Page 160 of Gilded

As the prince stepped into the courtyard, a stench engulfed him, one that nearly stopped his heart.

The unmistakable smell of blood.

The prince reached for his sword, but it was too late. Death had already come to the castle. No one had been spared. Not the guards, not the servants. Bodies were sprawled across the courtyard. Broken, maimed, torn to pieces.

The prince ran into the keep, shouting to anyone who might hear him. Desperately hoping there might be someone who had survived. His mother. His father. The nursemaid who had often comforted him, the sword master who had trained him, the tutors who had taught and scolded and praised him into adulthood, the stable boy who had sometimes joined in his childhood mischief.

But everywhere he went, he saw only the echo of violence. Brutality and death.

Everyone was gone.

Everyone.

The prince found himself in the throne room. He felt ripped to shreds at the extent of the massacre, but when his eyes fell on the dais, it was rage that overtook him.

The Erlking sat on the king’s throne, a crossbow on his lap and a smile on his lips, while the bodies of the king and queen had been strung up like tapestries on the wall behind him.

With a wail of fury, the prince raised his sword and began to charge the villain, but in that same moment, the Erlking fired an arrow tipped in pure gold.

The prince screamed. He dropped the sword and fell to his knees, cradling his arm. The arrow had not gone completely through but remained lodged in his wrist.

With a snarl, he looked up and staggered back to his feet. “You should have aimed to kill,” he told the Erlking.

But the villain merely smiled. “I do not want you dead. I want you to suffer. As I have suffered. As I will continue to suffer for the rest of time.”

The prince claimed the sword with his other hand. But when he again went to charge for the Erlking—something tugged on his arm, holding him in place. He looked down at the bloodied arrow shaft trapped in his limb.

The Erlking rose from the throne. Black magic sparked in the air between them.

“That arrow now tethers you to this castle,” he said. “Your spirit no longer belongs to the confines of your mortal body, but will be forever trapped within these walls. From this day into eternity, your soul belongs to me.” The Erlking lifted his hands and darkness cloaked the castle, spreading through the throne room and out to every corner of that forsaken place. “I lay claim to all of this. To your family’s history, your beloved name—and Icurseit all. The world will forget you. Your name will be burned from the pages of history. Not even you will remember the love you might have known. Dear prince, you will be forever alone, tormented until the end of time—just as you’ve left me. And you will never understand why. Let this be your fate, until your name, forgotten by all, should be spoken once more.”

The prince slumped forward, crushed beneath the weight of the curse.

Already the words of the spell were stealing through his mind. Memories of his childhood, his family, all that he had ever known and loved, were pulling apart like threads of spun yarn.

His last thought was of the stolen princess. Bright and clever, the keeper of his heart.

While he could still remember her, he looked at the Erlking with tears gathering in his eyes and managed to choke out his last words before the curse claimed him.

“My sister,” he pleaded. “Have you trapped her soul in this world? Will I ever see again?”

But the Erlking merely laughed. “Foolish prince. What sister?”

And the prince could only stare, dumbfounded and hollow. He had no answer. He had no sister. No past. No memories at all.

Serilda exhaled, shaken by the story that had spilled out of her and the lurid visions it had conjured. She was still alone in the throne room, but the smell of blood had returned, thick and metallic. She looked down to see the floor awash with it, dark and congealed, its surface the sheen of a black mirror. It pooled at her feet, to the base of the throne’s dais, covering the broken stones, splattered across the walls.

But there was one place, only a few steps in front of her, that was untouched. A perfect circle, as if the blood had struck an invisible wall.

Serilda swallowed hard against the lump that had begun to clog her throat as she told the story. She could see it all clearly now. The prince standing amid the bloodshed in this very room. She could picture his flame-red hair. The freckles on his cheeks. The flecks of gold in his eyes. She could see his fury and his sorrow. His courage and his devastation. She had seen it all herself—how he wore these emotions in the set of his shoulders and the quirk of his lips and the vulnerability in his gaze. She had even seen the scar on his wrist, where the arrow had pierced him. Where the Erlking had cursed him.

Gild.

Gild was the prince. This was his castle and the stolen princess was his sister and—

And he had no idea. He didn’t remember any of it. Hecouldn’tremember any of it.

Serilda inhaled a shaky breath and dared to finish the story, her voice barely a whisper.