Wicked As You Wish (A Hundred Names for Magic #1) - Rin Chupeco Page 0,95

life,” Ken said quietly, after the firebird unleashed one particularly loud thunderclap that might have actually snapped a twig off a tree as they passed.

His horse made a curious, neighing sound.

“I know. You wouldn’t think it, looking the way it does, huh?”

It whinnied.

“I’ll tether you some ways from it next time. I didn’t know the snoring bothered you.”

“Does he have to keep doing that?” Zoe asked Loki, somewhat irritably.

Loki shrugged. “You should know by now that there’s not a lot of ways to shut Ken up.”

“Better than trying to talk to a nightwalker,” West said, with a shudder.

“You understand them, West?”

“You pick it up, after a while. They only ever really say ‘Hungry’ or ‘Kill.’ They don’t have a very large vo…vock…they don’t use a lot of words.”

Tala kept her eyes on the back of Alex’s head as they rode. Since that encounter with the ice wolves, he had taken deliberate care not to talk to her privately again. He was always the first to retreat back to the tents whenever dinner was over and made it clear that he wasn’t in the mood for any kind of conversation. She still wasn’t ready to talk about her father, and she knew it was being hypocritical, but she missed her closeness with her best friend. She hated the idea that he was pulling away from her, even while being on this same journey with him. The incident with the adobo had seemed promising, but he’d withdrawn completely after that, much to her frustration.

They passed through what should have been large expanses of farmland, but the snow had claimed everything here too. Every now and then a lone hut or cabin came into view; despite their deteriorating conditions, Ken would ride out to investigate with hope shining in his face despite the odds—only to return, visibly disappointed. His optimism faded slowly with every explored residence, but he persevered.

“You all right?” Zoe asked quietly, after the eighth time Ken returned. The girl was a better realist than he was, but Tala knew she didn’t have the heart to reproach him.

“Of course. This is nothing. We always gotta check, just in case, right?” But Ken’s shoulders slumped a little when he turned away.

To help distract from their gloomy surroundings, Loki told them a little about Ikpe. “Most Ikpeans came here from Nigeria after Avalon offered them sanctuary at the height of the transatlantic trade of enslaved persons. With a steady supply of Avalon glyphs on their side, they formed an alliance with freed Africans from other tribes also given sanctuary here. They returned to fight the Americans, freeing more of their kinsmen and making the trade so unprofitable it ended weeks later.”

“In history class, we were taught that the Royal government ended it after Avalon offered spells that were more productive,” Tala said.

Zoe snorted. “Avalon gave the Americans spells because they didn’t want a war on two fronts, when they still had to oppose Beiran involvement in the Crimean War. Part of the agreement was abolishing slavery and indenture. The South rose up in arms because of it, but that didn’t last long either.”

“Not like their treatment of Black people in the years after improved much either,” Alex murmured.

Tala nodded, remembering Miss Hutchins and her angry assertion that the lies always began in school textbooks.

“Avalon had always been a hotpot of culture,” West said proudly. “There are Ikpeans all over the kingdom, but Ikpe itself protects one of Avalon’s largest glyph mines.”

“The term is melting pot of culture,” Zoe told him.

“That too.”

It was early evening before they finally caught a glimpse of the small cluster of rooftops in the distance, an inhabited village, evidenced by the trails of smoke steaming up the air. “That’s definitely Ikpe,” Ken said, perking up again. “And there are people in there! Living, breathing people!”

The village was composed of a hundred or so houses, clumped together halfway up a small hill; barely a tenth of the size of Lyonesse, according to Zoe. Twin wooden posts and a small gate at the base marked the village’s boundaries from the rest of the world. A large slab of stone, vaguely human-shaped, lay propped against the massive closed doors, and Tala had to lean back from the strength of the spells that emanated from it.

A tall, stout spire stood farther up the hill. Officious-looking men, armed with guns and swords, patrolled the immediate vicinity on horseback, looking for all the world like they meant business.

“What is that monstrosity?” Alex asked, staring up