Cursed, p.44
Cursed, page 44
With no one paying attention to her, Serilda fought against the discomfort of her crushing lungs and forced herself forward, crawling on hands and knees.
“Gild,” she gasped, reaching out to touch him. “Gild?”
A groan, so faint she barely heard it.
“Hold still. The sword. I’m going to…”
Her arms were so weak, her fingers trembling as they wrapped around the hilt.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, sobbing, and pulled.
Gild gasped, but did not cry out. As soon as the sword was removed, he collapsed onto his side, still holding the bundled baby in his arms, the blanket soaked in crimson. Serilda fell over them both. She dissolved. Her child. Her baby. Dying. Or dead. Or—
A hand found her, sticky and weak. She stared at Gild, her vision bleary.
“Take … the ring,” he croaked.
She didn’t know if it was her heartbreak or the strangling magic all around her that was making her light-headed, but it took her a long time to make sense of his words. Finally, she looked down at the golden ring with his family’s crest. Bloody, like everything else.
“Don’t forget me,” he said. “At least someone … won’t forget me.”
“Never, Gild. I could never…”
The light was fading from his eyes, as if he’d been clinging desperately to these last moments of life so he could speak to her one last time.
“I’m so happy … I met you,” he said, trying to smile. “I love you. I wanted … to protect … both of you. I’m sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry. I’m the one who’s sorry. Gild. Gild.”
His eyes became unfocused. His hand fell onto the blanket.
Then, as quick as it had begun, it was over.
The magic’s pressure released. Air poured back into Serilda’s lungs. The sky no longer shimmered. Clouds drifted across the full moon as if nothing had happened.
And Gild and their baby were not breathing.
“It is done,” gasped Freydon. Each of the seven gods groaned and collapsed to their knees.
Ignoring the weakened gods, the dark ones looked around, as if inspecting the world anew. Since the veil was already down for the Endless Moon, they would not know until sunrise if the magic had worked.
Serilda screamed. A torrent of a wail as she curled against Gild’s body, her hand pressed to the back of her daughter’s head. Impossibly delicate, impossibly soft, with those faint reddish curls. Serilda sobbed into the swaddling blanket, cursing demons and gods and fortune and fate.
And there she might have stayed, if the ground all around her hadn’t begun to tremble.
The Erlking frowned at the shuddering castle walls. The drifts of snow flurrying from the parapets. “What is happening?”
“Verloren has been calling out to me,” muttered Velos, peering up at the Erlking through weary eyes, “ever since you took me from the gates. With the use of my magic, Verloren has found me.”
A crack shot across the gardens, quick and jagged, creating a tear in the earth from the base of the keep through the menagerie and out to the far wall.
“Free us,” said Velos. “Let me return to my home.”
The Erlking snarled. “Not until I know for sure the wish was fulfilled.”
Velos shook their head. “Your distrust will end us all, Erlkönig.”
The Erlking let out a pent-up roar. “When have you ever given me cause to trust you?”
“Serilda!” Hands were on her. Shaking her. Leyna? “We need to get out of here! Look!”
Serilda looked, but she didn’t understand.
Beneath her, the earth groaned and started to split apart. She gasped, her fingers digging into Gild’s shirt. A jagged cut tore through the snow, opening to the size of a fist beneath them. Serilda screamed, instinctively pulling Gild and the baby across the snowy ground, just as snow flurries fell into the crevasse where they had lain seconds before.
Gild did not move. Their baby did not cry.
The gash in the ground widened farther. The dark ones were tense, hands on their weapons. The gods were desperate, pleading with the demons to release them.
“Silence!” screamed the king. But there was no silence to be had. Stones were tumbling loose from the walls. The ground screeched as clay and rock and ice rubbed together and pulled apart. The Erlking looked at Perchta, who met his gaze with a fierce nod.
The king’s expression hardened and he faced their court. “Let Verloren take the castle! Let it take the old gods. With the veil down, all of the mortal realm will be our kingdom!”
