Tagged Again!

Thomma Lyn, at Tennessee Text Wrestling, tagged me with this meme. The rules are:

1. Grab the nearest book of 123 pages or more.
2. Open to page 123.
3. Find the first five sentences and write them down.
4. Invite five friends to do the same.

I'm actually reading Jim Melvin's Moon Goddess, but that book is downstairs at the moment and therefore nowhere near my desk. There is a box (I don't have a bookshelf ... sigh) full of books not five feet away, however, and the one on top is Book Two of The Rune of Unmaking: A Dark Sacrifice by Madeline Howard (also known as Teresa Edgerton), who is now one of my favorite authors. I have of course read Book One, The Hidden Stars, and one other book by her, The Queen's Necklace. I also interviewed her for the first issue of Tower of Light. If you're interested, you can read the interview here.



Here's the blurb on the back cover:

More than a century has passed since the mighty struggle between the wizards and the mages ended in mutual destruction, and more than forty years since the Empress Ouriana became the Divine Incarnation of the Devouring Moon. Appointing twelve deadly sorcerers as her priests, she rules the land in darkness unending.

Yet there is a small chance for hope, if one foreordained princess can survive. But she has vanished behind enemy lines, and even a brave band of heroes may not be able to reach her in time. For Ouriana's dark reign has woken the ancient terrors of legend, and their vengence will be swift and all-consuming...

Okay, now here's the first five sentences on page 123:

She saw just ahead of a gaping hole in the fortifications, and all around where the wall had been there was great debris of shattered stone and pulverized rock. When they reached the outskirts of the wreckage, horses shied again, this time from a gigantic, sprawling man-shaped figure pinned in place by a pile of stone blocks and the splintered remains of a ladder.

Worst of all was a pervasive smell, a taint, infinitely worse than anything rising from the decomposing bodies, with a stomach-churning familiarity about it that Sinderian could not immediately place. Then she did remember; the muscles in her abdomen clenched, and sweat broke out on the palms of her hands. It was the stench of blackest magic, and the last time she had encountered it in such strength was on the road from Galaefri after the fall of Cuirartheros.

I have no idea who to tag. Five friends? I suppose I have that many, but some have already been tagged. Let's see ... Jim, David, Dawn, Leah, and Howard.