Wicked As You Wish

by Rin Chupeco

  “The Cheshire?” Tala asked, surprised. “No one said he would be here.”

  “Exactly. There’s still quite a few bounties on his head. The kingdom of Russia in particular is rather keen on beheading him themselves. We’ve forbidden cameras and media inside, and he’ll be leaving soon after.”

  “I chose him for this,” Alex said, with some satisfaction. “It’s the first political statement I wanted to make.” Then he sobered. “I’m scared.”

  “It’s not an execution, hijo,” Lola Urduja said. “And in a couple of hours, you won’t ever need to wear tights again. For today, anyway.”

  “No. I mean, I’m scared. Of everything. What if I turn out to be a terrible king?”

  Lumina laid a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “Most things in life none of us signed up for. But you’ve got friends looking out for you every step of the way. Every bad seed will always be outnumbered by the good sprouts. Remember that.”

  Alex nodded. Lumina let him pass, then fell into step with Tala. “You’re still angry,” she murmured.

  “Can you blame me?”

  “No. Want to talk?”

  “I don’t know yet.” She could forgive her mother for loving a murderer, but she wasn’t sure about the murderer. “How could you not tell me?”

  “Your father wanted to. I didn’t. I didn’t want you to hate him.”

  “I don’t hate him. But…”

  “But you’re conflicted. I was too.” Her mother closed her eyes. “When the frost came down, he tried to save everyone. He brought you and I to safety, then turned and went back for Alex. The Snow Queen nearly killed him for that. Even then, he refused to leave until we’d saved everyone. He wept when he realized we couldn’t. He was bleeding to death, in a pool of his own blood, and he was crying because he thought he’d failed again.”

  Her father had wept again, inside Maidenkeep. “But all those other people…”

  “I don’t know if his attempts at redemption will ever outweigh his crimes. But I decided in the end that he should at least be given the chance to.” She smiled sadly at Tala. “I think everyone deserves that much.”

  After an intricate musical fanfare that nearly destroyed Tala’s eardrums, two guards tugged the massive doors open. Colorful pinions and banners decorated the walls, marking the festiveness of the occasion. It had taken almost two weeks to remove all the remaining ice and replace the destroyed furnishings, but Lola Urduja had been just as efficient at housekeeping as she was at planning strategy.

  The crowd was solemn. Tala ignored the stares and focused on not tripping over her own feet. In contrast, the firebird lifted its wings and drew its neck up proudly, daring anyone to protest its presence, which no one did. And for all his earlier reservations, Alex was all confidence, striding up the carpeted path and onward to his destiny.

  Loki and Nya stood at the back of the room, the girl in a simple woolen gown and Loki in a white tunic and breeches. Nya waved happily at them, much to the annoyance of the others around her, but a faint smile touched Alex’s face at the sight.

  Tala spotted Ken next, in a silver and blue doublet, grinning in encouragement. West stood beside him, in a yellow waistcoat still a size too big for his build. His hair, for once, was carefully combed, freshly scrubbed face beaming back. Zoe wore a long blue gown that matched the color of her eyes, which sparkled as she dipped into a low curtsy. Cole stood farther along the crowd, clothed heavily in black. General Luna, Tito Jose, and the Titas Baby, Chedeng, and Teejay, were all were dressed in military garb, for once looking like the soldiers they were. They lined the aisle with their swords raised over them as the group passed through, looking proud.

  A small pedestal was placed at the very end of their walk, where a golden crown lay gleaming. Behind it was another, taller platform. Tala and the others stopped several feet away, allowing Alex to complete the last few yards on his own. The air around the higher podium warped briefly, a sphere made of darkness briefly materializing above it. When it cleared, a large cat with fur that was a patchwork of colors sat, surveying the room with considerable calm. The gasps arising from the audience were audible.

  “Time is such a relative concept,” a voice began as the music ended. It came from everywhere and from nowhere all at once. “A dozen years to most can mean a lifetime for one. A dozen years is a dozen years too much for Avalon to have gone through what it has. But today is a sign of brighter things to come, of better futures. Today, we celebrate not what we’ve lost, but what we are ready to become.”