The dark ones cheered.
“No!” screamed Eostrig, who looked like Pusch-Grohla once more. “Erlkönig, you will not leave us like this!”
The king ignored the god, ignored them all.
“To the gates!” he declared, and the dark ones rallied at his side. The castle’s monsters, those that could fly, soared into the night. The imps and hobgoblins hurried ahead of their masters, eager to escape the gash that had grown to the width of a carriage. The first outer wall of the castle gave way with a roar, tumbling across the eastern edge of the gardens.
Only then did Serilda remember, as the hunters and their court fled across the gardens.
Hand trembling, she reached for the collar of her dress and pulled out the two necklaces at her throat. One—the broken arrow that kept her tethered to this world.
The other—the whistle.
Loathing bubbled up inside of her as she pressed it to her lips and blew. The sound was piercing, louder than the splitting earth, louder than the stampeding footsteps, louder than the angry yells of the abandoned gods.
She blew and blew and let the whistle ring out like a war cry.
They came, just as they’d promised.
Dozens of warrior maidens leaped atop the crumbling castle walls or rushed in from the gates. The whistle was still echoing when the first volley of golden arrows rained down upon the escaping dark ones.
Not just moss maidens. Erlen and her monsters, too. Surging forward. Cutting through the demons with merciless brutality, golden swords and knives glinting in the moonlight.
Surprised by the ambush, the dark ones fell back in confusion. The first demon fell, tumbling into the abyss, where Verloren waited far below to claim him. His cries echoed from the darkness for ages, before finally, finally vanishing.
Parsley shouted an order, and like a well-trained army, the maidens’ tactics changed. They herded the dark ones toward the ever-widening crevasse. The castle keep began to collapse inward on its compromised foundations.
Where was the Erlking? Where was Perchta?
Hatred surged through Serilda. She wanted them returned to Verloren, where they belonged. She wanted to see them fall.
There.
Perchta and the Alder King stood in the midst of the battle. His crossbow firing into the swarm of moss maidens, while Perchta drove them back with a barrage of thrown knives.
“Serilda!” screamed Leyna. “Help us!”
She started. Leyna and Erlen were working to undo the golden chains still holding the gods. Not just binding the gods together, but also keeping them leashed to a series of stakes around the menagerie, like animals around a feeding post.
Serilda forced herself to her feet, but her attention returned to the battle. The horrific screams as dozens—no, hundreds—of demons were sent tumbling over the jagged precipice.
But no one could get near the Erlking and the huntress.
“Serilda!” cried Wyrdith.
Serilda stumbled toward the god of stories, whose devastated eyes made Serilda want to scream. She bit back the sound and reached for the chains on Wyrdith’s wrists.
“Daughter—”
“Don’t,” Serilda snapped. “Is this the ending you wanted? Is this what your wheel of fortune decided for me?”
Wyrdith’s face crumpled. “Serilda, I—”
“I don’t want to hear it. I can’t … I can’t.” She bit back a sob as she managed to undo the chains. They fell to the snow with a thud, just as another wall fell, crashing into the lake.
“Go!” cried Erlen, pointing toward the courtyard. “We have to get out of here before the entire castle falls!”
Though the gods were still weak from bringing down the veil, they leaned on one another as Erlen and Leyna ushered them toward the gatehouse, toward the safety beyond the drawbridge. Only Velos and Wyrdith lingered behind.
“Serilda, come with me,” said Wyrdith, reaching for Serilda’s hands, but she yanked them away.
Serilda had eyes only for the Erlking and the huntress. Having used up his bolts, the Erlking switched to two long, slender swords, and Perchta now held a mace—but the moss maidens were dancing around them, just out of reach.
And the rest of the demons, the hunters and the court …
They were gone. The ambush had worked. Caught off guard against the moss maidens and Erlen’s monsters, they had fallen easily to Gild’s golden arrows. The demons had been forced back into the gash in the earth, back to the depths of Verloren.
