 17
Serilda hummed to herself, as if considering the question. “Well,” she said slowly, reaching forward and picking up the arrow as if to inspect it, “I have heard of these before. If it is what I think.” She held the arrow toward the candlelight. “Ah yes. What you have here is the mythical black arrow once carried by Solvilde, god of sky and sea. When its powers are called upon, the very air around it will spark with the energy of a thousand bolts of lightning, unleashing fire and chaos upon whatever it touches.” She clicked her tongue and set the arrow down again. “You dark ones really should be more careful with your treasures.”
A slow smile curled over the king’s mouth. “Actually,” he said lowly, “it was not lightning that caused the destruction, but rather the venom of a basilisk.”
The word made Serilda sit straighter.
A basilisk.
Of course. How had she not realized it before?
In modern fairy tales, the beast was often likened to an enormous serpent, but in older folklore it was depicted as much less frightening—though no less deadly. Part snake, part chicken. A look from it could turn anyone to stone, which explained why its eyes had been cut out. And its venom was strong enough to …
Well.
To burn through castle walls, evidently.
“Oh,” she said. “So … this isn’t the mythical black arrow of Solvilde?”
“No, though I suppose it could be called the mythical black arrow of Perchta. After she was taken from me, I have used what weapons of hers that were left behind in our hunts, when necessary. I doubt I could have captured the basilisk without it. What is strange, though, is that the basilisk was kept tranquilized for many decades. I cannot imagine who would ever dare to remove the arrow and risk the beast’s temper.”
“No,” said Serilda, shaking her head. “Who would be so careless?”
The Erlking held her gaze. She did not flinch as he took the arrow and slipped it back into his pocket. “No matter. The threat has been dealt with, and this arrow may yet come in handy again for a future hunt.”
Serilda swallowed. “The basilisk—did you have to kill it?”
“Would it bother you if we had?”
She hesitated, unsure how she felt. The creature was a menace, but it was also glorious. Odd though it was, its feathers were the prettiest she’d ever seen, and for such a small creature to be so feared was admirable, even aspirational.
“I don’t like unnecessary killing,” she finally said.
“No?” The Erlking grunted in surprise. “It is one of my favorite pastimes.” He raised his goblet to his mouth and took a sip. When he lowered the glass again, his expression was more scrutinizing. “Have I been unkind to you, miller’s daughter?”
She stilled. It took a long moment for her to believe he meant the question in truth. “You murdered five children from my village. Your ravens ate out their hearts. All because I wouldn’t give you what you wanted.”
His brows creased in confusion. “I murdered them. Not you.”
“You cursed me!” she yelled, holding up her wrist to show the scar. “You plunged an arrow through my arm and trapped me here for all time.”
“Which is an improvement, is it not?”
She guffawed. “An improvement over what?”
“Your life. Here you are a queen. You live in a castle. With servants and attendants and … feasts.” He gestured to the food before them. “You cannot tell me you dined like this in Märchenfeld.”
He said the name of her village as though it were overrun with rats and refuse. When in reality, despite some superstitions and mistrust from the townsfolk, Serilda always felt it to be quite a nice little village.
Which was entirely beside the point. Was he really so dense as to think any part of this life was preferable to the one he had stolen from her?
She leaned across the table. “My servants are tortured souls who would sooner follow Velos’s lantern than bring me a pair of slippers. My attendants are the very children you killed and continue to use as a threat against me. And no, I never did dine like this in Märchenfeld, because I was enjoying hearty turnip stew by a cozy fire beside my father, who you also killed.”
He studied her a long moment, before leaning across the table and placing his cool palm over her hand. Serilda tensed. She had not realized during this tirade that she’d been gripping her dinner knife like a weapon.
“And yet,” said the king softly, “have you been treated poorly?”
Serilda did not know what to say. He seemed genuine, and she had the strange sensation that he was trying to please her. With this meal, the candlelight, this conversation. But to what ends? He never gave anything without wanting more in return. It felt like a trap, but one she could not see clearly, and therefore did not know how to avoid.
“Not at all,” she finally said, allowing her mood to brighten as she pulled her hand away. “I have been treated with utmost kindness and respect. Every day in these walls has been abundant with delights previously unknown to this simple mortal.”
It was a credit to her godparent that the Erlking nodded, as if pleased to hear this. She barely kept from rolling her eyes when he turned his attention to a strip of wild boar on his plate.
“I have sometimes wondered,” he said, dipping the meat into a dish of gravy, “if you have had cause to miss your paramour.”
Serilda stared at the dripping meat on the end of his knife. “Paramour?”
Sliding the meat off between his teeth, he gestured with the knife point down the front of her dress.
It took her another moment to understand.
Ah—the father of her child. The one that, as far as the Erlking knew, was nothing more than a farm boy she’d had a tumble with. Nothing meaningful. Nothing of importance.
“No,” she said, scooping some buttered peas onto the edge of her own knife. “Why would I?”
