Cursed, p.34
Cursed, page 34
Serilda’s own patron deity.
“We have to find them first,” she murmured. “We may not know what he’s planning, but we do know it will be awful.”
“I don’t disagree,” said Gild, “but how do you intend to find a god?”
Serilda considered. How had the Erlking found most of the gods? Because she had told him precisely where to find them.
She thought back to the tale she had told of how the gods had created the veil, and where they had retired to once they were finished.
Wyrdith to the basalt cliffs at the northernmost edges of Tulvask.
“The cliffs,” she said. “Wyrdith will be somewhere near the basalt cliffs to the north.”
Gild’s expression became troubled. “All right, the cliffs. We’ll go north, then.”
She met his gaze. Saw the torment behind his eyes.
“After we go to Adalheid,” she said. “After we free your sister.”
Gild opened his mouth, but hesitated. Then, a sorrowful smile flittered across his face. “Thank you.”
“It isn’t just about freeing her. Or you, for that matter. Wyrdith is only one god, but there are three others currently imprisoned in Adalheid. It certainly seems the Erlking will need all seven to do whatever it is he’s planning. We need to try to free them. Hulda, Tyrr, and Solvilde.”
“The chicken-snake,” Gild said with a shudder. “Maybe we can let Erlkönig keep one god?”
Serilda rolled her eyes.
“And what if we succeed?” said Gild. “If we free these gods from right under the Erlking’s nose? The hunt will find them again, won’t they? I’m not usually the voice of reason, but they are immortal. The gods couldn’t even keep them locked away. They had to make the veil to contain them, and even that lets them out once a month. It all just feels … so futile.”
“Wait,” said Serilda, standing straighter. She held up a finger, her eyes widening. “You’re right!”
Gild scowled. “That we shouldn’t even bother?”
“Not that. The gods couldn’t contain the dark ones. They made the veil, but it has a weakness … the full moons. And what have the dark ones always wanted, more than anything?”
“To maim and torture innocent mortals until great epic poems are written about their wickedness and recited through the generations?”
“Well, yes,” admitted Serilda. “But more than that, they want freedom. From Verloren. From the veil.” She placed a hand to her throat, sure that she would feel a racing pulse there. But no … nothing fluttered beneath her skin. “The Erlking told me once that he wants the whole world. That’s what he’s gathering the gods for. He wants to destroy the veil, but he will need all of them to undo the magic.”
“Gods alive,” muttered Gild. “You could be right.”
“With the veil destroyed, they would be masters over the mortal realm.” Serilda tried to picture it. Their cruelty. How they would enslave the mortals, just as they had enslaved the ghosts. She had to stop them. Not just for herself. Not just for her unborn child. But for every innocent human who had no idea of the horrible fate that awaited them should the dark ones succeed. “Gild … we’re the only ones who know about this. What if we’re the only ones who can stop it?”
Gild laughed dryly. “I guess we’d better walk faster, then.”
Chapter Forty-Two
They wandered for nearly a week. Traipsing through the forest, sleeping among tree roots, getting lost and turned around and finding their way before getting lost again. Being grateful that they didn’t actually need food and water to survive, yet even more grateful when they managed to successfully forage for berries and ripe autumn fruits.
Creatures watched them from the shadows. Not just birds and foxes, but monsters, too. They sometimes heard the melodic clatter of a schellenrock’s coat, the shrill cries of a distant bazaloshtsh. Twice Serilda spied the red cap of a wood spirit tucked among a cluster of mushrooms, and one evening they met a small, hairy waltschrat on the path that hissed and screeched and followed them for nearly an hour, throwing acorns and pebbles at their heels, scampering away only after Gild took out the golden sword and chased the creature off into the trees. The most frightening monster they stumbled across was a drekavac, which would have looked like a human baby if it weren’t for the long brown fur and clawed hands. It snarled at Gild and Serilda from the boughs of a tree, and Serilda was sure it would attack them the moment their backs were turned, but after a long standoff, the creature scuttled off and disappeared.
