Serilda knew he could force them to obey, but he waited for them to approach on their own. Hesitant, but with so much courage that Serilda wanted to pull each of them against her and scatter kisses atop their heads.
“I give to you,” said the king, “your footman.” He gestured at Hans. “Your groom.” Nickel. “Your personal messenger.” Fricz. “And of course, every queen needs a lady-in-waiting.” He tucked a finger beneath Anna’s chin. She flinched, but he pretended not to notice. “How do you greet your queen, little servants?”
The children looked wide-eyed at Serilda.
“It will be all right,” she lied.
Anna acted first, fumbling into a curtsy. “Your … Highness?”
“Very good,” said the Erlking.
The boys bowed uncomfortably. Serilda wanted this to be done with. This false spectacle, the appalling pretense. She wanted to go somewhere she could embrace them, tell them how sorry she was. That she would do anything she could to end this for them. She would not allow them to be trapped here forever in this castle, beholden to the Erlking. She wouldn’t.
“Well?” said the king. “Are you satisfied?”
She wanted to be sick all over him. Instead, she said, “I will be once I’ve seen Gerdrut go free.”
“Ah yes, the small one. Thank you for reminding me. I give you my final betrothal gift.” He raised his voice. “Manfred? The girl.”
A groan echoed to them from above and Serilda gasped, her attention darting back up to Gild. He still was not looking at her.
At her side, Anna clasped her hand, her ghostly touch so shocking that Serilda almost pulled away.
Anna looked up at her, tears glistening in her eyes. Serilda tried to smile, when she looked past the children and saw what Anna must have seen.
The coachman was emerging from the crowd. He glanced from Serilda and the children to the king, and Serilda wondered if she was imagining the flash of resentment, even hatred, in his eye. Then he held his hand toward someone who was tucked amid the ghosts. A moment later, he was leading Gerdrut toward Serilda and the king.
This time, Serilda did cry out, a scream that would echo in her thoughts for as long as she was trapped here.
Gerdrut clasped the coachman’s hand, tears tracking down her cherub face, her silhouette fading at the edges. A hole where her sweet heart used to be.
“I think,” added the king, “that she will make a fine chambermaid. Don’t you agree?”
Serilda wailed, feeling as though all her insides had been torn out. “You promised. You promised!” She spun toward him, rage burning up every rational thought. “You cannot expect me to lie for you. I will never tell anyone that you are the fa—”
His mouth descended on hers, one arm roping around her waist, pulling her against him.
Her words were cut off into a smothered scream. She tried to shove at his chest, but it made little difference. His other hand dug into the hair at the base of her neck, immobilizing her as he broke the kiss.
She wanted to retch in his face.
Distantly, she heard the rattle of chains. Gild trying to get free.
“I promised her freedom,” the Erlking murmured, his lips brushing hers with each movement. “And that is what I shall grant. Once you have fulfilled your end of the bargain and given me this child, I will release their spirits to Verloren.” He paused, pulling away so that he could hold her gaze. “Isn’t that what you want for them, my queen?”
She couldn’t bring herself to respond. Fury was still pounding inside her skull, and all she wanted to do was claw that haughty smirk from his face.
Taking her silence for agreement, the Erlking tipped down her head and placed another cool kiss against her brow.
To their onlookers, it must have appeared a gesture of sweetest affection.
They could not have seen the gloating laughter in his eyes as he whispered, “Long reign the queen.”
Chapter 56
The children had fallen asleep on top of the massive bed that once seemed like the grandest luxury. Serilda watched them now, recalling how giddy she’d been to see feathered pillows and velvet drapes. How she had marveled at all this castle had to offer.
When this had all seemed a little bit like a fairy tale.
How preposterous.
She was grateful, at least, that sleep was still possible for them. She didn’t know if ghosts needed rest, but it was a small blessing to know that there would be moments of respite in this tragic captivity.
She wasn’t sure if she needed rest. She could understand a bit more now, how Gild had known he was different. She was not dead. She was not a ghost, like the children, like the rest of the king’s servants.
But what did that make her?
Tired, she thought. She felt so very tired. Yet restless, too.
She found herself thinking about the games that she had played when she was young with the other children in the village. Those whose parents hadn’t forbidden them from playing with her, that is.
They were princes and princesses. Damsels and knights. They built castles of twigs and made woven crowns of bluebells and swanned around the fields as if they were nobles in Verene. They had imagined a life of jewels and parties and feasts—oh, the feasts they had dreamed up—the dances, the balls.
Serilda had been so very good at dreaming. Even then, her peers were eager to hear her turn their simple musings into unparalleled adventures.
But never had it crossed Serilda’s mind, not for the shortest swallow trill, that it might come true.
She would live in a castle.
She would be wed to a king.
She would be wed to a monster.
And, true, his court might be sumptuous in its own way. Feasting, dancing, merriment, and drink. She might even be given gifts and an imitation of romance—the king would have to feign some amount of adoration for her if he was to convince everyone that he was the father of her child. But she would be a prisoner more than a queen. She would have no power. No one would heed her commands or listen to her pleas. No one would help her, unless the king permitted it.
A possession. He’d called her a possession, and that was only when she was the novel gold-spinner. Now she would be a wife, tied to him in whatever ceremony the dark ones used to commemorate such things.
And amid all this turmoil was still the disbelieving joy, somehow impossible to tamp down. She was going to have a child.
She would be a mother.
Unless that child was ripped out of her arms and given to the huntress Perchta the moment it was born. The thought brought bile to her mouth.