Novels by Bidemi

"Seize those weapons! Now!" Damon roared, and his voice cracked. "They're malfunctioning! Take them away from him!" Six temple guards rushed the altar with their hands out. The first one grabbed the crimson spear, and in the next instant he flew backward through the air. He hit a pillar with a sickening crack and slid to the floor, groaning. "Aaah! It burned me!" The second guard reached for the hammer and was thrown across the hall. The third and fourth tried together, and the weapons flashed like lightning and hurled them into the crowd. Guests screamed and scrambled away. The twelve weapons did not stop bowing. "Don't touch them!" the head priest shrieked. "They're angry! They are holy!" "Then why are they bowing to a cripple?" a man shouted from the back. "What is he?" "Quiet!" Damon spun around. His face was dark red, and his eyes burned with something close to panic. "He's nothing! A trick! He is a sick, poisoned man, and this is a trick!" He stormed toward the wheelchai

"Let the cripple bless us. Let him touch the Blade of Judgment." Damon Cross smiled as he said it, and the grand hall of the Temple of Dawn laughed with him. Ronan sat at the back of the crowd in his wheelchair, and he felt Bram's hands tighten on the handles. It had been two days since the statue wept. Damon had scrubbed his hands raw and said nothing more about Core Lords, but Ronan had seen how he watched him since. Every glance was a test, and every smile hid a question. *He suspects,* Ronan thought. *But he cannot prove it.* "Young Master, please," Bram whispered. "We shouldn't have come. They only invited you so they could laugh." "I know," Ronan whispered back. "But I'm family, remember? I couldn't miss my fiancée's engagement." "Ex-fiancée!" "Shh." Ronan gave him a small, miserable smile. "Let them have their fun." The hall was packed with the city's richest families. Gold banners hung from the pillars, and incense curled toward the high ceiling. At the front stood a l

"Take the cripple alive. His core is intact." Gideon Vale's voice crackled out of the tiny blue crystal in Ronan's palm. Ronan sat in the dark of the Whitmore guest wing with the listening stone pressed against his ear. "Alive?" the Cross envoy asked on the recording. "You are sure you want to hand over your own son?" "He stopped being my son the day he broke," Gideon said. "Your master wants the core, and I want the Vale name saved. We both get what we want. Name your price." Ronan's fingers curled around the crystal until it nearly cracked. Beside the bed, Old Bram sat on a stool, wringing his cap. "Young Master," he whispered, "you've gone pale. What did they say?" "Nothing, Bram." Ronan forced a weak smile. "Just old family talk." He lowered the stone into his lap and stared at the crumpled note on the blanket. *Do not eat anything Seren gives you. Forgive me, Ronan. I thought I was protecting you.* The same hand that wrote those words had sold him, only hours apart. "Whic

"Tell Young Master Cross that the Vale family is ready to cooperate. We only ask that he consider investing in our businesses." Gideon Vale's voice drifted through the carved doors of the meeting hall, the voice of a man who had practiced his smile in a mirror. Ronan waited in the corridor outside in his wheelchair, his head bowed and a blanket over his knees. Beside him, Old Bram wrung his cap in his hands. "Young Master, you shouldn't be here. They won't let you in." "They have to," Ronan whispered, in his most pitiful voice. "I'm a Vale. This is my family." Three years ago, this same family had packed his belongings into a single trunk and sent him to the smallest room in the Whitmore guest wing. His father had not even come to say goodbye. Now that same father was begging. "The Cross family doesn't invest in names," a polite voice answered from inside. It belonged to a man Ronan had never met, probably one of Damon's envoys. "We invest in strength." "We have strength!" Gide

"Don't make this difficult, Ronan. We were paid to deliver you alive, but nobody said you had to arrive in one piece." Four hunters stepped out of the shadows and blocked the mouth of the alley on the way back from the hospital. He had sent Bram home an hour ago with a lie about visiting a friend. He recognized the hunters immediately. The tall one with the scarred jaw had a crooked nose Ronan had broken three years ago. The wide man with iron gauntlets had been the third attacker, and the thin one with the hooked dagger had nearly taken his eye out. The fourth was a bald man with a snake tattoo curling up his neck. "Well, well," the bald man said, cracking his knuckles. "Look at the little hero, all alone." "P-please," Ronan whispered, shrinking down in his chair. "I don't have any money. Just let me go home." "Money?" The thin one snickered and twirled his dagger. "We're being paid more than you've ever seen. Young Master Cross wants you in a cage, cripple." "Why?" Ronan aske

"Your body will never recover. You should accept your condition instead of wasting everyone's time." Dr. Silas Vane's words from three years ago still echoed in Ronan's memory, cold and flat and sure of themselves. Now Old Bram pushed the wheelchair through the same clinic door, and the man behind the desk gave the same arrogant look. "Why are you here, Ronan?" Silas leaned back and steepled his fingers. "Have you come to beg me for another miracle?" "Good afternoon, Doctor," Ronan said, and his voice wavered. "I'm sorry to come without an appointment." "I can see why you did." Silas's gaze slid over his ruined coat and his pale, thin face. "You look worse than last time. The pain is getting worse, isn't it? The corrosion has reached your lungs, perhaps?" "It... it hurts every night, Doctor." Ronan blinked, and his eyes grew wet. "I can't sleep. I can't eat. Please, I just want to know if there's anything left to try." "Ah." Silas sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I to