Though the haunts of the forest lurked in every shadow, Serilda soon became desensitized to her fear. If anything, as the days wore on, she began to feel a kinship with the woods. She was nothing more than a spirit now, detached from her body and unable to cross to the mortal side of the veil. She was as much a monster as they were, she reasoned.
What did she have to be frightened of?
Finally, late one evening with a waning moon making its way overhead, they reached the edge of the Aschen Wood, emerging into a valley of fertile farmland.
They headed south, spending the night in a horse stable.
Late in the evening, two days later, they realized they should have headed north.
By the time they finally found their way back to Adalheid, they were tired and grumpy and sore, their mood in stark contrast to the city’s festive atmosphere, which could be felt as soon as they stepped through the city gates.
Jaunty music came from the lake docks, mixed with laughter and cheers. The day was overcast, an autumn chill in the air, yet dozens of townsfolk were milling about. None of them could see Serilda and Gild passing by. Two spirits, trapped on the dark side of the veil. Serilda had been eager to return to Adalheid. To see Leyna and her mother, Lorraine. To see Frieda, the librarian, and all the people who had gathered around the fireplace at the Wild Swan and listened to Serilda spin her nightly stories.
She had not expected how lonely she would feel to be back among the townsfolk, but invisible to them. She could not touch them. Could not speak to them. Could not tell them that she was all right.
All right-ish.
They reached the docks. On the lake, the castle stood as imposing as ever beneath the autumn sun.
Gild slipped his hand into hers, a gesture that had warmed her many times these past days. “What are they celebrating?”
Serilda took in the jovial air of the crowd. It seemed the entire city was out on these streets, bundled in coats and hats to ward off the breeze that came in from the lake, but smiling as brightly as if it were a pristine summer’s day. Tables were set up on the central square near the docks, displaying a grand banquet. Platters overflowed with cheeses and squash, cured meats and fish pies, roasted chestnuts and seeded pomegranates.
And flowers. There were flowers everywhere. Not only the usual pansies and herbs overflowing from window boxes, but also roses and chrysanthemums and frilly-edged kale leaves stuck into pots and buckets along the street, and more wired into a decorative arch that had been built on one of the piers.
“It looks like a wedding,” she mused.
An exuberant trumpet melody blared from the musicians, bringing everyone to attention.
“Three cheers for the happy couple!” shouted the town’s butcher, waving an arm toward the Wild Swan. “Madam Mayor and Madam Professor!”
The door of the inn opened and Lorraine and Frieda walked out. Frieda flushed pink, and Lorraine shook her head as if the pomp of it all were absurd, but both of them were beaming from ear to ear. Though their dresses were simple, Serilda suspected they were probably the finest they owned, and they each had a circlet of flowers over their hair.
They looked so lovely and so happy, their arms linked together.
Serilda clasped her hands together delightedly. “It is a wedding!”
Perhaps she should not have been so surprised. The first time she’d met Lorraine and Frieda, their feelings for each other had been obvious, though they’d both been far too shy to act on them. She wondered if it was Leyna, Lorraine’s daughter, who had nudged them together.
As soon as she thought it, Leyna poked her head out the inn’s door and cleared her throat meaningfully.
The butcher gave a boisterous laugh. “And Mistress Leyna, of course!”
Leyna pranced after her mother and the librarian, holding a posy of chrysanthemums. Lorraine reached back, took her daughter’s hand, and together the three walked toward the arch of flowers while the townspeople gathered around them with enthusiastic cheers.
The wedding was both charming and raucous, a celebration for all. There were blushes and giggles and vows. An exchange of rings. Frieda even gave Leyna a golden bracelet as part of the ceremony, making a vow that she would never be a wicked stepmother like in the fairy tales. Leyna had looked near to bursting with glee when Frieda helped her with the clasp. Serilda and Gild stood apart from the crowd, watching it all.
When Frieda and Lorraine kissed, the cheers were so loud, Serilda thought her ears would ring the whole night through.
