Groaning, I sat up and left the bear against my pillow, tucking him in for good measure before I dressed. My numb fingers fumbled with my garments, breeding nothing but frustration. By the time I was acceptable, a knock sounded cheerily on my door.
Mythalzen didn’t wait for an answer. “Good morning, Lord Rumpelstiltskin!” He marched in, sweat beading on his brow. “I don’t mean to alarm you, but she’s missing again.”
I flinched. “What?” Could Esme—the best spy and warrior in my court—really not keep an eye on a single girl? “You’re joking.”
“I wish I were. The good news is: Esme saw where she went. The bad news is…Lady Mab noticed she was being followed and disappeared.”
“She is infuriating!” I threw on my cloak and raked a hand through my hair. “Can she really not bear to stay put for one day?”
“Well, her record at the palace would indicate…no.”
I glared at Mythalzen, but he had a point. At every turn, she called me, and we vanished from whatever confines her parents had placed around her. Duty returned her home then; no real duty bound her to my caverns. “Well, come on,” I snapped, stomping past him.
“Oh?” He trotted after me. “I get to come? How lovely! Shall I have the kitchen pack us a lunch?”
“You shall point me in the right direction.” I glowered, and he clopped ahead of me, leading me out of the caverns and to the ravine paths. Clouds blanketed the sky, washing the world in a soft gray. There would be a storm.
“We haven’t much time,” I murmured, following Mythalzen up the path and into the forest. Greedy eyes gleamed at us from the trees. Thin, pale creatures hobbled about in the brush, chattering amongst themselves. My teeth bared in their direction, and the silence of rustling leaves returned.
“Esme said it looked like she was following the line of the ravine, but she may have changed direction when spotted.” Mythalzen picked his way over fallen branches and days-old snow that still crusted the ground. I kept my hands clenched in my pockets and followed.
In this forest, the redcaps made tracking nearly impossible. Whatever trails left by anything other than their pack were turned over in a matter of minutes. Even now, I glanced behind us to find their diligent hands rearranging the snow and their icy breath refreezing the slush like our footsteps had never been.
I growled at them, and they darted back under the brush, sure to return once I had faced forward again. Pesky rats. The sky darkened further above us, and my lips pursed. Far more dangerous creatures appeared in these woods if given the chance. And the darkness of a tempest would provide all the chance they needed.
On cue, something huge and black streaked through the trees ahead of us, swerving with the howling wind. It fell against the earth like splatters of ink, and I caught a flash of bone. My jaw tightened.
“My lord, is that…” Mythalzen started.
I clasped his shoulder. “Yes. Head back to the caverns.”
“What?” he protested.
I dug my nails into his flesh and dragged my eyes off the creature to meet his. “Do as you’re told. Neither your deer half nor your satyr half is a warrior, but your deer half is a meal.”
He gave the beast one final look, nodded, and dodged back down the path we had come, crashing through complaining redcaps as he went. I breathed a sigh of relief then sneered. No doubt the thing had scented her, wherever she was.
Cutting through the trees, I rounded the creature, noting its direct path. She was ahead, straight ahead. The monster’s pale, bone skull never turned, its hollow, unseeing eyes never wavered. It didn’t care if it scented iron as long as it scented human flesh.
Her dark hair and silver clothes didn’t stand out against the white-wash of dull browns and slush, but I plucked Mabilia’s form out against the forest with ease. Head tilted back, she stared through the canopy at the sky, no doubt recognizing the storm that brewed despite never having witnessed the change in the air before. She faced me an instant before I plowed into her, throwing her away from the wendigo’s maws.
My hands skimmed her iron clothes, and I hissed, but I positioned my body before her when the monster howled, crunching the tree its razor-sharp mouth had clamped around. The wood cracked, and I whirled, snatching Mabilia up and out of the way when the branches careened for us.
“Rumpelstiltskin, what—” Her words clipped when the wendigo pinned us with its empty gaze. Its mouth hung open in a pant, and its roiling body of collapsing muscle spilled against the ground. It hadn’t eaten a human for years. My heart stampeded, and hers matched.
