Chapter 22 Rumple
twenty-two
Rumple
Rumple’s grasp on his magick was vellum-thin.
He flexed his fingers against the floorboards of the Prince’s cottage looking for purchase as he fought for every breath.
He needed to leave, but the black magick that had afflicted him for so long had burrowed deep, and the burn of its release had locked him in human form.
His bones charred as the blackened marrow bubbled, his tendons stretched beyond compare as the magick wrenched at his cartilage, and he felt the yawning chasm it left behind as the purge conflagrated his every nerve.
Vaguely, he became aware that the occupants of the room were waking despite having used his magick to keep them in a sleep state.
The Prince, twisted in his sheets, was heaving for air with as much force as Rumple was, and the sound of his efforts disguised Rumple’s unwelcome presence in their home. For now.
Unable to dematerialise, the tarnished looking glass behind him was his only chance of escape.
Strenuously, he hauled himself around. His shadows, brittle like firewood, were of little use, but he drove them into the wooden boards as if they were spiked grapettes and he was scaling a mountain.
Rumple couldn’t remember another time when existing had been so effortful, but thoughts of Boy alone with the Queen spurred him onward.
His left foot was the first to slip through the darkened surface of the looking glass, and its cooling relief was instant.
Like bathing in liquid mercury, the sensation was refreshing, and Rumple diverted his focus away from the emergent chaos of the bedroom he had invaded and onto the magickal salve of the shadow realm.
Invigorated, he pushed himself faster, harder, until all that remained in the human realm were his head and shoulders.
With one final, arduous heave, he disappeared from view, and was immediately enveloped by the numbing embrace of the dark, where he floated, weightless… and free.
There, in the nothingness, Rumple took stock. How long had he craved this moment? How long had he endured, fuelled by the hope that one day he would be out from under the Queen’s thrall?
Shapeless, he stretched out his shadows and relished the knowledge that he could finally go anywhere he pleased, except… Rumple tensed. Boy.
With practiced ease, he stole through the throne room’s looking glass and coalesced all in one rapid motion.
The instant enough of his shadows were through the gilt frame, Rumple materialised.
He hadn’t checked to see if Queen Schon might be present.
Without her black magick to bind him, he no longer cared, but all was silent. Too silent.
Rays from the early morning sun spilled in through the stained-glass window at the opposite end of the ostentatious room, and they bathed everything in shades of red.
His eyes darted across the polished floor to the countless bobbins stacked along the eastern wall.
The golden thread his shadows had wound neatly upon them glowed with the heat of embers ready to burst into flame. A red that matched his brewing worry.
The stool before the spinning wheel, where a short while prior his shadows had cloaked Boy in their hold as they worked their magick, sat empty and void of life. The red light in the room burned brighter still.
He cast his gaze to the right, over the ornate screens that poorly hid the dais and its hideous throne from view.
Last time he stood here, Rumple had transformed it into a feasting table and splayed Boy out upon it.
He had collared him with his magick, and with it he’d promised his protection, but where was his Heart now?
Rumple edged forward and slowly scanned every nook in the room in case his human was tucked away in a corner, hiding. When each step yielded no sign, and when he found Boy’s worn-through shoes abandoned, his anger simmered over.
Shadow magick warped the red hue that filtered through the window and twisted it into a blood-like substance that ran down the walls in gothic horror. The hollow of Rumple’s chest pounded in senseless violence.
Where. Was. His. Heart?
The chillingly familiar sound of a tongue clicking in displeasure reverberated throughout the room, and Rumple’s body.
“I wondered how long it would take you to get here, Pet,” sang the Queen’s disembodied voice.
At the moniker, his shadows formed crystalline structures akin to ice within him that grated over one another when he slowly turned on his heel to face the large looking glass above the hearth. No lancing pain accompanied her appearance, but he felt its phantom sting regardless.
“Where is he?” Rumple gritted out from between clenched teeth.
No longer subjugated by the searing press of her black magick, Rumple stacked his spine, squared his shoulders, and raised his chin. Defiance and hatred swirled within him as he locked his gaze on Queen Schon’s pale blue eyes.
Silence stretched between them, one loaded with the promise of death.
The muscle under her left eye twitched, and Rumple took it as confirmation that she knew exactly where Boy was.
Iron-willed as she was, however, he also knew she would never tell him.
With a hand bereft of gloves and rings, she smoothed over her flyaway blonde hair, and Rumple sharpened his gaze.
The only times he knew her to remove her jewellery were when she was invoking black magick.
In anticipation of defence, his shadows swelled. After all, he didn’t know what had caused the spell she had bound him with to break. Was it possible she could recast it?
Thick shadowed tendrils oozed across the throne room floor until it resembled an ocean, and Rumple an island. They filled the hearth and extinguished the remnants of the fire that had kept Boy warm, and they wrapped around the gilt framed looking glass with menacing intent.
Queen Schon arched a shapely eyebrow, but it was the view of her private quarters behind her that held Rumple’s focus.
The scrolls and parchments on her usually organised shelves were pulled out and strewn carelessly.
Crystals and dried herbs lay scattered between the pages.
A chaotic mix of runic scribbles and Wiccan symbols were etched into the floor where wooden splinters had been forced upright in the rush to carve them.
Her calm and composed demeanour, then, was nothing more than a facade for her madness.
Whatever had caused the spell to break was clearly unintended and had taken her as much by surprise as it had Rumple.
“You are in no position to ask me questions.” Her lilting tone took on a hard edge. “Traitor.”