“A toast!” shouted Roland Haas, who had once given Serilda a ride in the back of his wagon, along with a whole lot of chickens. He raised a mug of ale and the crowd was quick to join him. “To the professor and the mayor, who are both so good and fair. Your joy all the world can see, and we hope you’ll live in harmony. Should your love be ever doubted…” Roland hesitated, searching for a suitable rhyme. “Er—come talk to me and I shall shout it!” His quick-wittedness was met with hurrahs from the crowd and Roland gave a quick bow. “For though I be no poet, it is clear and we all know it. A love as grand as that before us should be sung far and wide by every chorus!”
His rhyming toast was met with raucous cheers and a number of drained cups.
The musicians started up again, blasting out a joyful ditty on blockflötes and reed pipes. Rose petals were tossed into the air. Dancing commenced as a group of fishermen performed an energetic jig right there on the cobblestones, followed by dozens of children linking arms and prancing in and around the onlookers. Soon, Lorraine and Frieda were ushered onto a bench, which was then hoisted up on the townsfolk’s shoulders and paraded about while the crowd sang a traditional wedding ballad—the tempo too fast and everyone mostly off-key.
Serilda’s cheeks hurt, but she could not stop smiling.
And yet—despite the joy that overflowed inside of her—she felt a deep sadness, too. Gild’s hand was still in hers, and when she glanced up at him, his gaze was haunted.
He gave her hand a squeeze. “Wishing you could be a part of it?”
“Yes. You?”
“More than anything.” He shrugged, feigning nonchalance. “I’m used to it, though. I’ve been wishing to be out here, on their side of the veil, for a very long time.”
“Does it get easier?”
He frowned, considering. “I thought it had. But after I met you, it got a thousand times worse. I would have given anything to follow you out of the castle.”
Serilda leaned her head against his shoulder. “We’re together now.”
“And now,” he said, “I’d do anything to see you on the other side, with them.”
She swallowed. If they succeeded in breaking Gild’s and his sister’s curses, then the two of them would be mortal again. Gild would be on the other side of the veil. Mortal again.
But Serilda would still be just a spirit, with no mortal body to keep her. She couldn’t even rely on breaking her own curse anymore, not so long as Perchta inhabited her body.
“Gild,” she said, turning her attention back to him, “after we free Hulda and Tyrr and Solvilde, I am still going to try to find Wyrdith.”
His brow creased. “Why?”
“Because I have a wish to make.”
Gild peered at her a long moment. “So, you’re going to free three gods, and then run off and capture a fourth? Serilda, I don’t think—”
“Not capture. This isn’t about capturing anyone. Wyrdith cursed me before I was even born, and why? My father helped them.” She leaned into Gild, tugging the cloak tight around her as a stark wind blew in from the lake. “Wyrdith owes me. And when I meet them, I’m going to make them grant my wish.”
“Which is?”
“I want my body back,” she said. “And my child.”
My child. My child. My child.
The words rang in her head like the chime of a bell. Over and over and over.
“Gild, I need to tell you something,” she blurted.
Gild tensed at her sudden intensity. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I mean, everything. Obviously. But it’s not … I just need to tell you something. That maybe I should have told you a long time ago. I wanted to tell you. But I couldn’t. I kept hoping you would guess, and then I wouldn’t have to keep the secret anymore, but I don’t know if you ever did. If you ever wondered…” She trailed off.
Gild was studying her, his brow furrowed.
She’d tried to tell him a thousand times since they’d fled from Gravenstone. She’d gone over the words in her mind, too many times to count. Practiced what she would say, tried to imagine his response. She’d opened her mouth and shut it, uncertain, again and again. The timing never felt right, stumbling through the woods, afraid that the wild hunt might find them at any moment.
Even now, she wasn’t sure how to begin.
The music was suddenly too lively, too ebullient. Jarring to Serilda’s ears.
