Master of Dragons Read Online Free PDF Page A

to entertain. Joyce hadn’t said anything about her daughter being ill.
    Knowing she’d probably regret it, Nineva let her gaze slip unfocused until she could look at the child with other senses. A dark shadow seemed to curl around Brandy’s small body, draining the normal blue radiance of life into an unhealthy gray. The darkness drew into a thick knot concentrated in her head. She must have some kind of brain cancer.
    Giving her magic free rein, Nineva sensed the tumor was inoperable. Judging by all the poisons in her body, Brandy had been undergoing chemotherapy and radiation treatments for weeks now, but she was succumbing to the treatments faster than the cancer was.
    She had, at most, a couple of months to live.
    Now what the hell am I supposed to do?
    Pasting a smile on her face, Nineva dipped a curtsy and waved her battery-operated wand. “I am Nineva, Princess of the Fairies.”
    â€œI’m Brandy.” The child nodded eagerly, her eyes almost painfully wide. In their depths shone a flicker of desperate hope.
    Sweet Semira, she thinks I’m real . Without letting her smile falter, Nineva turned to the rest of the children, who had arranged themselves breathlessly on the couch. “And who are you?”
    As the children babbled out all their names at once, Nineva’s mind worked furiously. Curing Brandy would take an act of major magic that could attract Ansgar’s attention. As she’d learned years ago, shielding that kind of magic use was difficult at best. It tended to blow right through her best efforts.
    She’d done other healings since the Irish setter that had cost her parents’ lives, but only dying humans—and nothing this complicated. It was one thing to fix a damaged heart, but between the cancer and the chemo, Brandy’s entire body was compromised. There was no guarantee Nineva could heal that much damage. What if the attempt accomplished nothing except to get her killed?
    Would she be wasting her parents’ sacrifice?
    To give herself time to think, Nineva swung into her act. She’d long since learned to restrict herself to the kind of small tricks any mortal magician might work at a child’s birthday party. Anything else could draw her cousin’s homicidal interest.
    For the next forty-five minutes, Nineva did card tricks, pulled coins out of little ears and noses, linked apparently solid rings together, and made a ball float in midair beneath a scarf. By the end of her act, the awestruck little girls imagined her a genuine fairy princess with fantastic powers. Brandy’s watching mother probably thought she was skilled with sleight of hand and stage props.
    The little girls had it right, a bit of irony Nineva didn’t enjoy the way she usually did.
    She couldn’t take her eyes off Brandy. Every time brown eyes widened or thin, pale cheeks flushed with excitement, a little needle of pain worked its way deeper in her heart. Some fairy princess I am. Mom would be so ashamed.
    Mom is dead, the ruthless voice of pragmatism retorted. And I will be, too, if Ansgar senses me work that spell. Which might not even save Brandy anyway .
    Could she really cure a brain tumor? Nineva had stopped a heart attack two years ago when a middle-aged salesman keeled over at the bar where she’d worked. She’d healed him so quickly, he’d thought the attack was only a particularly nasty case of indigestion. In reality, Nineva had likely given him another forty years of life.
    Unfortunately, the burst of power had blown out her shields yet again. She’d had to race home, pack all her stuff, and slip out of town that same night.
    But it had been worth it. She may have cost her parents their lives, but if she could save others, that had to balance the scales.
    So would saving this little girl. If Nineva could do it.
    Ah, hell. Who was she kidding? She had to try, King Ansgar and his killer Sidhe warriors be damned. Even if they caught