He made a noncommittal noise in his throat. “Ladies can be sentimental.”
She shot him an irritated glare. “We are not the only ones.”
“What was he like?”
She shrugged. “What do you wish to know?”
“Was he charming?”
She pictured Gild—she couldn’t help it. But then she tried to swipe the image away, worried that even to think of him would give away the truth she wished to keep hidden.
Instead, she thought of Thomas Lindbeck, Hans’s older brother. She had once thought herself in love with him; it felt like a lifetime ago. She wondered distantly whether he married the girl he’d been sweet on. If he was running the mill in her and her father’s extended absence. Had life gone on in Märchenfeld, or would the scars of losing five innocent children to the wild hunt haunt them for as long as it would haunt her?
“He was … charming enough.”
“Handsome?”
She wished—oh, how she wished—she could feign neutrality, as the question itself was asked as if it meant nothing. But again, she found herself thinking of Gild, and she could not keep the heat from climbing up her neck and spilling across her cheeks.
“He does not compare to you, my lord, if that is what you’re asking.”
His eyes sparked. “And did you love him?”
Love.
The word came like an arrow, straight through her chest, wholly unexpected. How could she answer such a thing? Already she could feel the hollow place inside her expanding, searching for a flutter of a heart, and she could almost, almost feel it.
Did she love him?
Did she love Gild?
If she were being honest with herself, she did not think she had been quite in love with him that night they had lain together. She had wanted him. Yearned for him. Yearned to experience something with him that was entirely new to her, to both of them. She had not regretted their intimacy then, and despite all that had happened since, she could not regret it now.
But had she loved him?
Not exactly. Love grew out of shared memories, shared stories, shared laughter. Love was a result of knowing the many things a person did that annoyed you to the ends of the earth, and yet, somehow, still wanting to hold them at the end of every day and be held by them at sunrise every morning. Love was the comfort of knowing someone would stand by you, accept you, despite all your eccentricities, all your faults. Maybe loving you, in part, because of them.
She hadn’t had that comfort with Gild, despite what they’d shared, despite how just thinking about him made her tingle with anticipation, eager to be near him again.
It might not have been love then. But a seed had been planted, and in the months since, it had continued to grow. It grew with every passing day. Blossoming into something unexpected and frightening and true. Her yearning had morphed into tenderness. A desire, so powerful, to see him free, to see him happy—regardless of whether or not he could be free and happy with her.
Was that love?
She didn’t know. But she did know that she had no other words that came close to describing what she felt for Gild.
“You had me convinced that you felt hardly anything for him,” said the Erlking, pulling a dark purple grape off its stem with his sharp teeth. “Now I see. I wonder what else you might have lied—”
“You don’t see,” she said, surprised at the flare of anger inside her. “You couldn’t possibly.”
“I might surprise you,” he said, a teasing new tilt to his mouth.
“Why are we even discussing this? What does any of it matter?”
“Call it curiosity about the child as much as the father. I like to know what to expect.”
Serilda swallowed hard. She’d tried not to think too much about what traits her baby might have. Gild’s copper hair? His freckles? His incorrigible smile? Or would the child take after her—with cursed eyes, a penchant for lying, and a stubborn spirit that so often got her into trouble?
“You are wrong, you know.” The melancholy in the king’s voice startled her more than his words.
“About what?” she snapped, unwilling to release her anger so quickly.
The king chuckled. “Believe what you will. But I do know what it is to love, and what it feels like once that love is lost.”
Chapter Twenty
The king’s statement hung in the air between them. It was the most vulnerable he’d ever been in Serilda’s presence, and to her annoyance, it drove all her fury out of her in one crystallizing breath.
His eyes slid toward hers, peering through lush black lashes. “But I am only a demon. That is what you call us in your tales, is it not?”
She shuddered, not daring to admit it, though he did not seem particularly hurt.
“Perhaps you do not believe that love between demons can be real.”
Her lips parted, but no words came out. She didn’t know what to believe. Everything she’d seen of the Alder King and his court had been cruelty and selfishness, nothing ever like love, as far as she could tell.
But she remembered the story of the Erlking and the huntress. Somehow she knew, if ever given the chance, he would realign the stars themselves to be reunited with her.
“You’re going to try to bring Perchta back,” she whispered.
The Erlking did not smile. Or frown. Or move. He stared at her, watching for something, though Serilda didn’t know what it was. Only when she shivered again did he blink and draw back. Neither realized that he’d begun to lean toward her, his elegant fingers on the tablecloth mere inches from Serilda’s.
Serilda shook her head, feeling like she’d been caught in a daze.
“You believe,” said the Erlking, “I have the power to bring a spirit back from the clutches of Verloren?”
“I believe you will try.”
He didn’t deny it.
“I believe,” she went on, watching him carefully, though his expression gave nothing away, “you mean to capture one of the old gods during the Endless Moon. And when you have them, you will wish for the return of Perchta, and you will give my child to her.”
