Wicked As You Wish (A Hundred Names for Magic #1) - Rin Chupeco Page 0,127
until I do. Aimée was seething when Mother told her I’d be taking charge of the ICE deal.”
“I see there’s no love lost among you.”
“There never has been.” Ryker’s voice hardened. “I’m not in this to make friends. They didn’t. Ice maidens decided their humanity was optional and sacrificed it for the powers the Queen Mother’s iceshards promised. In their defense, it’s a tempting offer. I suppose I’ll need to find a bigger reason to fully commit. Mother doesn’t mind either way, as long as I’m on her side.”
“I know that ICE took your mother away, but…why ally yourself with her?” She could feel sympathy, even if he was the enemy. The story he had recounted to Appleton was a horrifying one, but the personal cost seemed too great even for revenge.
But the time for questions looked to be over, and Ryker returned to his cooking, cutting off slabs of meat and placing them on snow-washed leaves. “You better eat before it gets too cold,” he said. “I didn’t poison this, if you’re wondering. I can take a bite first if you’d like.”
If Ryker had wanted to kill her, he would have done more than that before she’d ever woken. “No need,” she allowed grudgingly, her stomach rumblings getting the better of her, and accepted the makeshift plate. The beef tasted glorious in her mouth, hot and savory even without seasonings. Hunger was all the spice she needed.
Chuckling, Ryker offered her seconds, and she took that too. She studied him while she ate; she didn’t trust him, but she trusted the firebird. It was pecking at a few strips of meat, and the boy was watching it as warily as she watched him.
“Never really thought it would look like that,” he remarked.
The firebird lifted his head, shot him a lofty look, and belched.
“So, what are you going to do?” Tala asked, not one to let go of an idea so easily. “We go to Maidenkeep, then you’ll try to attack us again there?”
“I don’t want to, unless you push it.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you.”
She was pleased to see him look exasperated. “I know it’s a long shot, but what do I have to do to gain enough of your trust to get us both to Lyonesse?”
“Absolutely nothing. I’m not moving from here.”
“You’ll freeze to death!”
“Tough break for me.”
“I saved you!”
“So you can use me as a hostage.”
“No, you dolt, it’s because I like you!”
“Why would you go out of your way to ask me out when you knew you wouldn’t be staying long at Invierno? Why kiss me when you work for the Snow Queen and you know I would reject you knowing that?”
“Because I was lonely!” The confession echoed loudly across the clearing, and birds would have been startled into flight had any been present. Ryker colored, but didn’t stop talking. “I didn’t have what you’d call a normal childhood. There’s a reason your family chose Invierno to hide out in, and it’s the reason they chose it for Alexei too. It’s hot enough to repel even Mother’s spells. It took me months to realize the prince had settled there. We didn’t know if the firebird was coming for him, or if it had been lost forever at Wonderland, but Mother needed to be sure.
“But when I got there, I…” His hands balled up into fists. “It was the first time I’d been to an American school as a student. One of the reasons we sought asylum was because my mother wanted that kind of life for me. I didn’t realize how desperately I’d wanted to be normal, and I resented every one there who took that for granted. I enjoyed doing homework. I tried out for varsity basketball, and I made it. It felt good to be treated as a normal kid. No one’s ever done that before. Those six months made it easy for me to think that maybe I could go back to this if I chose to.
“And then I saw you, and I thought, why not? Why not pretend that I was a real student who could apply for college on a basketball scholarship, who could have a real relationship… It took me ages to work up the nerve, convinced you would reject me, and also convinced you would see past all this and know I was a fraud.”
He stopped, absently feeding the firebird the last pieces of his meal when it waddled over to claim its share.