Cursed, p.5
Cursed, page 5
Serilda shuddered. It was easier to pretend that his words of eternal devotion had not affected her in the slightest.
To admit otherwise would be insufferable.
And so, Serilda swallowed back her questions and tucked her fingers into the crook of her husband’s arm.
They walked toward the stairs that would take them down into the gardens beside the main courtyard, where there was to be music and dancing and feasting—not only on the animals from the ceremony, but on countless dishes the cooks had been preparing all week.
But they had just turned into the narrow stairwell when they came to an abrupt stop.
A piece of rolled-up parchment dangled eye level to the king, tied with a velvet bow and hung from the doorway with a piece of twine.
Serilda blinked. “Did you not see this when you arrived?”
“It was not here,” said the Erlking, snatching the parchment from the air. He undid the bow and dropped it to the floor as he unrolled the note. Serilda peered around him to read.
To Erlkönig, Thou Lucky Lord of the Castle,
In honor of traditions most ancient, I see that it is my sacred duty to follow the customs laid out by generations before. Surely, as a man of honor and duty yourself, you understand the importance of maintaining such a valued ritual within the court of Adalheid.
Thus, as we are all in agreement, I am writing you this note as a symbol of goodwill.
Let it be known that our new illustrious queen—may she reign with wisdom and grace—shall not be harmed in the course of this night.
But neither shall she be yours, until a full ransom is paid.
Such ransom I shall convey when I declare that you, Your Grim, have well and truly suffered from the absence of such a charming mortal as you have managed to secure for your wife.
I hope you were not needing her?
Very truly yours,
The Poltergeist
“Poltergeist,” Serilda whispered, her lips barely forming the word.
With a snarl, the Erlking crumpled the note in his fist with such violence that Serilda jumped back from him, startled.
“What is that insolent wraith up to now?” he said, glaring around at the empty hall, his porcelain skin flushed a shade of amethyst. Though the Erlking knew Gild was the castle’s true prince and heir, he always pretended that Gild was nothing more than a nuisance. Serilda assumed this was because the Erlking didn’t want her or the ghostly court or even Gild himself to figure out his true identity. He didn’t realize that Serilda had figured it out a while ago.
She glanced around, too, but Gild was nowhere to be seen. “What traditions?” she asked. “What rituals?”
“Nothing but nonsense,” said the Erlking. Nostrils flaring, he held a hand toward her. “Come.”
“I think not,” came a voice from behind them, followed by a rope being tossed around Serilda, cinching her arms to her sides.
She gasped and glanced over her shoulder to see Gild, grinning wickedly with the end of the rope in his hands. “What are you—”
“Until the ransom is declared and paid, your lovely bride is officially … kidnapped.”
The Erlking started to reach for one of the numerous weapons kept at his belt, but he was not fast enough.
Gild shoved Serilda toward the nearest window and pushed her up onto the windowsill. “Enjoy the party, Your Miserableness!” he shouted.
The lake glittered cerulean and gold before them—but they would crash upon the jagged rocks below the castle wall long before they hit the water.
Gild threw them both into the air.
Then Serilda was falling. Screaming. Wind in her hair and whipping at her cheeks.
But they did not crash upon the rocks.
Instead, she and Gild blinked out of existence mid-fall.
Serilda stumbled as her feet hit hard ground that had not been there before. Instead of vivid sunlight, she was surrounded by tall columns and a dais holding two majestic thrones, lit by a row of candelabras.
She would have fallen to her face had Gild not been gripping the rope. He hauled her up to standing and made quick work of untying her.
Then he let out a whoop of laughter. “His face! That was everything I’d hoped for!”
Serilda turned to him, bewildered and trembling. In the span of half a minute she’d gone from being led to her wedding feast on the arm of her wicked husband to being kidnapped and shoved through a window where she should have fallen to her death, to being magically transported into the castle’s throne room.
“What did you do?” she asked, her voice still shaky. “And why? What are you—”
“I’ll explain later,” said Gild, yanking the ropes off her. “Come on, we need to keep moving. He’ll know we were sent back to the throne room.”
He grabbed her hand and raced for a narrow door tucked behind the dais, where presumably servants might have waited to heed the monarch’s summoning. Beyond the door, a dim, narrow corridor stretched in the direction of the kitchens.
“Gild, stop,” said Serilda, even as her feet hastened to keep up with him. “What are we doing?”
“Just a fun little wedding tradition,” he said, coming to a stop as the corridor branched off into a T. He peered around both sides, before waving for Serilda to follow him. He turned right, hurrying down a hall, then up a flight of steps that ended in a closed door. Gild put his ear against the wood, listening.
“What wedding tradi—”
He shushed her, frantically waving his arms.
Serilda crossed her arms over her chest.
A moment passed, then Gild looked at her, eyes glinting, and nodded for her to go on.
This time, she whispered. “What wedding tradition?”
“You know,” he said, “the one where the bride is kidnapped and spends all night hiding from the groom until he’s forced to pay a ransom for her return.”
