Cursed, p.30
Cursed, page 30
The Erlking lifted his chin. “Every dark one that followed me down from Gravenstone.”
Serilda sucked in a breath and glanced around. The dark ones were perpetually cast in a vague halo of arrogance and selfishness. But now they seemed uncertain, even rattled. Their eyes narrowed as their hands stealthily reached for blades and axes and bows.
Had the Erlking planned this all along? Had any of them suspected it? Would he really be so callous as to trade all of them for Perchta alone?
“The ghosts,” said Velos, “and the dark ones?”
“That is my offer.”
“Including your hunters.”
“Yes.”
The Erlking ignored those gathered at his side, so he could not have seen their hostile faces. Would they go peacefully if he ordered it? Or would they rebel against the king they had followed for centuries?
After an eternity of silence, Erlkönig asked, “Do we have a deal?”
Serilda’s gut lurched. The whole court, gone. The hunters. The dark ones—who had haunted the roads, the villages, the Aschen Wood, for as long as fairy tales had been told. They would be gone. Forever.
Though she wanted to rage at the Erlking for holding back the children, she told herself that this was a victory. More than she ever could have thought possible coming into the Mourning Moon, when she had only flimsy hopes of freeing the gryphon and the unicorn.
So why did she feel more tense with every passing moment? Certain that the Alder King would never give this up so easily. Not for the huntress. Not without a fight.
Had she been wrong about the Erlking’s plans to capture all seven gods?
Or was this a trap?
“It is not so simple, Erlkönig,” said Velos, sounding genuinely disappointed. “You must speak a true name to return a spirit from Verloren if you wish for them to be given permanence in the mortal realm.”
“I am prepared to do so,” said the Erlking. His voice became cutting. “Do we have a deal?”
Another hesitation.
“We do,” said Velos with a solemn voice.
As soon as they agreed, furious cries echoed through the chamber. Serilda glanced around, awestruck, as the gold chains hanging from the hip of every hunter started to writhe and squirm. Like snakes, the bindings slithered around the dark ones, shackling their wrists, one by one. Tethering the demons to one another by a series of unbreakable chains.
The dark ones struggled against the bindings, but the Erlking ignored their outrage.
What could they do?
They were magical creatures.
This was god-spun gold.
How long had the Erlking been planning this? Had his talk of hunting beasts and needing more chains been to trick his own hunters? Is this what he had wanted the gold for—to ensure his own court could not run when he chose to hand them over to the god of death?
The betrayal seemed particularly ruthless, even for him.
The demons struggled. They wailed and screamed. They pulled on the chains. They did everything they could to escape this cruel fate.
But the Erlking had bargained them away, as if they had meant nothing to him. And when the chains snapped taut and forced them down the long set of stairs toward Verloren, the dark ones had no choice but to go.
Their horrendous shrieks echoed through the chamber long after they had disappeared on the other side of the gates.
Velos ignored their cries, nodding expressionlessly at the king. “Now the mortal spirits.”
“First, you will summon Perchta.”
Velos inclined their head. “Speak her true name and it shall be done.”
The Erlking pulled himself to his full imposing height, his gray-blue eyes flashing.
His voice was quicksilver. He spoke so quietly that Serilda barely heard him. “I call to you, my Alder Queen. Harbinger of the Wild Hunt. Lady of the Final Feast. Mistress of the Embertide. Perchta Pergana Zamperi. Return to me, my love.”
The lamp in Velos’s grip flickered, then brightened to an unnatural bluish tinge. Then it extinguished entirely, plunging the tomb into darkness. Serilda gasped, clutching her father’s arm on one side and Gerdrut’s hand on the other, worried that either of them might disappear like morning mist.
The lamp flickered again, steadily returning to its warm glow, and with it the torches held by the ancient iron brackets along the walls.
The parade of souls had long vanished from the bridge below, traveling to wherever their loved ones awaited them. But now, a new figure emerged from the fog.
Serilda’s lips parted. With an instinctual terror, but also wonder.