“What will you give me to save you from that?” I asked, my throat tight. Without a contract, I wouldn’t have the strength to fight it.
“Are you serious?” she breathed, her hand against my back. “You want me to pay so that thing doesn’t kill us?”
It lunged again. Teeth bared, I scooped Mabilia away and launched us into the trees. The cracking behind us signified the monstrosity had given chase. “It won’t kill me. It only feeds on human flesh, sometimes settling for animals.” Her iron cuff skimmed my neck as she shifted in my arms to peer over my shoulder. I roared, losing my footing. We tumbled to the ground, and I only narrowly managed to catch her weight before she hit the rocks and roots.
“How can you possibly be that selfish!” She pushed herself up over me, rage marring her features.
My hand clamped against my neck, I glanced past her, growled, and rolled us out of the way. “Your bear!” I yelled, finding my feet and wobbling on them before her. “I’ll do it for your bear.”
“Fine with me,” she gritted, still lying in the slush. “I already discarded that thing.”
She hadn’t. She really hadn’t. Swallowing bitterly, I spun on her and pecked her cheek to seal the contract. Power rushed through me in the instant I pulled away, and I took a calming breath.
Real magic, true miracles, were so rare for me now. Ever since I had split my soul and succumbed to the scars of iron, they had become difficult without aid. A contract with Mabilia washed all those past consequences away. The earth resonated through my boots, awakening the slumbering power within my chest. It burned bright.
The wendigo—as broken and deformed as it was—knew what it faced and hesitated. Its chest heaved, bone appearing past torn flesh, and air whistled out of the crevices. Lifting my hands, I called on the energy singing to me from the trees. They came alive at my prodding. Limbs stretched, snapping out of the ground and grabbing the monster.
It yowled and slashed, but I didn’t relent. Closing my fists, I locked countless branches around the being until a dreadful pop severed its scream. Silence returned to the woods, erased only by Mabilia’s breaths.
A dark liquid oozed from between the fingers of the wendigo’s coffin, and I turned away from it to face Mabilia. She didn’t look at me.
My jaw clenched. “What do you think you’re doing out here?” Panic entered my tone, causing my voice to spike, but I didn’t care. I threw out a hand, keeping the other tightly clasped. “Do you have any idea what could have happened?”
Wind rushed through the trees, whipping her hair across her cheeks when she finally graced me with her attention. Her eyes narrowed, and sarcasm laced her words. “Let me guess. I could have died.”
Incredulous, I flung out both arms. “Yes! You could have died!”
Her gaze fell, and my last nerve broke, until she stood and yanked on my hand. My teeth crashed together in a hiss. “What’s this?” she demanded. “That thing didn’t touch you.”
I peered at the singed mark from where I had brushed her clothes. Blood leaked from the wound.
Before I could answer, she tugged on my collar, dragging my face closer to hers than I could mentally handle at the moment. My heart still thumped erratically and magic still danced in my veins.
“And that.” Her finger traced the wound at my throat. I remained perfectly still as her brows lowered. “Is this where my armor brushed you?”
Concern ri
ppled in her blue gaze, and it took me off guard. My lips parted and closed only to part again. “It wouldn’t be the worst iron has done to me; this will heal.”
“Your hands,” she murmured, meeting my eyes. “What happened? And…” Her gaze flicked behind me. “What was that thing?”
“A wendigo. Simply put, it’s a human infected by a lust for the flesh of its own kind.”
“That was human?” Terror widened her gaze, and a shiver wracked her body, but she held her breath.
“Once,” I replied, curling my hand out of hers.
She winced. “And your hands? What happened to them? They never shook like this…before.”
Lifting my head, I peered down my nose at her. “I guided your parents to create a bobble that would erase the lasting effects for a time. Then, I stole it from them.”