All but two.
“Serilda, please,” said Wyrdith.
“I’m not leaving until Perchta and the Erlking are gone.”
“We will all end up in Verloren if we don’t go now!” Wyrdith turned to Velos. “Can’t you stop this?”
Velos’s voice rumbled regretfully. “The ground is too weak, and the land of the lost has grown unstable in my absence. This castle will fall.”
Serilda looked down at the bodies of Gild and their child. Crouching before them, she took the ring off Gild’s finger and slipped it onto her own, as he’d asked, then scooped her baby into her arms.
Holding her for the first time.
Tears threatened to smother her again, but she fought them back as she turned to Wyrdith. “Take her, please.”
Wyrdith’s face crumpled as they took the still form of their grandchild into their arms.
“I will take the gold-spinner,” said Velos.
Serilda rounded on the god, teeth bared. “No! You can’t have him, not yet!”
But Velos gave her a kind smile and settled a hand onto her shoulder. “Their spirits are already gone. You cannot keep them here.”
Horror tightened around her throat. “No, no, they can’t…”
“I will carry his body,” the god said. “So you might give him a proper burial.”
Tears streamed down her cheeks as the god lifted Gild’s body into their arms.
Wyrdith and Velos started after the others.
“Serilda!”
Parsley was running across the parapets, which swayed dangerously beneath her. With a grunt, she jumped, launching herself into the gardens. She struck the ground with a graceful roll and looked up, panting. “We are out of golden arrows. They are getting away—the Erlking, the huntress! What else can we use to fight them?”
Serilda spun around in time to see the Erlking and Perchta cutting their way through the forest folk that were still desperately trying to hold them back. But it was a losing fight. Without the golden arrows, they were no match for these final two demons.
Serilda scanned the menagerie, the gardens, the wide-open gates that led to the courtyard. A ferocity like she’d never felt before surged inside her. “I have an idea.”
Chapter Fifty-Five
“Give me two minutes,” said Serilda. “Meet me at the drawbridge, and tell the rest of the moss maidens to retreat!”
“Retreat?” bellowed Parsley.
“Trust me!”
Doubt flashed over Parsley’s face. Then she steeled herself and gave a firm nod. Without another word, she was gone, rushing back into battle.
Serilda hardened her resolve, made it as unbreakable as god-spun gold. Then she started to gather armfuls of the golden chains that had been used to bind the gods.
The courtyard was in turmoil when she reached it.
Pillars and walls were toppled, the cobblestone ground undulating like ocean waves. Spiderweb cracks spread through the stonework like black streaks of lightning through the powdery snow. And in the middle, running straight from the gatehouse down the center of the courtyard and underneath the crumbling keep, was a gash as wide as the drawbridge itself. Glass had shattered from the castle windows and lay in sparkling shards across the steps. The stables had collapsed in on themselves, but judging from the mass of hoofprints in the snow, someone had thought to release the animals in their rush to escape.
All except the hounds, who could be heard howling from the kennels.
Serilda reached the gatehouse, edging around the widening fault line, aware of the ice-covered stones beneath the fresh snow that would send her slipping over the edge in a blink if she wasn’t careful.
She had just started to unspool the chains when she heard Parsley and Meadowsweet darting across the uneven ground.
“They’re coming!” Parsley cried. “The other maidens have escaped to the lake and will swim for shore. The Erlking and Perchta are coming!”
Serilda thrust the ends of the chains at them, tripping over her words to explain her plan.
They weren’t ready by the time Perchta’s mad laughter reverberated off the courtyard walls, a gleeful cackle as she and the Erlking came racing in from the garden gates, practically waltzing over the stones as they dodged the crashing walls.
They weren’t ready.
They had to be ready.
“Your Grim!” Serilda screamed from her place half-hidden behind the blacksmith’s forge.
The Erlking glanced toward her, startled.
Serilda bared her teeth at him. “Have I told you the story of when the earth opened up and swallowed the demon king whole?”