“Not here,” she said, pulling him away from the crowd and toward the marina, out onto the end of the one of the docks. The lake was empty of boats today, but the water was choppy from the wind. From here the music and laughter had to compete with the creaking of fishing boats, hulls thumping hollowly against the docks, waves lapping at their sides.
“Serilda?” said Gild, anxious at her long silence.
She took his hands into hers, even though her palms were beginning to sweat.
“What?” Gild pressed. “Just tell me, whatever it is.”
She took in a long breath. “The child. My child. It’s … they’re … they’re yours. Your child.”
His frown deepened. “Because … of the deal we made? The gold, for your firstborn? Serilda, you can’t think that I—”
“Because you’re the father, Gild.” She gulped, and said it again, quieter now. “You’re the father.”
He stared at her, his lashes fluttering. “What are you talking about? The Erlking—”
“Never touched me. Not like that. He—” She grimaced, wishing this conversation didn’t have to be tainted with the Erlking and the awful arrangement they’d had. “He found out that I was with child, and at first he wanted to”—she shuddered—“remove it. But then I convinced him that the child might grow up to be a gold-spinner. After that he demanded I marry him and pretend the child was his, so when Perchta came back he could give the child to her, and no one would question that the child was his, was theirs. He said if I told anyone the truth, he would punish the children, and I couldn’t … I couldn’t let him hurt them anymore. I desperately wanted to tell you the truth, but I couldn’t.”
Gild pulled his hands away from her and pressed them back through his hair. “But there was only that one night. And … and I’m…” He gestured down to his body. His spirit body. “How…?”
“I don’t know. I don’t understand it, either, but there’s been no one else. The Erlking said that dark ones and mortals can have children. Maybe it works the same with spirits? I don’t know. But I do know the child is yours. Well, ours.”
He gaped at her a long moment. Then, without any warning, he collapsed down to the dock, sitting cross-legged with a deflated whump. “You could have told me to sit down first.”
Grimacing, she knelt beside him and placed a hand on his back. “I’m sorry.”
“Great gods, Serilda. A baby.” He massaged his temple. “I’m going to be a father.”
To this, she dared not respond. She grimaced again, waiting.
“I mean, I would be lying if I hadn’t thought … hadn’t hoped … that maybe we would find a way to get your body back, and for you to have the child, and we’d be together and of course I would treat the child like my own … raise them like my own. If you wanted me to.” Wonder crept into his voice. “But … they are my own. I’ll be a father. I—”
He stopped abruptly. A second later, it came. The miserable groan as he pressed both hands to his face and cursed beneath his breath. “I would have been a father.”
A silence fell over them, the lively music at odds with the thoughts plaguing them both.
Their child would never know them. Their child would have the Erlking and the huntress as father and mother.
Serilda struggled to imagine what that childhood would look like, but she knew it would not be filled with patience and compassion and love.
With a long exhale, Gild lowered his hands and met Serilda’s gaze. “Even though I believed the child was his, there was a part of me that felt responsible for it. And not just because of our deal. But because they were your child … I already loved them. I wanted to be in their life. And now…”
Serilda sniffed. “What are we going to do?”
He stared at Serilda a long moment, contemplating. She saw the changes flashing through his eyes. Despair to hope to determination.
Without warning, he reached for Serilda and pulled her into his lap. She tumbled against him with a gasp and had barely caught her breath before he was kissing her. Arms cradling her, hands in her hair. Pouring a thousand promises into that touch.
He ended the kiss as quickly as he had started it. His cheeks were flushed beneath his freckles, his eyes flashing and resolute.
“We will find Wyrdith, and you will make your wish.” He pressed his forehead to hers, stroking his thumbs across Serilda’s cheeks. “Erlkönig has taken everything from us. I won’t let him take this, too.”
THE HUNTER’S MOON
Chapter Forty-Three
They had hoped to sneak into Adalheid Castle weeks ago, long before they had to fear the return of the Erlking and his hunters. But every time they tried, they found the drawbridge was up. The castle gates were shut tight. Unless they intended to scale the massive walls using grappling hooks—an idea which Gild was keen to try but Serilda doubted she had the strength for—they would have to wait.