The woman from the tapestries. The woman from countless stories, countless nightmares.
Perchta, the great huntress, stepped through the gates.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
The huntress stood in their midst, a sickle of a smile on crimson lips. She wore bindings on her arms, shackles not unlike those that had appeared on the wrists of the gathered demons, though iron instead of gold.
“My star,” she cooed to the Erlking. “Whatever took you so long?”
He did not return her smile, exactly, but there was something beginning to smolder in his usually frost-filled gaze. “It has been but three hundred years,” he said calmly. “Barely a blink.”
“I beg to differ,” said Perchta. “But then, I was the one trapped, drowning in that vile river for all this time.”
The Erlking’s gaze shifted toward the god. “Release her bindings.”
Velos inclined their head. “After you.”
The king’s jaw tensed. A moment passed, the air sparking with tension.
Finally, he cast a long, calculating look around the room, his gaze alighting on all the gathered ghosts, so many gripping the hands of loved ones and ancestors, newly returned for the Mourning Moon. Expressions full of a hope so intense it made Serilda ache.
A movement caught her eye and she glanced past the king, sure that in that moment she’d seen a shifting shadow, a shadowy figure moving along the walls. But now she saw only the gathered specters. The dim light playing tricks on her eyes.
With much theatricality, the king reached into his quiver and pulled out an arrow, tipped in gold. Exactly like those he had used to tether Serilda’s and Gild’s souls to the dark side of the veil. He held it out in the palm of his hand.
All around Serilda, a web of near-translucent threads appeared, silver black and strung in every direction. Each one reaching into the chest of every ghost gathered in the chamber. From Manfred to the stable boy, every scullery maid and gardener and seamstress. The blacksmith, the carpenters, the pages, the cooks.
And five strings connecting Serilda’s own beloved attendants.
Hans, her serious and protective footman.
Nickel, her kind and attentive groom.
Fricz, her silly and stubborn messenger.
Anna, her bright and enthusiastic lady-in-waiting.
And Gerdrut, her earnest and imaginative chambermaid.
All connected with shimmering threads as delicate as spider webbing, each one attached to the king’s arrow.
All but one, Serilda realized. Agathe, the weapons master, who had betrayed Serilda and Gild in trade for this very bargain.
She was nowhere to be seen.
“I dissolve the binds that tether you…” he said, his words echoing through the chamber. “I release you from your servitude. I am no longer the keeper of your souls, but give you to Velos, god of death, so you might have eternal peace.”
Those darkly glistening threads began to disintegrate. Starting at the shaft of the arrow and continuing outward along every strand, they crumbled away, fading into the air. Only the five strings reserved for the children remained, solid and tethered to the arrow’s shaft.
Serilda followed one of the threads to Manfred and watched as the chisel that had been lodged in his eye socket for three hundred years evaporated into nothing. The gaping wound in his eye healed. The blood, the gore, gone—as if it had never happened.
And with that, the always-stoic Manfred began to cry.
He was not alone. All around, wounds were healing. Blood and bruises vanishing.
“My children,” said Velos, with a new lightness in their tone. “You are free. Beneath the Mourning Moon, you may return to visit your families and descendants. As the sun rises, I shall guide you to Verloren, where you shall be granted peace.”
With these words, the souls of the dead began to fade away. Not only the long-imprisoned court of Adalheid, but also those who had come to greet them. The grandparents, the cousins … the king and queen.
Serilda wanted to call out to them. Wanted to tell them about their son. She wanted to ask if they remembered him, when no one else did.
But she did not have time. As the final strands connecting each of them to the cursed arrow vanished, so too did the ghosts. One by one, each spirit fading away.
Mist on the fields, struck by sunlight.
“Serilda…”
Sniffing, she looked at her father, and his expression twisted her insides.
“No,” she whispered. “Don’t leave. Please…”
“I do not belong here,” he murmured, glancing around at the underground chamber. “And neither do you.” He cupped her face in his hands. “Be brave, my girl. I know you will be. You were always braver than I was.”
