Chapter 46
Zarathos
Zarathos wished that the damn healing potion would work faster. Then again, he’d been moments from death, so he shouldn’t complain. The forest raged with beasts, and somewhere out there, Xaphoron hunted for him.
Worse still, his Bloodbinding mark throbbed on and off, making him want to drop everything and run to Aryana, but he couldn’t. Leaving the arena would break his bargain and cost him his life. And if that happened, Aryana’s fate would be sealed, too.
Noctyssa stood nearby, keeping watch, occasionally leading a beast away from Zarathos’s hiding spot. Gods, despite his appreciation for the help, he hated relying on others. The feeling that he owed her.
After leading away a griffin, Noctyssa returned. “How are you doing, Your Majesty?”
Zarathos made an attempt to rise, and fire shot through his abdomen. He sat back. “I apologize for trapping you into doing this.”
Noctyssa shook her head. “I know for a fact that Xaphoron has plans to take over the three other kingdoms. And Tigon, all he wanted was violence.”
“And you? How would you have ruled?”
“I remember what it was like before you became king. Kingdom Spiritu attacked us at will and we spent so much time and energy defending our borders we had little opportunity to even gather food, let alone raise our children. My people are angry with kingdom Aeria and Spiritu for their conniving and attempts at incursions. But those I serve also don’t give a rat’s ass about any other kingdom.
My advisors from my nation would have pushed me into making war with those kingdoms and leaving the others to rot.
But you have stood apart and seen the big picture.
Always held the violence at bay. Yes, you trapped us into bargains, but I think deep down you realize that if you lose this tournament, the realm will suffer for it. ”
In a world of danger and death, perhaps Zarathos had overlooked those who actually wanted him to rule. But did that make him deserving? “Perhaps. Perhaps not.”
“If you don’t know it, sire, I do,” she bowed. “And that is why I serve you. That is why I am willing to die for you.”
She turned just as a large manticore with massive claws and the body of a lion appeared between two trees.
“Look out!” Zarathos shouted, pain spearing through him as he fought to rise.
But Noctyssa froze, and the manticore lunged.
Horror filled him as it shredded Noctyssa limb from limb, blood flying everywhere. It turned its human-like face at him, a large mane ruffled around and accentuated its lion form and its tail came into a scorpion-styled point. Blood dripped from its chin and ran into its mane.
Zarathos summoned his wings, staggering as pain lanced through his side with every movement. Gods, if only he weren’t wounded—if only he could fight. Gritting his teeth, he lurched forward, sword in hand, as the beast crouched low.
Damn it.
There was no avenging Noctyssa like this.
Not against a creature such as that, not in his condition.
Spinning, he launched himself into the air.
Agony tore through his abdomen and back, but he forced himself up, wings straining, as he crashed into the tree canopy.
Branches scraped at him as he dropped into their cover, panting, gripping onto limbs to steady himself.
Could a manticore climb?
He tried to remember through the haze of pain.
The beast stalked forward, leaving the remains of Noctyssa behind, and sniffed the air. His heart ached with the helplessness of it all. Noctyssa had been loyal to the end, giving her life for him. An Incubus. A creature forbidden, one who was never meant to exist.
And yet, she hadn’t cared. She’d believed in him, believed he was destined to rule, and she had risked everything for that belief.
Below, the manticore’s unnervingly sentient eyes locked onto the tree where Zarathos hid. A slow, blood-slicked smile curled across its face.
Then it stood up. The hair pulling into its body, bones snapping, tail disintegrating into nothing. It turned into Xaphoron’s grinning face, the blood still dripping from his chin.
Zarathos gazed around in disbelief. This wasn’t possible. Was he hallucinating again? But no, the healing potion had cleared his head and the spinning fuzziness was gone.
Xaphoron—
Xaphoron was a shapeshifter.
His grin stretched even wider. “I’ve disposed of my pathetic kalator before entering the arena, so it’s only you and me, Zarathos.”
This made no sense. His father had killed all the shapeshifters. Zarathos’s father had told him so himself. “Who are you?”
“I am the faceless.”
“Shapeshifters are banned—”
“Yes, you and your father ensured we had no other choice but to live in terror of being found. Even our scent gave us away. We were forced to hide among the humans for survival.” His eyes flashed with a menacing hatred. “At least until Casiel came along after your betrayal.”
An icy dread pulled through Zarathos. “Who are you?”
“Casiel was my brother. Well, half-brother. You want to know what happened to him after you turned on him? He died trying to save our people from more horrible deaths, like you gave to our parents.”
Zarathos didn’t move. He’d thought Casiel’s parents were hiding rebels—those dangerous to the crown—but they were really only part of a gathering of shapeshifters struggling to exist. But then, according to his father, there was no difference since shapeshifters were considered a threat to the united kingdoms simply by existing.
“Casiel—”
“He trusted you, and you fed our family to the wolves,” he snarled, “just like every other demon would have done in these worthless kingdoms.” His bloody hands clenched into tight fists, hate and anger swirling in his gaze. “It doesn’t matter because when I am king, everything will change.”
Zarathos had only been trying to survive. But in doing so, he’d hidden not just himself, he’d forced others into the shadows, too. All he’d done to suppress Casiel’s parents, to silence the rebels, he now saw as a reflection of the prison he’d built around his own soul.
He thought of Aryana, and his heart swelled. Perhaps there was more to life than surviving, more than constant apprehension. She had shown him that. And maybe, just maybe, he could help his people see it too.
Zarathos was done living in fear of himself when others needed him. “Forgive me for my past. Let’s strike a bargain. A new one, where your kind, every kind of demon, will be protected.”