  Lumina Makiling stepped forward, now balancing a long sword carefully with both hands, and Tala’s heart nearly stopped beating.

  But it wasn’t the Nameless Sword. This was smaller and had none of the strange carvings of the other. In fact, it had no markings at all.

  Her mother presented the sword to the cat, hilt extended. Tala had no idea how it was going to grasp it, until Lumina stepped back and the blade remained suspended in the air, hovering.

  “The sword of the Tsarevich House,” the voice announced, and the hilt turned and floated toward Alex. “Wielded since the days of the first Ivan Tsarevich. Now we pass it on as tradition demands.” Alex took the sword, raising it slightly so it gleamed in the light.

  Now it was the crown’s turn to rise from the platform on its own, crossing the distance to gently settle on Alex’s head.

  “Clear minds, open hearts”—was it Tala’s imagination, or did the cat actually smile?—“Fighting hands. Ladies and gentlemen, the Firekeeper, and the new king of Avalon—Alexei of House Tsarevich!”

  His name echoed throughout the room, and the answering roar of voices nearly drowned out the triumphant orchestra.

  Things would have proceeded according to custom, had not the firebird, drunk on all the well-wishing and praise, decided to contribute further to the festivities. A celebratory fireball neatly scorched the ceiling, sending people hollering and running for the exit. The firebird laughed, then, the air shimmering as it soared up, singing and sounding very pleased at how things had turned out.

  “That’s it,” Ken said. “I definitely want my own firebird.”

  * * *

  “I don’t think we’ve met before.”

  Tala froze. She’d retreated to a small section of the Maidenkeep gardens, wanting time alone to process her thoughts. Still in her Mai-i dress, she was sitting on a small rock overlooking a koi pond, staring at the colorful fishes swimming, and had not heard anyone approach.

  It was the multicolored cat. It hopped onto another stone adjacent to hers and settled down on its haunches.

  “I thought you left,” Tala said slowly.

  “A lot of people would like me to,” came the response, again from somewhere around them instead of issuing directly from the cat’s mouth. “Would you like me to?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve heard a lot of things about you.”

  “Good things? Bad things?”

  “Just confusing things.”

  Something chuckled. “I wanted to personally thank you. The others could not have succeeded in getting Alex safely to Maidenkeep without your help.”

  “I really don’t want to talk about that.” She didn’t want all that pressure on her. It wasn’t fair to be told that getting Alex or the others killed would have been her fault.

  “Then let’s not.” The cat peered carefully into the water. Its reflection, a man with dark hair and green eyes, looked back at it. “I can understand not wanting to talk. I’ve been in this shape longer than I’ve been human, and I still don’t want to talk about the whys and hows of it. All I want to know before I leave is whether you’re committed to helping Alex adjust to his role here in Avalon. The kingdom is his to rule, but there are many loose ends needing to be tied. Traitors abound, pledged to either the Snow Queen or to their own greed. Maidenkeep had been enchanted to keep the worst spells o
ut, you see. Its kings did not need to control the Nine Maidens in order for the Nine Maidens to protect the castle. Avalon could only have fallen to the frost if someone from inside had let them in, and knew the Maidens’ secrets.”

  “I’m going to stay and help Alex,” Tala said. “That’s the only thing I’ve ever been sure of since leaving the Royal States.”

  The cat nodded. The boy in the pond’s reflection nodded. “Then he’s in good hands.”

  “Tally.”

  Tala looked back. His father stood there, looking uncomfortable in a military outfit similar to what the Katipuneros had worn to the coronation. When she turned again, the black cat was gone.

  “Want to talk about it?”

  “Talk about you being a serial murderer?”

  Her father winced. “I don’t know how to make it up to you.”

  “I don’t know either.”

  He’d protected her secret. She wasn’t technically beholden to Avalon’s laws, but he was. Surely there were heavy sanctions and penalties for withholding the Nameless Sword’s location to the liege they vowed to obey, and definitely for withholding the name of the sword’s new master.