“We have to find them first,” she murmured. “We may not know what he’s planning, but we do know it will be awful.”
“I don’t disagree,” said Gild, “but how do you intend to find a god?”
Serilda considered. How had the Erlking found most of the gods? Because she had told him precisely where to find them.
She thought back to the tale she had told of how the gods had created the veil, and where they had retired to once they were finished.
Wyrdith to the basalt cliffs at the northernmost edges of Tulvask.
“The cliffs,” she said. “Wyrdith will be somewhere near the basalt cliffs to the north.”
Gild’s expression became troubled. “All right, the cliffs. We’ll go north, then.”
She met his gaze. Saw the torment behind his eyes.
“After we go to Adalheid,” she said. “After we free your sister.”
Gild opened his mouth, but hesitated. Then, a sorrowful smile flittered across his face. “Thank you.”
“It isn’t just about freeing her. Or you, for that matter. Wyrdith is only one god, but there are three others currently imprisoned in Adalheid. It certainly seems the Erlking will need all seven to do whatever it is he’s planning. We need to try to free them. Hulda, Tyrr, and Solvilde.”
“The chicken-snake,” Gild said with a shudder. “Maybe we can let Erlkönig keep one god?”
Serilda rolled her eyes.
“And what if we succeed?” said Gild. “If we free these gods from right under the Erlking’s nose? The hunt will find them again, won’t they? I’m not usually the voice of reason, but they are immortal. The gods couldn’t even keep them locked away. They had to make the veil to contain them, and even that lets them out once a month. It all just feels … so futile.”
“Wait,” said Serilda, standing straighter. She held up a finger, her eyes widening. “You’re right!”
Gild scowled. “That we shouldn’t even bother?”
“Not that. The gods couldn’t contain the dark ones. They made the veil, but it has a weakness … the full moons. And what have the dark ones always wanted, more than anything?”
“To maim and torture innocent mortals until great epic poems are written about their wickedness and recited through the generations?”
“Well, yes,” admitted Serilda. “But more than that, they want freedom. From Verloren. From the veil.” She placed a hand to her throat, sure that she would feel a racing pulse there. But no … nothing fluttered beneath her skin. “The Erlking told me once that he wants the whole world. That’s what he’s gathering the gods for. He wants to destroy the veil, but he will need all of them to undo the magic.”
“Gods alive,” muttered Gild. “You could be right.”
“With the veil destroyed, they would be masters over the mortal realm.” Serilda tried to picture it. Their cruelty. How they would enslave the mortals, just as they had enslaved the ghosts. She had to stop them. Not just for herself. Not just for her unborn child. But for every innocent human who had no idea of the horrible fate that awaited them should the dark ones succeed. “Gild … we’re the only ones who know about this. What if we’re the only ones who can stop it?”
Gild laughed dryly. “I guess we’d better walk faster, then.”
Chapter Forty-Two
They wandered for nearly a week. Traipsing through the forest, sleeping among tree roots, getting lost and turned around and finding their way before getting lost again. Being grateful that they didn’t actually need food and water to survive, yet even more grateful when they managed to successfully forage for berries and ripe autumn fruits.
Creatures watched them from the shadows. Not just birds and foxes, but monsters, too. They sometimes heard the melodic clatter of a schellenrock’s coat, the shrill cries of a distant bazaloshtsh. Twice Serilda spied the red cap of a wood spirit tucked among a cluster of mushrooms, and one evening they met a small, hairy waltschrat on the path that hissed and screeched and followed them for nearly an hour, throwing acorns and pebbles at their heels, scampering away only after Gild took out the golden sword and chased the creature off into the trees. The most frightening monster they stumbled across was a drekavac, which would have looked like a human baby if it weren’t for the long brown fur and clawed hands. It snarled at Gild and Serilda from the boughs of a tree, and Serilda was sure it would attack them the moment their backs were turned, but after a long standoff, the creature scuttled off and disappeared.