She stared at him. “What?”
Gild cocked his head. “Don’t they do that in Märchenfeld? It’s great fun. You’ll see.”
She shook her head. “The Erlking will not think this is great fun, and you know it.”
“You’re right, he won’t.” Gild snickered. “But I will.” His eyes widened and he held up a hand, urging her to be silent again.
They listened, and it took Serilda a moment to pick up on the footsteps. At first she thought they were coming from beyond the shut door, but no, they were coming from the corridor behind them.
Gild’s eyes widened as he realized it at the same time.
He shoved the door open and took Serilda’s hand again, pulling her through.
The door slammed in their wake.
“There!” someone yelled.
Serilda started running, Gild beside her.
It took a moment to get her bearings, but as they ducked in and out of parlors and studies and game rooms and libraries, all the while hearing the storming of dark ones in pursuit, Serilda found she didn’t much care if she was lost. Or if she was kidnapped, for that matter.
Every time they barely evaded detection—
Every time Gild pulled her into an alcove and their pursuers unwittingly sped past—
Every time they simultaneously dove beneath a desk or behind a curtain, their bodies pressed as tightly together as they could, as they struggled to contain their panting breaths and the giggles that threatened to overtake them—
Serilda wished that she might never be found.
“I think we lost them,” she said some twenty minutes later, as she and Gild pressed against the back wall of a tall cabinet filled with fur cloaks and moths. “For now.”
Gild gave her hand a squeeze, a reminder that he had not let go. Not even when she tripped and had been sure the game was up. He’d just laughed and urged her on, overturning a couple of tables to slow their pursuers as they made their escape.
“We shouldn’t have done this,” said Serilda, catching her breath. “He will be angry. It was too big a risk.”
“It will be fine. He can’t exactly blame you for your own kidnapping, can he? Besides, he expected me to try something. It would have been more notable—and suspicious—if I’d behaved myself.”
Serilda laughed. She could not see Gild in the darkness, but she could exactly picture his expression. Proud to the point of cockiness. She could practically feel him winking at her.
She wanted to argue, except he had a point. The king had expected him to try something.
“Consider this my wedding gift to you,” he went on. “You can’t tell me you’d rather be stuck in a stuffy old party with your dearly beloved and his sycophants.”
Serilda slumped against the back of the cabinet, even though some paneling dug painfully into her shoulder blade. “You’re right. I much prefer this company.”
“And if he didn’t want me to kidnap you, then he should have invited me to the feast. It was the least he could do.”
“Gild, are you doing this because you felt left out?”
“Wouldn’t you? I’ve been spying on the cooks for days. This feast is going to be incredible. How would you feel if you were the only one in the castle who didn’t get to enjoy it?”
“They do like their grand celebrations, don’t they?”
“And they’ve got surprisingly good taste. The best of everything. Straight down to the serving dishes. Stoneware from Ottelien. Blown glass from Verene. Even the soup ladles are fancy, with these intricate little carvings.”
“They were probably hand-carved by Hulda,” said Serilda. “I bet they’ve got magic properties, those soup ladles.”
“Wouldn’t doubt it. The cutlery was probably forged by Tyrr. The bread baskets woven by … Freydon?”
“Hmm, probably Hulda again.”
“Being the god of labor sounds like a lot of work.”
“To be fair, I suspect most everything in this castle probably belonged to your family once.”
Gild hesitated. “Hadn’t thought of that, but you’re right. I must come from such tasteful folk.”
They were met with a short silence, and Serilda wondered if he was still thinking about the feast, or the family he couldn’t remember.
“I can’t help but worry,” she said, “about what he might do once he finds us.”
“No need to worry, Your Luminance. I have everything under control.”
Serilda frowned, doubtful.
“Don’t give me that look,” he said, and she laughed again. It was far too dark for him to see her. “Everything is under control.”
Serilda scooted closer so that their shoulders were touching. “They are hunters, Gild. And we are trapped inside a castle on an island that we cannot escape. He will find us.”
“The point isn’t to evade him forever,” said Gild, tilting his head to press his brow against hers. “Only until sundown.”
“What happens at sundown?”
“The veil falls and the feast begins. But they can’t start without the bride, which means he’ll have to pay your ransom, which means bargaining with me. The poltergeist. He will be very embarrassed. And that is the point.”
Serilda considered this. “All this, just to humiliate him?”
“You say that like it’s a petty goal.”
“Well … it is. A bit.”
“I can’t kill him,” said Gild. “I can’t defeat him. I can’t keep him from marrying you. Let me have this, Serilda.”
She wilted. “All right. Until sundown, then.”
Sundown.
It wasn’t that far away. An hour at most.
An hour.
What would they do for an hour?
She inhaled sharply, suddenly aware of just how confined this cabinet was. The heavy cloaks pressing against them. The wooden walls squeezing them in together. The length of his arm against hers. The warmth of his palm. The way her skin tingled with every accidental touch.
If they were accidental at all.
What could they do for an hour…?
