Wicked As You Wish (A Hundred Names for Magic #1) - Rin Chupeco Page 0,43

and empty and devoid of blood, as if the woman herself were hollow. Her skin was now translucent and silvery. Underneath that pale, mirrorlike face, she glittered, like multitudes of tiny stars were contained inside of her.

A burst of wind flung Tala across the room. The ice maiden’s face twisted and stretched around her head, and Tala found herself staring at something not quite human.

Then the cold assaulted her, cutting air from her lungs. She pawed at her throat, choking.

A faint rustle, a quick flap of wings, and the firebird was there, hovering inches away from what was left of the woman’s face. Its beak yawned, and its body shimmered.

The ice maiden shrieked, raising her hand, but she was half a second too slow.

A blazing ball of fire enveloped the creature. Screaming, she stumbled, but could only manage a few steps before crumpling to the ground, water trickling out from every part of her body. The winds died down as she melted, the noise falling away.

By the time Tala worked up the courage to approach, nothing remained of the ice maiden but some small tattered strips of cloth, a few puddles of water and melting snowflakes, clear and sharp, embedded deeply into the tiles.

11

In Which Fighting Ogres Is a Popular Team-Building Activity

What was that?” Tala asked, watching as the firebird made short work of the rest of the icicles trapping Alex, the last shards melting into the ground. “The curse that ice maiden mentioned. ‘In shifting sands a prince you’ll kiss,’ and all that.”

Alex didn’t respond at first, gazing blankly at the puddle of water that was all that was left of the creature. He was still clutching the cell phone like it was a lifeline. “My curse,” he finally said. “It’s always been about my damn curse.”

“The frog spell?” By association, Tala cast a worried look around the room and relaxed when she saw the little frog hopping in between lockers, unharmed.

“It’s a threefold spell. The frog curse was just the first of it.”

“That…thing also said something about an old witch…”

“Yeah. A Baba Yaga.”

“A what?”

“A Baba Yaga. They’re powerful enough to rain down curses on people if they’ve a mind to. And one of them had a mind to, on me.”

“But why would she do something so awful?”

He looked away. “She didn’t,” he said quietly. “I asked her to.”

She should have pushed for answers. When she’d met him for the first time and she’d been suspicious about the extent of his curse, she should have asked, wheedled as much of his history as she could out of him, because he’d proven over the past year that he was willing to take on everything and bear the pain on his own with no one the wiser, refusing help because he thought it wasn’t fair to accept assistance for whatever it was he kept hidden and blamed himself for.

She should have known all these months ago instead of today, with her ass numb from the cold and from the wet floor, saddled with a firebird breathing warmth back to the room. “Tell me now. You owe me that much.”

Still he said nothing, looking tired and worn out, and in some other lifetime, Tala would have taken pity and allowed him time to process the last couple of days, but she was done with his secrets intruding into her own life.

“Damnit, Alex, tell me!”

“What do you want me to say?” he snapped, voice loud and angry in the stillness of the chilly room. “That I saw my parents killed in front of me? That my father fought to make sure my mother and I could escape, and was impaled through the heart for his troubles? That my mother tried to protect me, and paid for it when the Snow Queen encased her completely in ice, then shattered her remains? That they were going to kill me next? That I had to run, and run, and run, scrambling to hide, terrified because I was five years old and didn’t know better?”

“Alex…”

“I hid. I hid in a mirror that wasn’t a mirror, in a room that wasn’t a room, and the Baba Yaga was there. I was five years old, but I knew who she was. She offered me a three-pronged curse, and I took it because she promised me I would survive if I accepted. So I did, and I survived, exactly like she said.” He looked down at his hands.

“I was eight the first time I kissed someone,” he said harshly. “That’s