Though the haunts of the forest lurked in every shadow, Serilda soon became desensitized to her fear. If anything, as the days wore on, she began to feel a kinship with the woods. She was nothing more than a spirit now, detached from her body and unable to cross to the mortal side of the veil. She was as much a monster as they were, she reasoned.
What did she have to be frightened of?
Finally, late one evening with a waning moon making its way overhead, they reached the edge of the Aschen Wood, emerging into a valley of fertile farmland.
They headed south, spending the night in a horse stable.
Late in the evening, two days later, they realized they should have headed north.
By the time they finally found their way back to Adalheid, they were tired and grumpy and sore, their mood in stark contrast to the city’s festive atmosphere, which could be felt as soon as they stepped through the city gates.
Jaunty music came from the lake docks, mixed with laughter and cheers. The day was overcast, an autumn chill in the air, yet dozens of townsfolk were milling about. None of them could see Serilda and Gild passing by. Two spirits, trapped on the dark side of the veil. Serilda had been eager to return to Adalheid. To see Leyna and her mother, Lorraine. To see Frieda, the librarian, and all the people who had gathered around the fireplace at the Wild Swan and listened to Serilda spin her nightly stories.
She had not expected how lonely she would feel to be back among the townsfolk, but invisible to them. She could not touch them. Could not speak to them. Could not tell them that she was all right.
All right-ish.
They reached the docks. On the lake, the castle stood as imposing as ever beneath the autumn sun.
Gild slipped his hand into hers, a gesture that had warmed her many times these past days. “What are they celebrating?”
Serilda took in the jovial air of the crowd. It seemed the entire city was out on these streets, bundled in coats and hats to ward off the breeze that came in from the lake, but smiling as brightly as if it were a pristine summer’s day. Tables were set up on the central square near the docks, displaying a grand banquet. Platters overflowed with cheeses and squash, cured meats and fish pies, roasted chestnuts and seeded pomegranates.
And flowers. There were flowers everywhere. Not only the usual pansies and herbs overflowing from window boxes, but also roses and chrysanthemums and frilly-edged kale leaves stuck into pots and buckets along the street, and more wired into a decorative arch that had been built on one of the piers.
“It looks like a wedding,” she mused.
An exuberant trumpet melody blared from the musicians, bringing everyone to attention.
“Three cheers for the happy couple!” shouted the town’s butcher, waving an arm toward the Wild Swan. “Madam Mayor and Madam Professor!”
The door of the inn opened and Lorraine and Frieda walked out. Frieda flushed pink, and Lorraine shook her head as if the pomp of it all were absurd, but both of them were beaming from ear to ear. Though their dresses were simple, Serilda suspected they were probably the finest they owned, and they each had a circlet of flowers over their hair.
They looked so lovely and so happy, their arms linked together.
Serilda clasped her hands together delightedly. “It is a wedding!”
Perhaps she should not have been so surprised. The first time she’d met Lorraine and Frieda, their feelings for each other had been obvious, though they’d both been far too shy to act on them. She wondered if it was Leyna, Lorraine’s daughter, who had nudged them together.
As soon as she thought it, Leyna poked her head out the inn’s door and cleared her throat meaningfully.
The butcher gave a boisterous laugh. “And Mistress Leyna, of course!”
Leyna pranced after her mother and the librarian, holding a posy of chrysanthemums. Lorraine reached back, took her daughter’s hand, and together the three walked toward the arch of flowers while the townspeople gathered around them with enthusiastic cheers.
The wedding was both charming and raucous, a celebration for all. There were blushes and giggles and vows. An exchange of rings. Frieda even gave Leyna a golden bracelet as part of the ceremony, making a vow that she would never be a wicked stepmother like in the fairy tales. Leyna had looked near to bursting with glee when Frieda helped her with the clasp. Serilda and Gild stood apart from the crowd, watching it all.
When Frieda and Lorraine kissed, the cheers were so loud, Serilda thought her ears would ring the whole night through.