  But she couldn’t. Not yet. Millions of people…

  “I can forgive you,” she found herself saying. “But I can’t forget. Not yet. But I don’t know how to do both right now. I’m sorry.”

  A pause. Tala felt the lightest of touches against her hair.

  “I’ll be here for you, whether ye do forgive me or not,” her father said, and she felt like weeping at how gentle his normally strong timbre had become. “As will your mother. We plan on staying here, make sure Alex gets settled in. If y’can’t stand to stay in the same house as me, I’ll find someplace else. Your mother agreed to that. I know I can’t change my past, but I can’t ask you to ignore it, and I will always wait until yer ready to talk. And I will always love you, either way. Know that, my lass.”

  Tala waited until her father’s footsteps faded away before she stood.

  * * *

  The freshly staffed Maidenkeep servants had done their best to remove all evidence of the previous frost within its walls, but entry to this particular room had been forbidden to all. Not even Tala’s curse could offset the barriers that had now been placed in the corridor leading up to the Nine Maidens’ control room. The defensive spells in the outer barricade fizzled harmlessly against Tala’s fingers, but one was enough to sap her strength, and there were thousands more lining the hallway that she’d have to get through just to reach the door.

  Somewhere within that room, Tala knew, there was a mirror. And within that mirror was a sword.

  But she’d rejected it, hadn’t she? Did she have any more claims to the sword after that?

  The spells sent small shocks up the length of her arms. In the end, she had no choice but to leave the hallway with guilt still weighing heavy in her heart, away from that strange room where the Nine Maidens protected the castle and the kingdom, and where a sword was nothing more than a reflection in the mirror, once upon a time.

  * * *

  “Quite a ruckus,” the Cheshire noted much later, as it sat inside its quarters at Maidenkeep’s highest tower. “I’ve seen my share of these ceremonies, Hatter, and this was certainly the most…enthusiastic.”

  “But she rejected the sword!” The other, a harried-looking man with spectacles and a tendency toward baldness, riffled through the pages of several books, straining to look for something he could not find. “The prophecies have never been wrong before!”

  “There is time enough to change minds,” the Cheshire said. “It has been rejected before, or don’t you remember? The sword has been waiting decades. It can stand to wait a little longer.”

  The Cheshire stared thoughtfully at the Nameless Sword. It sat at the corner of the room, buried to the hilt inside stone. It gleamed.

  “Prophecy may be interpreted in many different ways. And if the young Makiling does not wish to suit prophecy, then perhaps prophecy shall twist itself around to suit her instead. But all things considered, it went pretty well, don’t you think?”

  Epilogue

  In Which the Firebird Takes a Different Journey

  Once upon a time, there was a firebird, and it soared through the skies. Most of the residents of Maidenkeep were fast asleep, and it would not be missed that night.

  It flew on tirelessly, at a speed greater than the fastest horse could run, or the fastest fish could swim, or even the fastest a firebird could fly. It flew past mountains and trees and villages, all of which zipped by underneath it in a blur. It flew on even when the cities below began to thin out and disappear entirely, when the mountains slowly gave way to large glaciers of ice and frost, even when the air grew cold and chilly.

  It came across the strange barrier that marked the boundaries of what some people call the Northern Country, or the Whitelands, or the closed kingdom of Beira. The barrier would have stopped any other being, but the firebird slipped through the wards quite easily and continued.

  It flew on until it reached a large castle, one made completely and absolutely of ice, as opposed to merely being entombed in it. It soared up towers and turrets until it found a crack in the walls large enough for it to squeeze through, giving no thought to the freezing temperature that should have killed any other living thing. It flew into the throne room.

  The room itself was vast and seemed to be larger than what the castle walls outside conveyed. It was bare, save for a large, mirror-like pond. At the center of this frozen lake was a throne made of a myriad of crystals and ice, and in it sat a very beautiful woman. She had soft silver hair, long enough that it pooled around her ankles, brushing against the floor. She wore a white robe that was unlike any other robe ever made, of a material more gossamer than fiber. A lovely crystal circlet encircled her smooth, unlined forehead. She had flawlessly white skin, a delicate oval face like a doll’s, and eyes like two large unfathomable pools of pale blue.