The concern on her face snapped, but she snatched my hand again, shaking it at me. “You aren’t fooling anyone, Rumpelstiltskin. I can put two and two together, and I was there when you returned the ring to my mother. Will you explain to me why things don’t add up?” She dropped my arm. “Or was my friendship really so worthless to you?”
It was everything.
A laugh split the trees, and I cringed, looking down the path home. “Oh good, you’re both okay.” Mythalzen trotted to us, a wide grin on his face. “I was too worried to go far.”
A spark ignited in Mabilia’s gaze, and she whirled on Mythalzen like a vulture. “What happened to Rumpelstiltskin’s hands?”
“His hands?” Mythalzen’s brows rose.
“Don’t,” I warned.
His doe eyes blinked. “He used magic on iron to save your mother, didn’t he?”
My nose wrinkled as I curled my lips back from my teeth. I dropped the expression when Mabilia turned, planting her hands at her waist. “Excuse me? You did nothing for my mother! Explain what he means.”
“I don’t owe you an explanation,” I growled. “Can we please get away from the carcass? It’s starting to smell.”
“No.” She looked back at Mythalzen, nodding for him to continue.
He glanced at me, gnawed his lip, then said, “I don’t think I…”
“I will have answers. One way or another.” She sneered at me, pushing back the fall of her hair when another strong breeze beat through the trees. “Do they come through you and your pet, or do I have to get to them some other way?”
“There is no other way. No one else knows.”
“What a vital piece of information.” The wind picked up in a howl, and she hissed, snapping her fingers. It died on her order, and she exhaled. “It will certainly save me some time.” Pivoting on her heel, she stomped through the woods, back toward the caverns.
I watched her for a long moment, then sighed, dragging my shaking hand down my face.
“I’m…kind of scared of her, my lord.”
“So am I,” I mumbled, ushering him after her. “But likely for entirely different reasons.”
The concern in her eyes, the determination for the truth—she wasn’t trying to find reasons to hate me. She was searching for a way to absolve my crimes. Her belief in me was a drug coursing through my limbs. Could I stand to kill it?
Chapter 6
The Faerie King’s Plan
Absently, Mabilia pushed her late breakfast around on her plate. Eyes distant, her face shuffled through thoughts as though each had been assigned an expression. Her brows bent low, then one shot up. She blinked, toyed with something, and her lips pressed together. A sigh painted the canvas blank once more, and a bit of sausage ended up in her mouth before a new cycle started.
My fork hovered above my plate as I watched her. She was scheming. So clearly scheming. I could only suspect she had never before schemed in public.
Did she have the faintest clue how precious she looked?
All the clatter and conversations of the court faded while I watched her. Her mind in another world, her gaze drifted to the crystalline chandeliers above the long stretch of table, tracing the ridges of each gem. Light glimmered against her glass when she lifted it, but she paused before it reached her mouth.
Mabilia’s chair scraped against the stone as she stood, neglecting the glass.
“Where are you going?” Setting down my fork, I ignored my full plate of food.
She frowned, matching my glare. “What does it matter?”
“If this morning is any indication, it matters a great deal.” My expression waned.
A sly grin pulled her lips taut. “You should know by now I make it my duty to get into trouble.”
I stood. “As I recall, you never got into any without me.”
“As you said,” her expression darkened, “those days are behind us. Unless there’s any reason they shouldn’t be?”
Tension tightened the air in my lungs, but I watched her without shaking. Eventually, her gaze dropped first. “No,” she murmured, “of course not. The feared king of the fae needn’t make his devices clear to any. ’Twould be too simple.” With that, she turned on her heel and walked away.
Esme offered me a nod before following Mabilia out of the room. I released a breath and slid back into my chair, pressing my shaking fingers against my brow. “Go after her,” I mumbled.
“My lord?” Mythalzen ceased arranging his potatoes into a castle, and his eyes widened. “Why don’t you—”
“Because.” I exhaled. “Just do as your told.”