She held his gaze, waiting for the acknowledgment that she was right. She was rewarded by a sharpening of his eyes.
“You are clever,” he mused.
“Only observant,” she said. “Perchta was taken three hundred years ago. Have you been attempting to capture a god all this time?”
He shrugged. “Hasn’t everyone?”
“I don’t think so, no.”
He smirked. “They would, if they had the means.”
“The gold.”
“The gold,” he agreed.
“But you don’t think you have enough.”
His jaw twitched. “I can be resourceful.”
Serilda was surprised he did not try to deny his plans—but again, what would be the point? What could she do about it?
“If you should succeed, won’t she be jealous once she learns that you have taken a mortal wife?”
His brow pinched and Serilda realized he didn’t understand what she meant. Then his expression cleared and his face lit up in the candlelight.
“My Perchta,” he drawled. “Jealous. Of you?”
Serilda had never been more offended by so few words. She straightened her spine. “I am your wife, am I not?”
He barked a laugh. “You mortals care so much for your arbitrary titles. I find it rather quaint.”
This time, Serilda did not hide the roll of her eyes. “Yes, yes. We silly mortals. How adorable we must be when viewed from a place of such superiority.”
“I find you rather refreshing.”
“So glad I could please you, my lord.”
The Erlking stopped smiling only long enough to take a sip of wine. “Now it is you who cannot possibly understand,” he said, idly swirling the goblet. “Everything I am belongs to the huntress. It has always been that way, and it will never change. I could never give of myself to another, for there is nothing to be given. So, no, Perchta will not be jealous. Rather, she will delight in the child I can give her, the only gift I couldn’t give to her before.”
“But you have given her children before, and she tired of them all. And what then? Are you going to murder my child, or abandon them in the woods?”
“You know the stories well.”
“Everyone knows those stories. Living so close to the Aschen Wood, they are some of the first stories we tell our children. A warning to stay away from you.”
The king shrugged. “I brought her children, but never a newborn. Perhaps her maternal affection needed to develop from infancy.”
Serilda clenched her knife tighter. “Nonsense. All children deserve to be loved. All children deserve a mother or a father who will care for them and protect them, unconditionally. Not someone to dote on them for a time, only to lose interest when parenthood no longer suits them. Those are not the actions of someone who wishes to be a mother. That is the opposite of a mother. That is someone who cares only for themselves.”
The Erlking’s gaze darkened with a warning, and though she had much more to say on the topic, Serilda forced her lips tight.
“I suppose we shall see,” he said quietly. “If all goes well.”
If all goes well.
If he did capture a god and wish for the return of Perchta. If he did give Serilda’s child to that monster.
“What is the point of any of this?” she said. “You have what you want, so why bother with candles and flowers and”—she swung her knife over the table spread—“romance?”
“Is that what’s bothering you?”
She snorted. “I cannot begin to account for the many things that are bothering me.”
“Ah yes. Because you are a prisoner, cursed, trapped in a haunted castle, those beloved rodents you call children are dead, and so on and so forth. Forgive me for having forgotten your many complaints.” He sighed, sounding bored. “I merely thought it might be nice to enjoy a peaceful evening together. Husband and wife.”
“Jailer and captive.”
“Do not be defensive. It makes you sound human.”
“I am human. And my child will be, too, if you hadn’t realized that yet. They will have human emotions and needs. You want to know what to expect? Well, there it is. All the messy, illogical, ridiculous things that humans experience every day of our lives. Because we have hearts and souls—something you cannot fathom, no matter how much you think you know what love is.”
The king listened to her tirade, his haughty expression back, icy and hardened once again.
“Is that all?” he finally said.
She exhaled sharply through her nostrils. “No. That is not all,” she snapped. But she quickly came back to herself, remembering the importance of this night. All that she and Gild had been working for. “But it grows late, my lord. You must get ready for the hunt. To catch yourself a new bärgeist or a … gryphon, or what have you.”
“Ah, so you’ve heard about our gryphon?”
“I’ve heard you don’t have enough gold for that either,” she shot back, wishing he would stop dragging out this conversation. Wishing he would just leave.
“Perhaps not,” said the king, evidently unbothered. “We could always just kill it. Mount its head … right there, perhaps.” He pointed to the stone mantel behind Serilda, but she did not turn to look. “But that would be a shame. There are beasts meant to be hung on walls, and there are beasts meant to be admired in full flesh and blood. I would not wish to kill the gryphon, and you’re right, I do not believe we have enough chains to subdue it.” He cocked his head to the side. “Perhaps I shall bring back a gift for you, my darling.”
“I pray you will not.”
“Come now. There must be some magical beast that would entice you. What mortal child hasn’t dreamed of riding a white unicorn through the southern meadows?”
“A unicorn! That sounds a rather tame goal compared with gryphons and bärgeists and tatzelwurms.”
He grinned. “So says one who has never tried to capture one. They are trickier beasts than you would expect.”
