“Are you sure we shouldn’t schedule you a tea party? I’m sure I can bring the crumpets and you can chat to your heart’s content,” I whispered as I took in the two guards outside the tent. Why were there guards if it was empty?
Rumple immediately clammed up, which I took as a good sign.
Sneaking forward, I laid in the snow and lifted the flap to the tent to see a woman crying as she sat in front of the spinning wheel.
It was Shannon.
I sighed. The king would not let this go. He really wanted another tent full of gold, but we were running out of time.
The edges were looped and staked into ground, so I took the axe and made a slight cut and sliced upward before sneaking in.
“Who’s there?” Shannon said, standing so fast she knocked over the stool.
“It’s me, Shannon,” I said, forgetting that I was still in a dwarf glamour. When Shannon saw the giant axe on my back, she backed away. “Stop, don’t come any closer.”
I froze, not wanting to frighten her more for fear she would alert the guards. But I didn’t need fear of scaring her further because old Rumple couldn’t keep his trap shut. “I’ll help you, fair maiden. Why are you crying?”
“I have to turn all of this straw to gold by morning or the king will have my head.” Her hands went to her mouth, and she cried.
“Why that big, hairy runt of a —” Rumple started, but I coughed loudly silencing part of his outburst. “Okay, deal. We’ll turn this into gold, but what will you give us?” Rumple continued.
“What do you want?” Shannon asked.
This time, I walked over to the center pole of the tent and swung my back into it, knocking the axe into the post.
“Ow, son of a Terst Bjorn!” Rumple cussed in the language of Eld.
“I’m sorry, what did you say?” Shannon muttered. “You want my first-born son?”
“Yes!” Rumple cried ecstatically.
“No,” I said trying to unbuckle the axe.
“Which is it?” Shannon sounded unsure. “If that is your wish, I will gladly give him to you if you save me from my plight.”
I turned, giving her my back. “Rumple,” I ground out between clenched teeth in a whisper. “If you so much as answer, I will drop you down the nearest volcano.”
“Been there.” He chuckled, before raising his voice. “You must name your first-born son after me.”
Shannon seemed relieved. “Oh, is that all? I can definitely do that. What is your name?”
“One moment,” I muttered and moved across the tent and dropped the axe onto the ground. I pressed my foot to the wooden bar and lifted it up in the air, threatening to break it. “You will stay silent for the rest of this task, or so help me, I will stomp you into the ground. You will disappear into another realm! Got it? No one wants to name their son Rumple Stiltskin.”
The axe stayed silent, but I could almost feel the disappointment. I wanted to save Shannon, not worry about offending a hundred-year-old echo of a dead dwarf’s pride.
Moving across the carpeted tent and skirting the piles of straw, I stopped in front of Shannon, and she smiled sweetly as I reached up to press my finger to her forehead. “Somnus.”
She fell forward, and I caught her, then leaned her on the chaise lounge.
“You know, Rumple is a good, strong name for a dwarf,” he said cautiously, and I could tell I did indeed hurt his pride.
Digging into my pocket, I pulled out the thread and gauged at how much magic was left within. Since the last golden spell, a few more of my knots had come undone, which meant the spell was weakening. I wouldn’t be able to do this a third time.
There wasn’t an alternative. I didn’t have any spools, nothing but the straw and I was out of time. So I needed to work fast. With deft fingers, I created a net. Pulling the string out until I had almost nothing left. Then, with a spell and a prayer, I tossed it over the straw, and it shimmered before turning into gold. As I did the second pile, I felt the thread weaken in my grasp. A corner of the net became brittle.
A candle mark later, I was done. All the straw was gold, and it was almost perfect timing because I could see the sky lightening. I tried to pick up the threaded net, and it fell apart, turning to dust in my fingers. I reached for the firethorn spindle and saw it was drained; the magic gone. It was nothing more than a simple spindle.
Footsteps crunched on the snow, I grabbed the axe and rushed out of the ripped back tent, running my finger up the cut, I spelled the seam closed, just as King Goddrick entered.
“Well, I’ll be!” he crowed. “She did it, and she worked herself so hard making me gold she fell asleep.”
“Her,” Rumple grunted out. “It was you that did the deed.”
“Hush,” I whispered as I tried to listen to what the king was going to say next.
“What’s that you say?” The king’s voice could be heard clearly, but I didn’t hear anyone else speak. I carefully laid back on the snow, the cold seeping through my clothes. I lifted the edge of the tent and peered inside.
The king was by himself. There was only Shannon, but she was asleep. He was talking to himself. “The people are greedy. They don’t appreciate me. I must teach them all a lesson. I’ll send them into the mines where the goblins will devour them, starting with the chosen. Then they won’t be after my gold.”
“Who is he talking to? Is he mad?” Rumple whispered, and I could feel his anger.
“Shh.” I rolled my eyes at my chatty axe.
“Yes, yes. And the girl Rhea too.” The king chuckled, and he kissed the ring on his hand and left the tent.
My stomach roiled with queasiness, and I looked up at the gray sky that was slowly turning light.
“Girl, what is he speaking of?” Rumple asked.
Screams filled the air, and I saw smoke coming from the tents on the far side of the festival. Fighting had broken out among various pockets of villagers, and even the troops. It was the madness caused by the cursed gold taking effect.
I could spend the rest of my life trying to find every piece of cursed gold and remove it from every person. Grimkeep had been doing it for years, but I had to find a different solution.
“Rhea, please,” Rumple begged. “I’ve seen this madness before. It won’t stop until everyone is dead.”
This was the first time he said please. “What do we do?”
“We need to go into the mountain once again and confront the one who is responsible. I’d said another would take my place, but it seems that it will be me once again—and a scrawny girl. This time will be the last. Do you hear me, Greed?” Rumple yelled in challenge. His voice so loud it echoed into the morning. In the distance, birds scattered, and dogs howled. “I will defeat you!”
I gazed at the snow-capped peaks above–the Ragnar mountains. I knew what I’d have to do, but whether I could survive it and avoid the blades was another matter.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“You could have warned me you were going to announce our location to the world,” I huffed as ran away from the tent. Rumple’s bellow in outrage alerted the guards, and they were heading directly toward our location.