Page 164 of Gilded

Serilda gritted her teeth. “I will keep that in mind, when I finally cross his path.” She lifted her chin. “If we have a deal, then I am ready to complete your task.”

His pale eyes glinted in the torchlight. “Everything is already prepared for you.”

Chapter 52

As the king strode past her, Serilda ushered the children to her sides. Touching them, she remembered how it had first felt when Manfred had helped her into the carriage, so many months ago.

They were real. They were solid. But their skin was brittle and delicate and cool to the touch. They felt like they would crumple to ash, but that didn’t prevent her from squeezing them into a giant hug in a hasty attempt to give some comfort.

The Erlking cleared his throat impatiently.

She gripped Anna’s and Nickel’s hands and followed after him, ignoring how the sensation made her skin crawl. Fricz and Hans huddled at their sides.

The king led them to the courtyard.

Emerging into daylight was bewildering enough. The castle was not ruins. She really had forced her way to this side of the veil, and now she was in the bailey beneath the bright sun. Her feet stalled.

A spinning wheel sat in the center of the yard, beside a cart laden with straw. It was a small pile, not much larger than a barrel of wine.

And all around it, gathered within the looming stone walls, were the residents of Adalheid Castle.

The hunters. The servants. The bruised stable boy, the one-eyed coachman, the headless woman. Hundreds of undead humans, and at least as many kobolds. All silent and still, their eyes upon her as she stepped into their midst.

As a group, their ephemeral figures were more pronounced. Their cumulative silhouettes wisping upward like smoke off the last remnants of a bonfire. They seemed so tenuous, as though a breath could blow them away.

She could not keep herself from scanning their faces, searching for a woman who might look a little bit like her. Hoping that one of these ghostly women might recognize the child she’d once loved, now full grown.

But if her mother was there, Serilda did not recognize her.

Her attention drifted toward the dark ones. Their graceful forms and cunning eyes. All dressed in the finest of furs and leather armor and hunting gear. They were the nobles of this castle, and as such, they stood apart from the ghostly entourage, their expressions unreadable.

The contrast between the two groups was stark. The dark ones in all their pristine, unearthly beauty. The ghosts with their battered bodies and bleeding wounds.

Then there were the creatures—nightmare drudes, snarling goblins, the soulless nachtkrapp.

All the court was there, and they were waiting forher.

Serilda’s stomach dropped.No.

This would not work. There would be no more dungeons. No locked doors. The king intended for her to give a demonstration. She was his prize, and he was ready to show her off to his kingdom, just as he’d once showed off the tatzelwurm to her.

She swallowed hard and glanced around again. She didn’t realize she was looking for Gild until disappointment at his absence clawed at her.

Not that it mattered.

He could not spin for her, not in front of everyone. And even if he could … she’d promised herself that she would not allow him to. Not again.

But that was before.

Before the children had been taken.

Before she’d realized he still had Gerdrut. That she could still save her.

“Behold,” said Erlkönig, the Alder King, his eyes locked on Serilda’s but his voice raised for the gathered crowd, “the Lady Serilda of Märchenfeld, godchild of Hulda.”

She did not look away.

“On the Snow Moon, this girl told me that she had been blessed with the gift of gold-spinning, and these past months, she has proven her worth, to me and to the hunt.” His lips curled upward. “As such, I thought that tonight, in celebration of our victorious hunt of the tatzelwurm, I would invite Lady Serilda to honor us all with the splendor of her gift.”