The Erlking started to grin. He opened his mouth to speak.
Parsley and Meadowsweet emerged from their places behind the gatehouse. Each maiden holding the end of two golden chains, they wrapped them around the Erlking and Perchta, quick as foxes, and immediately started hauling them toward the crevasse.
Perchta screamed. Not in pain, not in fear, but in gleeful delight.
Serilda ran to help. She gripped the chains and heaved, feet skidding on the icy stones.
They had managed to pin one of Perchta’s arms to the side, but not the other. No time. They yanked harder.
In her thrashing, Perchta managed to get hold of a dagger. She lifted it over her shoulder. Serilda’s eyes widened.
As the huntress threw the knife, Serilda released the chain and lunged for Parsley, knocking her to the ground. The knife sailed over them, striking the edge of the rift and clattering down into its depths.
Meadowsweet could not hold them on her own. She cried out as the chains were ripped from her hands. In seconds, the dark ones had shoved the chains off themselves.
Something inside the keep gave a deafening crash. The rift in the earth was pulling the structure apart. The entry doors bent forward on their hinges. One wall collapsed inward. The gash in the earth grew ever wider.
The Erlking stormed toward Serilda. At her side, Parsley tried to stand and face him, but she grunted and fell back to one knee.
Perchta grabbed Meadowsweet by one of her antlers and dragged her through the snow, throwing the maiden to Serilda’s other side.
They were ice and fire, the Erlking and his huntress. And they were murderous, standing over Serilda and the two moss maidens.
The Erlking’s lips curled into a bruise-purple smile. “You should have gone on to Verloren long ago, miller’s daughter.” He pulled one of his thin swords from its scabbard. “This is the last kindness I will grant you.”
“Wait!” Serilda cried, holding up her hands as he prepared to thrust the sword into her chest. “Not like this. Please. I’ll … I’ll release the arrow that keeps me tethered. I’ll go willingly to Verloren. Please … don’t throw me down there.” She cast a terrified look at the hole stretching out behind her. The abyss that led to nothingness.
The Erlking snarled.
“You told me once that you aren’t a villain,” she said. “Have mercy.”
When he hesitated, Serilda peeled back the side of the cloak. Red and fur-lined and stained with blood. She reached for the pocket on the inside lining and showed him the fletching of the arrow.
“I will let it go,” she said, voice quivering. “I won’t try to stop you anymore. Please … just let me go in peace.”
“Pathetic mortal,” Perchta growled. She reached for the Erlking’s sword, but he lifted a hand, stopping her.
Perchta drew back in surprise.
“It is a small request,” he said, “for the mortal who was my wife.”
“Thank you,” Serilda whispered. “Thank you.”
Then she pulled out—not one, but two broken arrows. The same shards of gold-tipped arrows that she had once pulled from the flesh of a prince and a princess who had been cursed to suffer in their haunted castles for all eternity. Identical to the arrow that had once cursed her.
With a fierce cry, Serilda drove the arrows into the dark ones’ wrists—one for the king and one for his huntress.
In the same moment, Meadowsweet lurched upward and snatched away the sword. Parsley grabbed the remaining daggers from Perchta’s belt.
“Those arrows now tether you to this castle!” Serilda shouted over the roar of falling stones and yawning earth. “Your spirits no longer belong to the confines of your immortal bodies, but will be forever trapped within these walls. From this day into eternity, your souls belong to Velos, god of death!”
As the words of the curse echoed off the castle walls, their spirits separated. Their bodies—the Erlking’s body, Serilda’s body—split from their inhabiting souls and fell back onto the frozen cobblestones.
Perchta, looking again like the great huntress, with shocking white hair and skin tinged faintly blue. She screeched and lunged for Serilda.
But in the next moment, Serilda was no longer there. When she opened her eyes, she was on her back, staring up at a cloud-filled sky, a glow above where the moon refused to show its face.
She was in her body again. Her body.
