Page 16 of Rumpelstilzchen

This young man, who bore his Heart’s resemblance, was sitting in the shallows of an icy plunge pool, cradling a sodden and shivering hound in his arms, as another much older and more rugged man laughed cruelly. Rumple understood at once what must have transpired, and ordinarily he would move on—he was no one’s saviour—but he was caught in a trance. His mind was aware that this was not the same boy, not his boy, and yet his phantom heart convinced him that it was.

Rumple didn’t have his Heart. Not yet. Neither did he have the capacity to figure out what was happening before he found himself halfway down the embankment in some sort of grotesque and demonic form.

His thick shadows smoked fiercely and lashed out at the man who threatened his boy’s double before he had time to draw his next breath. Rumple’s shadows coiled tightly around his midsection, and they dragged him slowly toward the same body of water in which he had just tried to drown either the boy or the puppy—or both.

The shadows did this slowly—purposefully—not because the man was too heavy to move any quicker, but so that as they hauled him towards the brackish, icy water, the man had time to realise his fate. So that he would struggle and weep and beg. So that his desperate cries would fill the air… and the gaping hole inside Rumple.

A hole he had almost given up on until a boy with impossibly rich brown eyes, who had submitted to him so fully, flayed him wide open and exposed it. And now he would do the same to the man who squirmed against the vice-like grip of his power.

His shadows undulated as they smothered the man in the shallow water. They writhed and heaved as they ate at his flesh and peeled it from his skin. The horrified cries soothed Rumple’s nerves, and frustrated anger morphed into sadistic want.

What was left of the man drew a final, gasping breath, and Rumple’s senses returned. How many years now had he been enthralled to Queen Schön? And despite that being against his will, how many uprisings had he quelled for her? How many people had he killed to help her keep her throne and kingdom? And in all that time, never once had his portrayed allegiance been anything other than stellar.

His blackened gaze darted to the soaked and retreating form of the boy as he limped up the bank on the other side of the river, the puppy nestled safely in his hold. Rumple watched him leave.

That wasn’t his boy; his boy would never run away from him or his shadows. His boy would kneel, rest his head, accept the food Rumple offered, and lick his fingers clean in gratitude…

Rumple dematerialised back into the shadowed sanctuary of the forest.

He had searched his entire life for his Heart, and now that he had found it—found him—he would find a way to claim him for his own.

Even if he had to continue his deceit toward Queen Schön to do so.

nine

Rumple

When he reached the Royal District, Rumple’s shadows were all but vibrating with need. Unseen, he seeped through the paltry palisade that barely kept the drunk and disorderly Royal Guard in, let alone any credible threat out. From there, he swept into the outer bailey, much as he had the previous evening, and sank into the undercroft where the palace’s cells were. His report to the Queen could wait, the boy in the cell could not—but the boy’s cell was empty!

The upturned bucket in the corner still held the remains of the burned-out oil lamp upon it, but the spinning wheel and his Heart were gone.

Consternation rode him hard as Rumple materialised and crouched to pick up a dried stalk of maize from the floor. Only hours ago, this had formed part of the bed he had felt compelled to make when he lulled the boy to sleep, and it would still contain a trace of his essence within it. He crushed it in his gloved fist, opened his palm, blew the grits into the air, and returned to his shadowed form.

Following his Heart’s essence, Rumple flowed deeper through the undercroft until he emerged on the far side of the inner bailey. The market stalls and their traders had long since packed up for the day, and the magick-infused grits didn’t linger. They breezed east along the trail, and Rumple’s gaze fixed on the view of the gallows through the iron gatehouse at the end of the gravelled path.

Why was he being led this way? His shadows thickened with menacing intent. Yes, his Heart was the Queen’s prisoner, but for all her faults, Rumple had always known her to be a woman of her word. The boy had been very clear last night; Her Majesty had given him until sunrise to spin the straw into golden thread. Rumple had transmuted the precious metal himself—his Heart should have been spared!

He pushed his magick harder. If Queen Schön had reneged on her deal and murdered the boy while he was on yet another one of her self-serving missions he would find a way to kill her, black magick be damned.

The swirl of grits suddenly banked right and slammed into the barred and closed door of the Fachhallenhaus at the end of the row. The run-down farmhouse was mere steps from the gatehouse.

Unprecedented relief flooded Rumple’s system when his shadows filtered between the splintered wooden planks of the door, where the grits had fallen upon the threshold. The boy hadn’t been escorted to the gallows in his absence after all, but had instead received an upgrade to his accommodation. Although this pleased Rumple, the urgent need to see for himself that his Heart was unharmed—and alive—prevented the emotion from taking root.

The sound of steady and rhythmic breathing came from the chamber bay at the far end of the low farmhouse, and there, draped sideways over a narrow cot as if he had sat on the edge of the thin mattress and simply fallen asleep where he was, lay the boy. The split soles of his boots dangled just above the bare floor, and his forearm covered his eyes as if to block out the light while he dozed. The sight warmed Rumple. Even when alone, his Heart sought out the darkness.

Unable to resist, he watched the boy in his slumber. If Rumple were capable of getting drunk, he’d describe the feelings within him as intoxicating. The boy was undeniably beautiful with his mop of honey-blond curls and dusting of cinnamon freckles across the bridge of his nose and cheeks—but it was more than the simple sum of his parts. There was a vulnerability about him that triggered something in Rumple, a yearning he hadn’t ever experienced before.

The boy embodied pure innocence, and the longer he stared, the stronger the temptation to indulge became. A wicked smirk tugged at Rumple’s lips.

Rumple commanded his shadows to fortify the Fachhallenhaus. They haunted the furthest reaches of the gabled farmhouse, including the bays along the outer walls that he only now noticed were piled high with more bags of straw. So that was the motivation behind the boy’s relocation into the Merchant’s Quarters?

There were six bays that flanked the length of the low hall, and within each, hessian sacks of straw were piled three high. No doubt remained in Rumple’s mind that the Queen would expect all thirty-six sacks to be spun into golden thread.

Had she offered him the same generous deal as before? Did the boy have until daybreak to complete his task? It didn’t matter. Rumple had already decided that if buying himself the time to discover how to claim his Heart meant spinning all the straw in Falchovari into gold, then that was exactly what he would do.

He materialised before the sleeping boy and stood between his already spread legs. Belatedly, he realised that the cuffs of his brocade coat had dried flecks of blood on them. While a natural consequence of who—of what—he was, it felt wrong to be in such a state when faced with his present company. As if the blood of his victims would mar him more than Rumple already had. He was brushing at the stains when the boy stirred.

Those deep brown eyes widened as they looked up at Rumple before they darted away. His Adam’s apple, pronounced under the sensitive skin of his neck, bobbed when he swallowed.