“A toast!” shouted Roland Haas, who had once given Serilda a ride in the back of his wagon, along with a whole lot of chickens. He raised a mug of ale and the crowd was quick to join him. “To the professor and the mayor, who are both so good and fair. Your joy all the world can see, and we hope you’ll live in harmony. Should your love be ever doubted…” Roland hesitated, searching for a suitable rhyme. “Er—come talk to me and I shall shout it!” His quick-wittedness was met with hurrahs from the crowd and Roland gave a quick bow. “For though I be no poet, it is clear and we all know it. A love as grand as that before us should be sung far and wide by every chorus!”
His rhyming toast was met with raucous cheers and a number of drained cups.
The musicians started up again, blasting out a joyful ditty on blockflötes and reed pipes. Rose petals were tossed into the air. Dancing commenced as a group of fishermen performed an energetic jig right there on the cobblestones, followed by dozens of children linking arms and prancing in and around the onlookers. Soon, Lorraine and Frieda were ushered onto a bench, which was then hoisted up on the townsfolk’s shoulders and paraded about while the crowd sang a traditional wedding ballad—the tempo too fast and everyone mostly off-key.
Serilda’s cheeks hurt, but she could not stop smiling.
And yet—despite the joy that overflowed inside of her—she felt a deep sadness, too. Gild’s hand was still in hers, and when she glanced up at him, his gaze was haunted.
He gave her hand a squeeze. “Wishing you could be a part of it?”
“Yes. You?”
“More than anything.” He shrugged, feigning nonchalance. “I’m used to it, though. I’ve been wishing to be out here, on their side of the veil, for a very long time.”
“Does it get easier?”
He frowned, considering. “I thought it had. But after I met you, it got a thousand times worse. I would have given anything to follow you out of the castle.”
Serilda leaned her head against his shoulder. “We’re together now.”
“And now,” he said, “I’d do anything to see you on the other side, with them.”
She swallowed. If they succeeded in breaking Gild’s and his sister’s curses, then the two of them would be mortal again. Gild would be on the other side of the veil. Mortal again.
But Serilda would still be just a spirit, with no mortal body to keep her. She couldn’t even rely on breaking her own curse anymore, not so long as Perchta inhabited her body.
“Gild,” she said, turning her attention back to him, “after we free Hulda and Tyrr and Solvilde, I am still going to try to find Wyrdith.”
His brow creased. “Why?”
“Because I have a wish to make.”
Gild peered at her a long moment. “So, you’re going to free three gods, and then run off and capture a fourth? Serilda, I don’t think—”
“Not capture. This isn’t about capturing anyone. Wyrdith cursed me before I was even born, and why? My father helped them.” She leaned into Gild, tugging the cloak tight around her as a stark wind blew in from the lake. “Wyrdith owes me. And when I meet them, I’m going to make them grant my wish.”
“Which is?”
“I want my body back,” she said. “And my child.”
My child. My child. My child.
The words rang in her head like the chime of a bell. Over and over and over.
“Gild, I need to tell you something,” she blurted.
Gild tensed at her sudden intensity. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I mean, everything. Obviously. But it’s not … I just need to tell you something. That maybe I should have told you a long time ago. I wanted to tell you. But I couldn’t. I kept hoping you would guess, and then I wouldn’t have to keep the secret anymore, but I don’t know if you ever did. If you ever wondered…” She trailed off.
Gild was studying her, his brow furrowed.
She’d tried to tell him a thousand times since they’d fled from Gravenstone. She’d gone over the words in her mind, too many times to count. Practiced what she would say, tried to imagine his response. She’d opened her mouth and shut it, uncertain, again and again. The timing never felt right, stumbling through the woods, afraid that the wild hunt might find them at any moment.
Even now, she wasn’t sure how to begin.
The music was suddenly too lively, too ebullient. Jarring to Serilda’s ears.
“Not here,” she said, pulling him away from the crowd and toward the marina, out onto the end of the one of the docks. The lake was empty of boats today, but the water was choppy from the wind. From here the music and laughter had to compete with the creaking of fishing boats, hulls thumping hollowly against the docks, waves lapping at their sides.
