Read The Edge of Ruin for Free Online Page B

spell!” Rhiana’s throat was tight with tension and fear. It squeezed the words into a harpy’s shriek. “If anyone hurts me I’ll use my last breath to shred the bonds holding him! So you better treat me right!”
    It hadn’t been a conscious or even calculated thought. She had drawn her own strength into the binding spell because she had needed a little extra boost of power. But what she’d learned since that day made her glad she had taken the action.
    Rhiana had naively believed that the Old Ones all shared the same goals. She hadn’t understood that they occupied different multiverses, they were different creatures, they had different goals.
And they were all equally greedy
. Since the gates had opened, Madoc had been involved in a few rather vicious turf wars with other Old Ones. Rhiana had come to realize that she might well be in danger. She just hadn’t thought the threat would come from her sire.
    “So, when you die we once again lose this world?” Madoc demanded.
    “No. Let me live a long and happy life … and I mean a
really
happy life, and I’ll alter the spell. But only when I’m a lot older. A
whole
lot older.” Rhiana waited tensely for his reply.
    “Give you whatever you want, is that it?” Madoc asked.
    “Yes.”
    “And does that include the paladin?”
    “Yes.”
    “You don’t really want him. You want the fantasy of him,” Madoc complained.
    “Maybe, but I want the chance to find out for myself,” Rhiana answered.
    Madoc shook his head. “Once this is known, everyone is going to focus on recasting the spell. Then they’ll kill you for your temerity.”
    It was said matter-of-factly. Rhiana gaped at him. “Wouldn’t you try to stop them? Do something to help me? I’ve done so much for you.”
    “I, too, am just a servant of the great ones.”
    Rhiana’s surprise and sense of betrayal deepened. “I thought you were, like, really important.”
    “Sorry. No.” It seemed like no matter where she lived she was doomed to the lower class. He seemed to read her emotions. “You’re still more important than a human.”
    “What can I do to … to …”
    “Fix this?” She nodded. “Recover the sword, capture or kill the paladin—I don’t care which, and destroy the nascent Lumina. That would help buy you some forgiveness.”
    “And how fast do I have to do all this?” Rhiana asked. A weight had settled into the pit of her gut, a leaden ball of despair and loss.
    “Quicker would be better.” He steepled his fingers in front of his mouth. His expression was reflective. “You know, this might actually prove to be helpful. We have the dark paladin and have been trying to figure out what to do with him until we acquire the sword. He can be your responsibility. See to it you keep him happy.”

THREE
    R ICHARD
    T he smells—disinfectant, overcooked vegetables, bedpans, and the sweet rotten scent of cut flowers too long in water—identified the location.
Hospital.
I had spent way too much time in hospitals. I hated hospitals. I stirred and pain lanced down my leg. Sweat suddenly beaded my forehead and went trickling away into my sideburns with a feeling like ants crawling across my skin.
    “Here.” A drug dispenser was thrust into my hand. “You’ll want this.”
    The words sang with the lyric cadences of Spain filtered through four hundred years in the mountains of northern New Mexico. I looked over, and Angela bent down and kissed me. Her mouth tasted of coffee and chocolate, two of her favorite vices. The inside of my mouth was like a compost heap. I turned my head away. Angela straightened and gently brushed the hair off my forehead. From the way it was clinging to her fingers I could tell it was sweat matted, and now I was aware of the sheets damp and twisted against my bare backside, the way the skin under my arms stuck to my sides, my own smell. I was suddenly desperate for a shower.
    “Pain slows the healing process. Use it.” It was an order.
    Obediently I