Gild cleared his throat and scooted an inch away from her, which was all the space he could move. “Those were, um—” he started, then cleared his throat a second time. “Some pretty intense vows, during the ceremony. Almost romantic, even.”
It was as if he’d known exactly what to say to chill the feelings that had started to simmer inside her.
She released his hand and pulled back toward her corner of the cabinet.
“Just another one of his games,” she said, wishing she weren’t already so flustered, for her wavering voice did not make the statement sound particularly sincere. “He was mocking me.”
“Yeah. Yeah. That really sounded like mockery.”
“Gild, you know I don’t love him. I could never love him. Or even like him. I would never choose him if I had a choice.”
“Of course,” he said. “Of course I know that.”
But she wasn’t sure if she believed him.
“He killed my father,” she said, more forcefully now. “He killed—”
“Hush!”
“No, Gild, you have to—”
“Serilda!”
She froze, hearing it, too, now. Howling.
They had released the hellhounds.
“Great,” whispered Serilda. “How long before they find us?” She hesitated, considering. “Can they find us? We’re spirits. Can they still smell us?”
“Us, maybe not,” said Gild. “But I bet they can smell that ridiculous costume you’re wearing easily enough.”
Serilda pressed a hand to the sides of her leather jerkin. She’d forgotten about the hunting gear. “You don’t like it?”
Gild’s response was a grunt, which she did not know how to interpret. “You know,” he said, “this would be easier if you could just…”
Serilda heard a finger snap.
Then, silence.
“Gild?” She reached for him, but her hand met empty space, then the back of the wardrobe.
A creak of a door was followed by a flood of light. Serilda threw up her arm to protect her eyes.
“Come on,” said Gild, reaching in and grabbing her arm. He tugged her out beside him. “Do you think you could try?”
“Try what?” she said, squinting as her eyes adjusted to the pink light filtering in through the windows. Twilight was approaching. “Doing your … thing?” She snapped her fingers in imitation.
“Exactly. You’ve got to learn sooner or later.”
“Do I, though?”
“Just try it. Meet me in the gatehouse.”
No sooner had he said it than he vanished.
Serilda glowered. “Show-off.” But her words were met by another howl, much closer than before. “Fine. No harm in trying.”
She squeezed her eyes shut and pictured the gatehouse above the drawbridge as clearly as she could. Then she raised her hand and gave a snap of her fingers.
And waited.
There was a change in the air, she was sure of it. The light filtering through her eyelids was different, dimmer.
She opened first one eye, and then the other.
Definitely not the gatehouse. Instead, Serilda had transported herself to what had been guardrooms before, but were now mostly for storage and—from the looks of the plain straw cots laid out along the floor—for housing some of the ghosts.
She held still a long moment, listening. When she heard no hounds and no footsteps, she approached the door and opened it a crack, peeking out into a small dining room with a long, narrow table and benches.
A face appeared on the other side of the door, inches from her own.
Serilda gasped and slammed the door shut, hurling herself backward.
She collided with a body that surely hadn’t been there before. Arms encircled her. She opened her mouth to scream.
“Shhh, it’s me!”
The scream caught in her throat.
Yanking herself away, she spun to see Gild beaming at her. “Sorry,” he said. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”
Pulse racing, she pointed at the closed door. “Was that you, too?”
“Yep. When you didn’t show up at the gatehouse, I thought maybe I’d try here. Gatehouse, guardhouse—so similar, right? It happened to me when I was first figuring out how to do this, too. So, it’s a start. And we were able to evade capture a while longer.”
Catching her breath, Serilda strained to listen again. She thought maybe she heard voices, but they were distant and might have been coming from the far-off courtyard for all she knew.
The courtyard. Where the dark ones who weren’t actively involved in hunting down the missing bride would now be gathered.
Where the servants would be gathered, finishing their preparations for the night.
Where the children would be waiting for her.
She swallowed. “Gild … I think it’s been long enough. He will already be furious, and if he should lash out at the children…”
She met his gaze and watched as his easy grin slipped away, replaced with worry. “He’ll be angry with me, not you. He wouldn’t punish them for this.”
“I hope not, but … I can’t be sure. And neither can you.”
He opened his mouth to speak, but hesitated.
“When he killed them,” said Serilda, “it was to punish me. Because I tried to escape him. He took them instead.” Tears began to gather in her eyes as soon as she said the words and the memory of that awful morning returned. At first she’d thought the hunt had taken the children as a threat, and that the Erlking would return them to their families once Serilda gave herself up.
But then she’d seen the bodies …
“It isn’t your fault,” said Gild. He slipped his arms around her, pulling her against his chest. “He’s a monster. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
She sniffed into his shirt. “Maybe, but even so … they’re my responsibility now. And if I anger him, I don’t know what he’ll do.”
Gild squeezed her tighter, even as he let out a frustrated breath. “Damn bloodthirsty demon, always ruins everything.”
She let out a strained laugh.
“All right. If you’re that worried, I’ll take you back.”
