Wicked As You Wish (A Hundred Names for Magic #1) - Rin Chupeco Page 0,56

was still alive, his eyes bulging out of his head. “I’ll tell you a secret,” Ryker said, turning to smile at Appleton’s fellow motionless, frightened agents. “My brothers and sisters are coming for you. You’ve tried your best to keep us out of the news, but we are here, and we remember. You will pay a hundredfold for what you made us suffer through.”

“Don’t do this.” It came from Tala’s father, white under his beard. “Don’t let her do this to you, son.”

Ryker guffawed. “Ironic, coming from you.”

“Don’t,” Tala pleaded. “Ryker, please.”

The boy grinned, and it was his old smile, friendly and gentle. He moved to where Tala remained pinned underneath the ice, crouched down beside her. “I’m sorry, Tala,” he said, and gently brushed stray hair from her eyes.

Tala drew back instinctively, remembering how those same hands had just froze a man. Ryker noticed, and something like sorrow clouded his gaze.

“I do like you,” he said. “But I had no intention of ever revealing who I was. I had hoped to find Alex without ever having to tell you. Maybe that was denial on my part. You were too close to the Tsarevich royals, your family too involved in their cause. I didn’t know about that until later. I suppose it was only a question of when.”

“I considered you a friend,” Alex said quietly.

Ryker shrugged. “No hard feelings on my part, bud. We do what we have to do. You want to revive Avalon, and we don’t.”

“But why are you doing this?” Tala choked out.

“A little bit for revenge, a little bit for principle. Your Cheshire and the famous Urduja of the Katipunan would never tell you this, Tala, but Avalon and the Snow Queen share the same goals. They just disagree on how to achieve them. Avalon cannot stop other nations from eventually getting their hands on their spelltech. It’s only a matter of time. OzCorp and the new Emerald Act are proof of that.”

“So you’d rather subjugate them instead,” her father grunted.

Ryker laughed. “You never told her, did you? About you and Mother.”

A muscle shifted in Kay Warnock’s square jaw.

“What do you mean?” Tala demanded.

“Tala,” her mother whispered, a pained sound.

Ryker stood. “I think we all deserve the truth today, don’t you?”

Tala’s father closed his eyes. “Boy,” he whispered. “I beg ye. Don’t go down the same path I did. Don’t lose what’s left of the soul she’s allowed you to keep.”

But Ryker wasn’t listening. “Aimée,” he said to the ice maiden, “summon our mistress, if you would be so kind.”

The girl made of ice bowed low to him and then shifted. For several moments, she turned even more translucent, her features disappearing under a soft shimmering light.

And then her shape warped; she grew taller, her hair falling down in longer waves behind her back. Her limbs lengthened and thinned, and the simple tunic she wore billowed down into a floor-length dress. When the light cleared, the ice maiden was gone, and in her place was a breathtakingly beautiful woman, a queen stepping out of the pages of a storybook. Her hair was as white as snow, lips cherry red, and with only the faintest tinge of frost on her fair skin. But her eyes were a fathomless black, dark jewels that detracted nothing from her beauty despite the coldness in them.

Tala’s father made a harsh, pained sound.

“Ina ng Diyos,” Lola Urduja hissed, arms bunching like she would attack if she could only break free.

The Snow Queen smiled, laying a motherly hand on Ryker’s cheek. “You did well, my Ryker,” she murmured, in a soft, sweet voice that carried with it more pealing of bells.

“Brought you a gift, Mother.”

“So you did.” She glided toward Tala’s father, and a trail of ice followed in her wake like a silken train. “Ah,” she sighed. “Kay. My wonderful Kay.”

Her father said nothing, his eyes locked on her face.

The Snow Queen reached up to cup his face. “Look at you now. You’ve gotten so old, Kay.”

The man turned his face away. “And you’re as beautiful as you always were, Annelisse.”

“That was the name I took when I became queen, as all before me had. There is no need for such formalities. You have always been my Kay, and I have always been your Gerda.”

“Last time I saw you, y’stabbed me in the heart,” her father said. “Literally. Left me to die in Ivan’s throne room.”

Tala started to shake. Surely this woman wasn’t talking about her father. Surely there was some other