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She took a breath. “I know how the story ends. Or … how it ended.”
“The story?” He looked baffled. “About the prince? And the kidnapped princess?”
She nodded, and wished so desperately that she could tell him it had a happy ending. The prince killed the villain and rescued his sister after all. The words would have been so easy to say. They were on the tip of her tongue.
“Serilda, this hardly seems the time for fairy tales.”
“You’re right, but you must hear it,” she said, her hands falling to his shoulders, fidgeting with the wide linen collar of his shirt. “The prince came back to his castle, but the Erlking had arrived before him, and he … he killed everyone. Slaughtered the king and queen, all the servants …”
Gild shivered, but Serilda gripped the fabric, keeping him close. “When the prince returned, the king tethered his spirit to the castle, so he might be trapped in that miserable place forever. And for his final revenge, he put a curse on the prince, that no one—not even the prince himself—would ever remember him or his family. Their names, their history—it was all ripped away, so that he would be forever alone. So that he would never again know the feeling of love.”
Gild stared at her. “That’s it?That’show the story ends? Serilda, that is—”
“The truth, Gild.”
He hesitated, frowning.
“It’s the truth. It all happened, right here in this castle.”
He watched her, and she could tell the moment when the pieces began to fit together.
The things that made sense.
The questions that still lingered.
“What are you saying?” he whispered.
“It isn’t just a story. It’s real. And the prince … Gild, it’syou.”
This time, when he pulled away, she let him.
“The girl in the portrait was your little sister. The Erlking killed her. I don’t know if he kept her ghost. She might still be in Gravenstone.”
He ran a hand through his hair, staring into nothing. She could tell he wanted to argue, to deny it. But—how could he? He had no memories of his life before.
“What’s my real name, then?” he asked, looking up at her. “If I’m a prince, I’d be famous, wouldn’t I?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know your name. It was erased, as part of the spell. I’m not even sure if the Erlking himself knows what it is. But I do know that you aren’t a ghost. You aren’t dead. You’re just cursed.”
“Cursed,” he said, laughing without humor. “I’m well aware of that.”
“But don’t you see?” She took his hands. “This is a good thing.”
“How is being cursed a good thing?”
It was the question Serilda had been trying to answer her whole life.
She lifted his hand and placed a kiss against the pale scar on his freckled wrist, where a gold-tipped arrow had tethered his spirit to this castle, trapping him forever.
“Because curses can be broken.”