His shadows tightened around the frame, lifting it from the wall.
“Do you take me for a fool, Pet?” She spat the name with venom and held up a short length of golden thread that she pulled taut between her thumb and forefinger.
His shadow magick fed on his own fear and sucked the remaining heat from the throne room. The temperature plummeted. Rumple’s shaky exhale was visible in the space between them as a white cloud of unease. Was that…?
“Your little human told me everything,” she continued.
Confusion hit Rumple like a physical blow. Why would Boy…? Ice formed inside the throne room and solidified the red ichor that dripped down the walls.
“You didn’t expect that.” Queen Schon could barely tamp down her glee, and it fuelled his hatred. “Betrayal begets betrayal, it would seem.”
Rumple’s hands formed fists so tight that the leather of his gloves creaked and his knuckles throbbed.
Memories of Boy kneeling between his legs in serene surrender invaded his mind, as did the knowledge that his human was willing to sacrifice his life for his family’s survival.
Contrary to the Queen’s claim, Rumple trusted that Boy would never betray him.
“After all these years together, I know you well. Humans rarely hold your interest, and it always ends in bloodshed.” Her cold stare hardened further. “Mark my words, Pet. I will discover what makes this one special. He freed you from my thrall, and as a consequence, he will take your place.”
Rumple saw red. Bright and violent slashes of red.
“He belongs to me now, and if I can find no use for a deceitful and traitorous human—”
She didn’t get to finish her threat before Rumple’s shadows, coiled tight with restless anticipation, whip-cracked at her through the looking glass.
The look of smug satisfaction that adorned her face was the last thing he saw before his shadow magick collided with her black magick in an almighty clash of power.
Wisps of black smoke streaked through with flashes of violet crackled and flared.
Claps of thunderous energy ricocheted through his chest and kicked up his hair.
A litany of tiny fractures webbed outward from the centre of the looking glass that Rumple still held firmly in his grasp.
Then, for a beat, everything froze.
Two indomitable forces were locked in a battle for supremacy.
Suddenly, shards of glass flew outwards. The blast was strong enough that Rumple was lifted clear off his feet and sent hurtling through the air. He crashed through the ornate screens around the dais and was left slumped over the throne.
Fragments of glass were embedded in his body, their jagged edges having torn through his clothing with ease, but he didn’t pull them out. Numb with rage, he flickered between human and shadowed forms without control. The Queen had taken his Heart!
Rumple had never wanted to end a life more than he wanted to end hers, and yet he couldn’t. The spell that prevented him from touching her was—evidently—still in place.
Her parting words ran on repeat: “He belongs to me now.”
The arms of the intricately carved, black wood throne splintered and cracked under the force of his grip. Boy did not belong to that bitch.
His shallow breaths were visible in the frigid air. Boy was his.
Incensed, Rumple wrested the arms from the throne, and with an enraged cry, speared them through the stained-glass windows of the throne room.
Red shards flew like daggers out into the courtyard of the Royal City, and the screams of those maimed below were the a cappella of his wrath.
His shadows fed on their pain. He craved more.
Rumple bled into his shadow form and expanded until he easily filled the great hall with an all-consuming blackness. The Queen of Falchovari had dared to steal his Heart—and in return, he would take everything from her.
To the sounds of distress, dogs barking, and the Royal Guard’s clamour, Rumple heaved her garish displays of wealth from the stone walls.
The decapitated and taxidermied heads of rare and magnificent predators, mouths open in vicious snarls, were heaped over the remains of Her Majesty’s throne.
Into their macabre and gaping maws, he threw the numerous flattering and elaborate portraits of Queen Schon.
Driven to destroy all she held dear, Rumple exposed the truth beneath her famed beauty and power.
Upon the shadow-soaked dais, he erected an altar to her true image.
No longer would she sit upon a throne of lies, in a room of vanity, housed in a prison built to resemble a palace.
The angrier he became, the higher the construct was piled.
Next, his shadows dragged the spinning wheel and stool across the black marble floor. A symbol of Boy’s imprisonment, Rumple tore it apart piece by piece, just as he would the entire building until he found him.
He unravelled the countless bobbins of golden thread he had split himself apart to conjure and clawed back his shadow magick. Reverted to its natural state, endless stems of dried maize and corn rained down from the high-vaulted ceilings.
Finally, the wooden bench, ornate screens, long ladders, and discarded hessian sacks were added as tinder. Rumple couldn’t think of anything more devastating to treasured possessions than the ravages of an untameable fire.
When the handles of the massive throne room doors rattled, and loud pounding against their frame rang out, Rumple converted his hatred and anger into ravenous flames.
They ate up the still-falling grass stalks, which sprinkled like embers over the twisted altar-cum-pyre in the centre of the room.
Its ignition was instantaneous, but not nearly satisfying enough.
As the Royal Guard outside the doors grew increasingly desperate to gain entry, his shadows retrieved Boy’s shoes from where they were discarded on the floor.
Rumple turned the supple leather over and ran a shadowed finger along the gaping sole.
That Queen Schon had denied Boy the basic courtesy of wearing even broken shoes renewed his fury.
When the throne room doors finally blew inward, and no less than a dozen armed men barged through the broken entrance, they became fresh fuel for the inferno.
Blinded and disoriented, some stumbled headlong into the raging fire, and others bolted back into the hallway beyond, igniting the rugs, drapes, and artworks as they ran through the palace passageways.
Their agonised screams were music to Rumple’s ears—and a warning to everyone else.
Until he found his Heart, no one was safe.