Page 141 of Of Spindles and Nightfall
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.
Chapter 47
Aryana
Aryana stared at Neri, confused.
It was her, but also not. Two flawless eyes stared out from her face.
“Give me the scepter piece,” she said to the demon standing next to her. The shapeshifter demon, who’d wrestled the item from Aryana’s grasp, handed it over.
Neri’s gaze brightened with delight. “Finally.Finally,our plans have come to fruition.”
“H-how?” Aryana demanded as she struggled against the guards that held her, her hands and feet bound. “Areyou a shapeshifter?”