“Papa…” She wrapped her arms around him, squeezing tight. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for everything. My stupid lies. Bringing the hunt to our door. What happened to you—”
“Hush. It’s all right.” He smoothed a hand along the back of her head. “You were always my greatest joy, you and that wild imagination of yours. So much like your mother.” He sighed, and there was a deep sadness beneath it. “I would not change you for all the time in the world.”
“I don’t want to say goodbye. I don’t want you to go.”
He kissed her head. “It’s not for forever. Be careful, my girl. Please. Be careful.”
“I love you,” she said, sobbing, pulling away to meet his eyes. “I love you.”
He smiled and rubbed the tears from her cheeks.
And then he was gone.
Serilda sagged, wrapping her arms around herself like a shield. She felt carved out, as if a nachtkrapp had eaten her heart. She knew that seeing her father again was a gift, but it also opened up a wound that had barely begun to heal.
“Don’t tell me that is the mortal girl you’ve dubbed the Alder Queen.”
Her head snapped up. Through her blurry vision, she spied Perchta watching her with stony eyes. She had often felt that being caught in the gaze of the Erlking was a bit like being touched by an icy wind. But to be caught beneath Perchta’s gaze was more like being plunged into an ice-covered lake.
“Such sentimentality is hardly befitting the queen of Gravenstone,” came Perchta’s biting voice.
Serilda stilled. She felt too numb to care for the insult, but not numb enough to ignore the threat in the huntress’s vulture smile.
She shuddered. Suddenly the room felt too empty, too quiet. The hunters and dark ones, gone. The ghosts and visiting spirits, gone. Her father, gone. Leaving behind Serilda and the huntress, the Erlking and the god of death, and the ghosts of five children she still had not managed to save.
She did not want to cower before this demon huntress, but her sorrow had dimmed the embers she could usually feel glowing inside of her. She was not afraid of this woman. She was terrified of her. And she felt drained of courage, of stubbornness, of wit, of anything that might have allowed her to stand tall and face the huntress with dignity. She could only hold out her hands to the children, urging them to stay close to her, as if she could protect them now, when she never could before.
Perchta flashed her a knowing, cruel look that made the hair stand on the back of Serilda’s neck. “Pathetic.”
“It is done,” said the Erlking. “Release the huntress.”
Velos’s expression darkened, but in the next moment, the shackles on Perchta’s wrists snapped open. They clanked to the floor and vanished in a curl of black smoke.
Perchta did not look down at her freed hands, but kept her stare fixed on Serilda, lips curving higher. Then, without glancing at her paramour, she reached her hand out and grabbed the front of the Erlking’s tunic. She dug her sharp nails into the folds of the cloth and pulled him toward her. Her head turned in the last moment, capturing his mouth with hers.
Her eyes closed, her other hand burying itself into his long hair. The king wrapped an arm around her waist, deepening the kiss.
The kiss was passion and possession and even perhaps a tinge of revenge. Serilda did not know what to make of it, but she felt heat flooding her cheeks. She couldn’t shake the feeling that part of the kiss was meant to be a warning, but for whom? Her? The Erlking? He had been so sure there could be no envy from Perchta, but she wondered whether he’d misjudged.
Perchta broke the kiss as quickly as she had started it. “Did you miss me?” she purred.
“As the moon longs for the sun,” responded the Erlking.
“Vile,” muttered Fricz.
The Erlking pulled away from Perchta, his gaze intensifying. “Welcome home.”
“Yes,” said Velos, an oddly victorious smile on their face. “Enjoy your hours in the mortal realm, Perchta Pergana Zamperi. For I shall be welcoming you back to join your brethren as dawn breaks upon the Mourning Moon.”
The Erlking lifted an eyebrow, his knuckles tightening on Perchta’s hip. “That was not our bargain. You have what I promised, and I shall keep what was promised me.”
