Page 14 of Rumpelstilzchen

When the last sack had been wedged tightly in with the others, the lamps had been deposited as per the Queen’s instruction, and the remaining guards had unloaded that menacing spinning wheel and set it squarely in the centre of the room, Boy sank onto the low bed with a thin, down-filled mattress, and scrubbed his hand over his dirty face.

The day might have changed, but his dire circumstances remained the same. The ominous bang of the door being barred shut as the guards left barely disturbed Boy’s churning thoughts.

He’d expected to be dead by now.

Boy’s gaze was drawn to the bright rays of morning sun that illuminated the plentiful dust motes as they twirled through the air. This was a sunrise he shouldn’t have experienced, and the only explanation he had for any of it was that the Queen’s Shadow must have used his magick to spin the straw into gold once Boy had fallen asleep. But why? Boy struggled to reconcile the legends he knew about the spirit with his actions the night before.

A chill autumn breeze drifted over the wooden floor, gusting against Boy’s bare legs, and his gaze immediately snapped to the gap underneath the door. Agonising seconds ticked by, but when no shadowed tendrils were forthcoming, Boy let out a defeated exhale. He wished they would come back—he missed their comforting embrace.

But why would they? Boy was nobody special, and the Royal Shadow had got what he wanted: one night with company he didn’t have to kill.

Boy draped his forearm over his brow in a vain attempt to stem the tears that built behind his eyes. He was sure he hadn’t imagined it, though. There had been something in the way the geist had looked at him—in the way those shadows had touched him—that had assured Boy he was safe with the most feared spirit in Falchovari.

If it had been just as the man said, then Boy had dutifully fulfilled his end of their tacit agreement, and there was no other reason he could think of for the geist to have done as he had. Unless…

Boy’s breaths rushed out in shallow pants. Unless the Queen’s Shadow wanted more. Spinning the straw into gold had bought them both another day, but was the extra time a gift for the geist, or for Boy?

Tormented by questions, Boy’s heart pounded in his chest, and the energy spike that had coursed through his veins when the Queen woke him waned like the moon.

eight

Rumple

Frown lines were etched deep into Rumple’s brow as he gazed at his reflection in the looking glass in his high Tower room, but what plagued his thoughts was not his usual fixation on the acquisition of old grimoires that might teach him how to break free of his entrapment. Instead, he was consumed by memories of the boy in the cell.

How many times had his shadows acted without his express command the night before? Once even under the boy’s explicit instruction. Not that Rumple had tried too hard to recall them when they had slipped under the boy’s tunic and stroked over his bare skin. Or when they had eased inside his woollen breeches and found him hard and wanting. Especially not when they had brought him so much pleasure that he came from their touch alone.

Rumple had known then, beyond a doubt. The boy was his missing Heart.

Rumple wanted to turn back time. To revisit the exact moment the boy had made his shadows twitch with such raw need that he’d fought hard not to unbuckle his belt and demand the boy stretch those plump lips around him and not that strawberry. Trapped behind a layer of thick and luxurious fabric, the strain in Rumple’s breeches matched the strain in his jaw exactly.

Historically, whenever he had taken a human lover and his shadows had acted on their urges during coitus, they had bitten and cut into them, feeding on their inner darkness until there was little left of them. Yet for the boy who had knelt so beautifully at Rumple’s feet, they had lapped eagerly at his skin and tenderly stroked over his scalp, and the sight had broken the floodgates of his desire.

He grunted in self-reproach. Rumple could fantasise all he wanted, but without a way to rid himself of Queen Schön’s black magick, he couldn’t claim his Heart.

It was this loss of autonomy that had slowly, over the years, caused Rumple to lose his love and enjoyment of the things he used to relish. Yes, he was permitted to roam the length and breadth of Falchovari, and he also had a full pick from her courtesans and whorehouses, but they had long stopped holding his interest. Like him, they too were under her thrall and, like him, the light had long since gone from their eyes. But the boy in the cell? His eyes sparkled with all the glitter of the golden thread he had spun—and Rumple wanted.

He turned his back on his reflection.

Spinning the thread into gold was an act of treason, but he’d been left with no other choice: the boy was his Heart and the Queen would have had him killed.

As if his thoughts had summoned her, the barbs of black magick in his chest dug themselves ever deeper. Rumple staggered forward before he regained his footing.

“Mirror, mirror. Show me my Shadow.”

Once again, his services were needed.

The Falchovarian forest was so large and dense that it was said a man could walk for a full turn of the moon and not make it out the other side. Which is why the Queen always called on Rumple whenever she had business there that required her attention. Being that he was a malevolent spirit who could travel as fast as light, it took him barely any time at all to find her current person of interest. Especially as he insisted on wearing that ridiculous red cloak in an environment that consisted predominantly of shades of brown and green. He was practically asking to be eaten.

Rumple hadn’t yet made himself known to the little archer. After all, the Queen had asked only that he locate the cloaked brat, make sure that he wasn’t being distracted from the mission she had sent him on, and report back. Apparently, five nights was long enough for him to have acquired his target. Rumple didn’t think so, but then he knew a different side of Red than Her Majesty did.

Rumple seeped from shadow to shadow, thankful the forest’s canopy was so thick with foliage that barely any light pierced through to the overgrown trails below where Red picked his way along lost in thought. Rumple sighed. This was shaping up to be a long and tedious day.

But as he glided unseen through the darkness, he noticed his shadows were invigorated, their previously dense and rigid expression having eased. In its place, however, was a gnawing urge to claim—to possess—and the further he roamed from the palace, the louder and more insistent his shadows became.

They replayed the prior evening’s events on a loop in his mind, as if Rumple might have forgotten what he stood to lose by leaving his Heart unprotected in the cells.

Images of the boy filled every corner of Rumple’s noncorporeal form. How those tears had burned his shadows like nothing else ever had, and the heady weight of the trust he had bestowed on Rumple when he’d placed his hand in his. Even the memory of his touch lingered.