Page 7 of Gilded

Then—a sound so distant it might have been her imagination if not for the ice-cold finger it sent skimming down her spine.

Howls.

Almost wolflike, which was not uncommon. Their neighbors took great care to protect their flocks from the predators that regularly came prowling.

But there was something different about this cry. Something unholy. Something savage.

“Hellhounds,” she whispered to herself. “The hunt.”

She sat wide-eyed in shaken silence for a long while, listening to see if she could discern whether they were coming closer or moving farther away, but there was only the crackling of the fire and the rowdy snores in the next room. She began to wonder whether it had been a dream. Her wandering mind getting her into trouble yet again.

Serilda sank back into the cot and pulled the blankets to her chin, but her eyes would not close. She stared at the door, where moonlight seeped through the gaps.

Another howl, then another, in rapid succession, sent her jerking upward again, her heart rattling in her chest. These had been loud. Much louder than before.

The hunt was coming closer.

Serilda once again forced herself to lie down, and this time she screwed her eyes shut so tight her whole face was pinched up. She knew that sleep was impossible now, but she had to pretend. She had heard too many stories of villagers being lured from their beds by the seduction of the hunt, only to be found shivering in their nightgowns at the edge of the forest the next dawn.

Or, for the unlucky ones, never seen again at all. And historically, she and luck didn’t get along well. Best not to take her chances.

She vowed to stay right where she was, motionless, barely breathing, until the ghostly parade had passed. Let them find some other hapless peasant to prey on. Her need for excitement was not yetthatdesperate.

She curled herself into a ball, clutching the blanket in her fingertips, waiting for the night to be over. What a great story she would tell the children after this.Of course the hunt is real, for I’ve heard it with my own—

“No—Meadowsweet! This way!”

A girl’s voice, trembling and shrill.

Serilda’s eyes snapped open again.

The voice had been so clear. It had sounded as if it had come from right outside the window above her bed, which her father had nailed a board over at the start of winter to help keep out the cold.

The voice came again, more frightened still: “Quick! They’re coming!”

Something banged against the wall.

“I’m trying,” another feminine voice whined. “It’s locked!”

They were so close, as if Serilda could reach her hand through the wall and touch them.

She realized with a start that whoever it was, they were trying to get into the cellar beneath the house.

They were trying to hide.

Whoever they were, they were being hunted.

Serilda gave herself no time to think, or to wonder whether it might be a trick of the hunters to lure out fresh prey. To lureherfrom the safety of her bed.

She tossed her feet out from the blankets and rushed to the door. In a blink, she had thrown her cloak on over her nightgown and stuffed her feet into her still-damp boots. She grabbed the lantern off its shelf and fumbled briefly with a matchstick before the wick flared to life.

Serilda yanked open the door and was struck with a gust of wind, a flurry of snowflakes—and a squeal of surprise. She swiveled the lantern toward the cellar door. Two figures were crouched against the wall, their long arms entwined around each other, their immense eyes blinking at her.

Serilda blinked back, equally stunned. For though she had knownsomeonewas out here, she had not expected to discover that they were actuallysomething.

These creatures were not human. At least, not entirely. Their eyes were enormous black pools, their faces as delicate as spindle flowers, their ears tall and pointed and a little fuzzy, like those of a fox. Their limbs were long and willowy branches and their skin shone tawny gold in the glow of the lantern—and there was a lot of skin to be seen. Despite being in the middle of winter, the collection of fur pelts they wore covered little more than what was necessary for the barest sense of modesty. Their hair was cut short and wild and, Serilda realized with a heady sense of awe, was not hair at all, but tufts of lichen and moss.

“Moss maidens,” she breathed. For of all her many tales of the dark ones and the nature spirits and all manner of ghosts and ghouls, in all her eighteen years Serilda had only ever met plain, boring humans.