Standing, he bowed and clopped away. I melted into the empty noise in the space for a long minute, waiting for my head to reason with my heart. It was for her own good. It was to spare her worse things. If I told her the truth—if she accepted it and me—nothing would stand between us. Our soul belonged as one.
How could I allow her to realize that in the minutes before I had to die?
IGNORANCE WAS BLISS. I shuffled through the halls, weary, only that thought swirling in my head. Knowing I had to leave her was killing me faster than anything else could. From the start, I had planned to pay the price; I could never have known it would weigh this heavily on the remains of my soul.
When I first planned everything, discovered the only escape, I hadn’t known the toll it would take. I was whole then. I had worked miracles. Even the limits of my kind did not hold me. The walls of Dale, speckled with iron dust, had bent to my will, biding my vision as I called them into being from a single mortal’s contract. Refuges, the whole lot of them were, running from a crown only to find themselves beneath another.
How soon the humans forgot their debts. Without the fae they despised, their ancestors never would have survived these forests. Little did it matter now.
I stretched my numb fingers, hoping the tingling pain would subside for a moment, when a chorus of laughter stopped me.
“You’re kidding!”
“Would I joke about this?”
The door to the library rested ajar, and I stopped at the crack, peering in. Strewn upon the floor were tomes of every size and shade. History books in crude brown leather; spell books in dapper gold; even a handful of cookbooks in hues of blue and green. Among them sat Mythalzen, Esme, and Mabilia. Esme rested against the leg of a wooden table, a sloppy grin on her face as she petted Mythalzen’s hair. All too used to being treated like an animal, he lay beside her on his stomach, his head propped in his hands. Mabilia sat crossed legged before them, a book in her lap, and her eyes narrowed on it.
“I don’t believe you.” She pulled away, shaking her head.
Mythalzen’s tail flicked. “No, really. That’s Lord Rumpelstiltskin.”
My brows crashed together, and I pushed into the round alcove stacked with shelves and decorated with hanging vines that dangled glowing shards of crystal. Joy brightened Mabilia’s face the first instant she saw me, then it all melted away into distaste.
Mythalzen rolled over, and his eyes grew. “Ah, shi…” My gaze narrowed on him, and he pressed his lips together. “I mean, darn it, you caught us. Oh no.”
�
��What have I caught, exactly?”
Mabilia regarded me coolly, lifting her head and pinning me with a feline stare. “Perfect timing, actually. Let the fae himself confirm it.” She raised the book in her lap and tapped a full-page illustration with her finger. “Is this you?”
Age gripped the picture, tinting the edges of the cream page yellow, but there I stood, far younger than I could clearly remember. No crown weighed upon my head; the gift of sight hadn’t yet burdened my dreams. My black hair fell around my long ears in dark waves that made my skin appear paler than it was, or perhaps the artist hadn’t added any color to it at all.
“What of it?” I asked, dragging my gaze off the shy smile permanently etched upon the drawing’s lips.
“No way.” She flipped the book around. “You’re so…young! And innocent. You look scared. Were you timid? What happened?”
My breath held as she slipped a finger down the image and longing stained her expression. “I grew up,” I stated to pull myself from the musings of what could have been. “Even fae age, to an extent.”
“I wish you hadn’t,” she murmured, closing the tome. She stood, and, like a committed entourage, both Esme and Mythalzen rose with her. Mythalzen eyed me, signaling for me to say something. I didn’t. Mabilia shoved the book into my shaking palms and held my gaze. Her cool flesh skimmed mine. Some hardness in her eyes faltered. “I don’t believe you. You already know that, don’t you?”
“Your weak emotions cause you to cling to a false hope. You know what I am, what I’ve done.”
Her head shook. “It doesn’t make sense. And I don’t have a clue what you are. If you’re the monster, why do your innocents adore you? If you’re my faerie, why would you leave me? I will find my answers, Rumpelstiltskin.”
I swallowed. “And if they aren’t what you want them to be?”
“Then I will miss you dearly.” She passed me, leaving the weight of the tome in my hands.
Kingdom of Villains and Vengeance Page 31