  The firebird sat on the edge of the throne and looked up at her.

  A boy stepped forward; dark hair, blue eyes, a sad mouth. “I almost didn’t believe you when you said it would show up,” Ryker said. “You know it tried to burn me, right?”

  “The pretense was necessary. I nursed it back to health, my dear boy. It will not harm me.” The woman smiled and stroked the firebird’s head gently with the other hand. It purred, pleased.

  “Well done, my dear,” the Snow Queen whispered.

  Glossary

  adobo: chicken or pork cooked in soy sauce, vinegar, and garlic

  agimat: an amulet or charm

  “Alis!”: “Leave!”

  anak: gender-neutral term used to refer to one’s children

  anak ng Diyos: son of God; also an exclamation similar to “son of a gun”

  antipatika: someone unfriendly or disagreeable

  arnis: Filipino martial art that incorporates stickfighting

  ate (ah-teh): an older sister; used informally to show respect for older women

  anting-anting: charm used to ward off curses

  bagoong: shrimp paste sauce used as condiment in many Filipino dishes

  bibingka: a baked cake made of rice, eggs, and coconut milk

  boodle fight: a set of meals placed on a banana leaf–lined table for sharing, eaten using hands instead of cutlery

  chicharon bulaklak: popular Filipino street food made of fried pork intestines

  dwende: mischievous dwarves of Filipino mythology

  Diyos ko: “my God”; also spelled Dyos ko

  Heneral: general

  kaldereta: meat stew made from either goat, beef, or pork

  kulam: a curse

  “Nakakamiss”: translated roughly, “I’ve missed this.”

  “Natakot ba natin?”: “Did we scare [them] off?”

  l
eche flan: custard coated in a clear caramel sauce

  lechon: whole roasted pig, cooked on a spit over charcoal

  Lola: (formally) grandmother; also used informally as a term of endearment for older women, as Tala refers to Lola Urduja

  lumpiang shanghai: fried spring rolls

  mahal: “my love,” one’s beloved

  mare (ma-reh): term of endearment to someone you’re close to, of the same social class or age

  pangitain: omen

  pansit: noodles, often sauteed with vegetables

  pinakbet: steamed vegetables cooked in shrimp sauce

  punyeta: expletive to express frustration or anger

  “Punyetang mga traydor”: “Fucking traitors”

  putangina: expletive literally meaning “bitch mother,” but equivalent to “fuck this” in English

  puto: Filipino steamed rice cakes

  sisig: chopped chicken livers and pork meat (usually from pigs’ heads), served on a sizzling plate with vinegar, chili, and calamansi

  “Susmaryosep”: mild expletive; slang for “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph”

  takmon: mother-of-pearl sequin-like shells

  tangina: derivative of putangina

  terno: a stiff blouse made from abaca, often used for formal occasions in the Philippines

  torta: omelet-style

  “Umalis na kayo.”: “You all better leave.”

  Acknowledgments

  Writing acknowledgments for my seventh published book is odd when it was technically the first book I’d ever completed, but I’m glad I kept on. I understand now that I needed those extra years to fully develop it in ways I’d never have imagined back in 2010, and my strange little novel was all the better for this necessary percolation.

  All this still wouldn’t have been possible if not for the constant support and encouragement of the Sourcebooks Fire team, who like to take chances on strange little novels. All my gratitude to my editor, the very fabulous Annie Berger, and also to Cassie Gutman, Sarah Kasman, Ashley Holstrom, Nicole Hower, Beth Oleniczak, Mallory Hyde, and Ashlyn Keil! And also to Todd Stocke, and to Dominique Raccah, without whom Sourcebooks would not exist! My gratitude also to the amazing Annette Pollert-Morgan, who had enough confidence in me to ask for this book based on a pitch alone.