Xaphoron let out a sardonic laugh. “You think you have a chance of surviving this?” He took a threatening step forward.
“No, I’ll be king and all the pain, and terror and endless nights of torture that you have inflicted on my kind will be inflicted on your kind, both kingdom Aeria and incubi alike. ”
Zarathos’s nails dug into the branches, his knees shaking from the strain of standing as he stared at Xaphoron in disbelief. “Incubi are extinct.” Other than Zarathos, his father had been certain none remained alive.
A cruel smile spread across his lips. “You believe they are but they will soon all be my slaves.”
Xaphoron’s wings flared behind him. Zarathos was no match in this state. He unfurled his own wings and took to the air, rising above the trees.
“A flier,” someone shouted and suddenly flaming arrows were soaring toward him from the edge of the arena.
Zarathos tried to dodge and stay aloft, but an arrow embedded itself in his right wing. He released a roar as searing heat sliced through the delicate skin. Another struck his left wing and yet another one lodged in his right.
He fell from the sky, hitting the ground with a grating force.
He moaned, clutching his side, as if his wings had been torn to pieces.
The wound in his abdomen had closed over, but the pain definitely remained.
And his wings. He whisked them away, and that lessened the agony, but the constant ache lingered, a weight on his back, reminding him that he was injured.
Xaphoron stalked through the trees toward him, a sneer on his face. “You missed the instructions that forbids flying.”
Yes, because his mind had been drugged. Despite his weak body, Zarathos shoved his palms into the ground and forced himself to rise. The one thing he couldn’t do was die. If he died, then Aryana died.
Zarathos had to win, if for no other reason. “Give it up, Xaphoron. There is no way the council will approve you, a shapeshifter, as the winner of the Demon Trials.”
“And they will approve of you? An incubus who carries the making of my kind in your very loins?” He laughed.
“Neither of us is what the council wants. Lucky for me, they are now irrelevant.” He bared his teeth, a harsh gleam of delightful vengeance in his gaze.
“Come on, Zarathos. There are no more bargains, no more tricks. It’s you and me on the battlefield. ”
Xaphoron’s skin became a dark, cracked obsidian, veins pulsing with a fiery red glow.
His bat-like wings reached upward, expanding, each membrane stretched thin and jagged resembling the remnants of a fallen storm.
Muscles rippling, his body contorted and elongated, morphing into scales that shimmered with an ethereal, fiery hue.
His head morphed into the fierce visage of a dragon, eyes glowing with a molten, otherworldly fire, while claws reminiscent of blackened volcanic stone tore into the earth beneath it.
The surrounding air crackled with ominous energy, causing the ground to shake under his immense power.
Shit.
He turned on Zarathos, who was no more than a bug in comparison. The beast’s throat glowed with heat. Zarathos stumbled back. He had to live. For Aryana.
Reaching out, he caught the shadow of a nearby tree and shut his eyes. He’d hidden this power for so long, afraid others might recognize what he truly was. But that fear belonged to the past.
Now he embraced it.
Zarathos wasn’t ashamed anymore. He was an incubus, and he’d still fight to be king. Let them see what he was. Let them witness the power he’d buried for too long.
He slipped into the shadows and emerged under the cover of the trees on the far side of the arena.
Xaphoron’s roar of rage echoed behind him, met by the roar of the crowd. They were thrilled. This was no longer survival.
It was sport.
Zarathos couldn’t help but feel it was more a game of cat and mouse.
“I will crush you,” the dragon roared.
Zarathos clenched his jaw. No. He was the demon arch king and he would defend his people. The leadership of Kingdom Aeria may be arrogant and warmongering, but that didn’t mean their entire nation should be wiped from the earth.
And what Xaphoron said about the incubi. Could there be more than only Zarathos in existence? If so, he needed to find them, protect them.
Acknowledge himself as part of them.
A gasp tore from his lips. A single word came to him. An echo of something so long distant, yet familiar. It shot to his very core, filling him with purpose and power.
Rumpelstiltskin.
His name.
The air around him thickened, darkened. The surrounding shadows began to stretch and twist, undulating like they had a will all their own.
His fingers tingled, energy flooding into him, imbuing him with strength.
He welcomed it as an old friend. So familiar.
The cracks in the earth spread, and from them, tendrils of darkness shot upward, writhing with purpose.
He clenched his fist, and with a roar, the shadows answered—growing, pulling, surging through his veins.
And for the first time since he was a child, he felt unstoppable.
He’d known his father set the conditions on which he could remember his name and regain his powers, but he hadn’t known what those conditions were.
But now it made sense.
The last thing his father would ever think Zarathos would do was accept himself.
The dragon stomped through the arena, getting nearer, gaze pinpointing on his prey.
His throat heated again, glowing as red hot fire burned, ready to be released.
Huge talons scraped the earth as he came closer, but this time, Zarathos didn’t run.
The dragon’s maw opened, and an inferno burst forth.
Zarathos’s power pulled around him and he raised his hands, shooting his shadows into the dragon’s flames. Light and dark collided, flashing violently before his eyes. And inch by inch, the darkness won out, slowly consuming the fire.
“I am Rumpelstiltskin,” he growled. The energy inside him only grew.
The dragon roared and lunged, trying to smash him in his jaws, but again Zarathos pulled the shadows around him, shooting to another section of the arena to evade the deadly teeth.
He gripped his sword in his hand, the darkness surging through him.
The dragon wouldn’t be defeated easily, and despite his powers, there still was a chance he’d go down fighting.
But his causes were worth battling for, and Zarathos would use every part of himself, every power he possessed, in an attempt to win this fight.
For Aryana. For his people. And for himself.