“Silence!” he roared. He looked like a different creature altogether, his face contorted into something decidedly unlovely. It hardly looked like him, who was usually so full of elegant composure. “This is a great disappointment, Lady Serilda.” Her name sounded like a snake’s hiss on his tongue.
“With all due respect, most people see babies as a gift.”
He snarled at her. “Most people are idiots.”
She clasped her hands pleadingly. “I could not have foreseen this. It was …” She shrugged. “It was only one night.”
“You spun the gold not a month ago!”
She nodded. “I know. This happened … not long after.”
He glared at her, looking like he wished he could reach straight into her womb and rip the alien creature out with his fist.
“You summoned, Your Grim?”
She glanced over her shoulder to see a ghostly man in a long-sleeved tunic. Half his face was bloated, his lips fat and tinged purple. Poison? Drowning? Serilda wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
Removing the hunting crossbow from his back, the Erlking sank onto his throne and used the weapon to gesture carelessly at Serilda, still on her knees. “The wretched girl is with child.”
Serilda flushed. She knew she shouldn’t have expected the king to respect her privacy, but still—this was her secret to tell. And for now she was only interested in telling it in order to save Gerdrut.
And, she thought, her child.
Her child.
Again her fingers went to her stomach. She knew it was far too early to feel anything. There was no rounding of her belly, and certainly no movement within. She longed to run home, to talk to her father and ask him everything he could remember about her mother’s pregnancy—until she remembered that he was not there, and unspeakable sorrow crashed over her.
Papa would have been a wonderful grandfather.
But she couldn’t think of that now, even if the man responsible for her father’s death was standing before her. Even if she despised him with every bone of her body. Right now, she needed to think only of saving herself. If she could survive this, then someday she would have a beautiful child to dote on, to love, to raise. She would be amother.She’d always loved children, and now, to be able to care for this innocent baby. To rock them to sleep and tell bedtime stories long into the night.
But—no,she reminded herself.
The child would have to be given to Gild.
What would he think when she told him? It was all so surreal, so impossible.
What would he do with ababy?
She almost laughed. The idea was simply too preposterous.
“Lady Serilda!”
She snapped her head up, lurching back into the throne room. “Yes?”
To her surprise, the Erlking’s cheeks were actually flushed. Not pink so much as a subtle grayish blue against his silvery skin, but still, it was more emotion than she would have thought he was capable of. His right hand was gripping the arm of the throne. His left held the crossbow, its tip rested against the floor.
Unloaded. Thankfully.
“How long, exactly,” he said slowly, as if speaking to a simpleton, “have you been in this condition?”
Her lips parted with, finally, an actual lie. “Three weeks.”
His sharp gaze darted to the man. “What can be done?”
The man, Redmond, inspected her with arms crossed. He pondered for a moment, before offering the king a shrug. “This early, should be but a tiny thing. Maybe the size of a pea.”
“Good,” said the Erlking. With a long, annoyed breath, he sat back against the throne. “Remove it.”