“Serilda?” said Gild, anxious at her long silence.
She took his hands into hers, even though her palms were beginning to sweat.
“What?” Gild pressed. “Just tell me, whatever it is.”
She took in a long breath. “The child. My child. It’s … they’re … they’re yours. Your child.”
His frown deepened. “Because … of the deal we made? The gold, for your firstborn? Serilda, you can’t think that I—”
“Because you’re the father, Gild.” She gulped, and said it again, quieter now. “You’re the father.”
He stared at her, his lashes fluttering. “What are you talking about? The Erlking—”
“Never touched me. Not like that. He—” She grimaced, wishing this conversation didn’t have to be tainted with the Erlking and the awful arrangement they’d had. “He found out that I was with child, and at first he wanted to”—she shuddered—“remove it. But then I convinced him that the child might grow up to be a gold-spinner. After that he demanded I marry him and pretend the child was his, so when Perchta came back he could give the child to her, and no one would question that the child was his, was theirs. He said if I told anyone the truth, he would punish the children, and I couldn’t … I couldn’t let him hurt them anymore. I desperately wanted to tell you the truth, but I couldn’t.”
Gild pulled his hands away from her and pressed them back through his hair. “But there was only that one night. And … and I’m…” He gestured down to his body. His spirit body. “How…?”
“I don’t know. I don’t understand it, either, but there’s been no one else. The Erlking said that dark ones and mortals can have children. Maybe it works the same with spirits? I don’t know. But I do know the child is yours. Well, ours.”
He gaped at her a long moment. Then, without any warning, he collapsed down to the dock, sitting cross-legged with a deflated whump. “You could have told me to sit down first.”
Grimacing, she knelt beside him and placed a hand on his back. “I’m sorry.”
“Great gods, Serilda. A baby.” He massaged his temple. “I’m going to be a father.”
To this, she dared not respond. She grimaced again, waiting.
“I mean, I would be lying if I hadn’t thought … hadn’t hoped … that maybe we would find a way to get your body back, and for you to have the child, and we’d be together and of course I would treat the child like my own … raise them like my own. If you wanted me to.” Wonder crept into his voice. “But … they are my own. I’ll be a father. I—”
He stopped abruptly. A second later, it came. The miserable groan as he pressed both hands to his face and cursed beneath his breath. “I would have been a father.”
A silence fell over them, the lively music at odds with the thoughts plaguing them both.
Their child would never know them. Their child would have the Erlking and the huntress as father and mother.
Serilda struggled to imagine what that childhood would look like, but she knew it would not be filled with patience and compassion and love.
With a long exhale, Gild lowered his hands and met Serilda’s gaze. “Even though I believed the child was his, there was a part of me that felt responsible for it. And not just because of our deal. But because they were your child … I already loved them. I wanted to be in their life. And now…”
Serilda sniffed. “What are we going to do?”
He stared at Serilda a long moment, contemplating. She saw the changes flashing through his eyes. Despair to hope to determination.
Without warning, he reached for Serilda and pulled her into his lap. She tumbled against him with a gasp and had barely caught her breath before he was kissing her. Arms cradling her, hands in her hair. Pouring a thousand promises into that touch.
He ended the kiss as quickly as he had started it. His cheeks were flushed beneath his freckles, his eyes flashing and resolute.
“We will find Wyrdith, and you will make your wish.” He pressed his forehead to hers, stroking his thumbs across Serilda’s cheeks. “Erlkönig has taken everything from us. I won’t let him take this, too.”
THE HUNTER’S MOON
Chapter Forty-Three
They had hoped to sneak into Adalheid Castle weeks ago, long before they had to fear the return of the Erlking and his hunters. But every time they tried, they found the drawbridge was up. The castle gates were shut tight. Unless they intended to scale the massive walls using grappling hooks—an idea which Gild was keen to try but Serilda doubted she had the strength for—they would have to wait.