“I have freed the huntress, as requested.” Velos lifted their swaying lantern. “But without a proper vessel, no spirit can be sustained within the mortal realm. She will be forced to return to Verloren at sunrise.”
Serilda expected the king to snarl, to curse … but not to smirk.
And then, to laugh.
“Do you think me a fool? But of course I have a proper vessel.”
He lifted his heel against the lid of the wooden coffin and shoved. It slid off and crashed onto its side, revealing Serilda’s body within.
A shudder passed through Serilda at the sight. When she had seen her body before in the carriage house, it had been wearing the same drab, mud-speckled dress and boots that she had worn when she arrived at Adalheid Castle. But now her body wore a flaxen shirt—loose around her swelling stomach, the laces open at the throat. Riding breeches and black leather gloves, fine boots that rose over her calves, and a ruby-red cloak identical to the one Serilda wore spread around the body, more reminiscent of blood than velvet. Rather than her hair being kept in two disheveled braids, it was let loose to fall in waves around her shoulders. Her face had been washed of dirt, her lips and eyelids anointed with oil that made them glisten in the torchlight.
She almost didn’t recognize herself. This was not some miller’s daughter. This was a huntress, a warrior … a mother, round and glowing with the life inside her.
“I’ve gone through some bit of trouble to procure it,” said the Erlking, “but I suspect it will do nicely.”
Velos’s expression twisted, but they said nothing as Perchta sauntered to the coffin and peered down at Serilda’s figure. She trailed a finger up the body’s shin and thigh, then slowly, slowly, over the protruding stomach. Though Serilda could feel nothing, she shivered, imagining the intimacy of the touch. Then Perchta’s gaze shifted up to the Erlking.
“She is weak,” she said, her voice biting.
Serilda let out an annoyed huff, which went ignored by everyone.
“In appearance, yes,” responded the king. “But her strength of will has proven to be remarkably resilient.” His lips turned upward with a hint of pride. “A trait I have no doubt will be passed on to our child.”
Perchta swirled her finger in a full circle around the pregnant belly. “The baby is a thoughtful touch. A newborn … mine to keep.”
“Carried by you,” said the Erlking. “Birthed by you.”
Serilda stood straighter. “No. That’s my child!”
She took a step forward, but the moment Perchta met her gaze with such icy derision, Serilda felt her feet freeze to the stone floor. Her breath snagged.
“That’s my body,” she said, her voice trembling this time. “My child. Please. Don’t do this.”
With her gaze lingering on Serilda, Perchta stepped closer to the coffin and threaded her long fingernails into the body’s hair. “I hardly would have recognized you.” She let the hair slide from her grasp as she trailed her hand over the figure’s shoulder and down her arm.
Serilda watched, gripped by an unspeakable fear, as Perchta’s fingers danced down to the wrist where the gold-tipped arrow jutted up.
“Wh-what are you doing?” Serilda whispered.
The huntress smirked. “Accepting a most considerate gift.”
“Stop,” said Velos, a growl in their throat. “She is not willing. Therefore, the vessel is tainted. The spell will not work.” They tightened their hand into a fist. “You have lost, Erlkönig. I am taking my prize with me, and I shall see the huntress at dawn.”
“I do not recall you being so impatient, Velos,” said the Erlking. “Are you so sure the spirit is unwilling?”
Velos held up the lantern, casting its light over Serilda. “You heard her as well as I. This human wants her body back, and her child. What reason would she have to agree to this?”
“What reason, indeed.” The Erlking fixed Serilda with a knowing look. “I asked you once what you would sacrifice to see these children freed. It is time, miller’s daughter, for you to make that choice.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
His words felt distant. Impossible. What he was asking of her … to give her body to Perchta, and with it, her unborn child? To allow the huntress’s spirit to inhabit Serilda’s physical form? For how long? Forever?
“Don’t do it,” Hans whispered beside her. “Serilda, you can’t.”
She shivered.
“What—” she started, then paused to wet her dry tongue. “What will happen to me?”
