Eona (51 page)

Although his voice seemed easy, I heard the tension within it. Guiltily, I looked back at my mother; she would have seen my joy, too. Yet she smiled at me, the gentle understanding on her face bringing an answering smile to my own.

“Of course, Your Majesty, we must proceed,” I said loudly, and turned to Rulan. “My thanks to you and your people for finding my friends.” With a touch to Rilla's shoulder, I drew all three toward the raised bench. “Come, sit by me.” My firm order stopped the approach of the door guards, obviously intent on removing Chart from the meetinghouse. They looked to Rulan, who waved them back. Ignoring the subtle shifting of dismay around the tent, I returned to my position beside Kygo, while Rilla and Lon seated themselves and Chart on the rugs near my feet.

“You have indeed survived well without the blessing of a dragon,” Kygo said to the gathering. “And your courage and skill in battle are legendary.” He touched the Imperial Pearl at his throat, its pale luminescence drawing everyone's eyes. “As you can see, I am the rightful heir to the throne. The pearl is within me, is a part of me. And with the might of the Mirror Dragon and the Rat Dragon behind us, we will be victorious in the struggle ahead.”

Rulan cut through the rise of voices with a flat hand. “We acknowledge your right, Your Majesty,” he said. “But with all due respect, you have brought us a girl barely beyond childhood, and a traitor who killed his Dragoneye brothers and sided with our enemy. We do not see how his power can be brought to our venture. Or how a little girl can be trusted to fight and not run from the battle.”

On the bench to our left, I saw Tozay stiffen.

“Lady Eona does not run from a battle,” Kygo said coldly. “She has as much courage as any man in this room. And she can compel Lord Ido's power. He will do as she commands. And she will do as I command.”

The change of atmosphere in the tent sent danger prickling across my scalp. I straightened, not even daring to swallow, in case it was seen as weakness.

“Then show us this staunch chain of command, Your Majesty,” Rulan demanded. “Prove that all of this power is under your control, and we will follow you to victory—or death— with joy in our hearts.”

His words were greeted with yips of enthusiasm from around the room.

“Silence,” Kygo commanded.

The noise stopped, its shrillness shifting into a sudden press of expectancy.

“You have something in mind, Rulan,” Kygo said flatly. “What is it?”

Rulan looked around the tent with a smile, the delay in his answer sharpening his people's excitement. “Have Lady Eona compel Lord Ido.” His eyes fixed on the Dragoneye, then found me. “Make him hold his arm in the brazier coals for a count of ten. One count each for the Dragoneye Lords he betrayed.”

Beside me, Rilla gasped. I sucked in a hard breath, forcing myself to meet the challenge in Rulan's face. The demand was too brutal. I would not do it. Yet I had placed my power under Kygo's command, and I could not renege on that promise. Perhaps Kygo would refuse. If he loved me as much as Tozay had said—as much as his sweet endearment and caresses seemed to say—then surely he would not ask me to do this.

I turned from Rulan, praying that Kygo would see my reluctance. But he was staring at Ido, his jaw tensed into a brutal line. He needed the Eastern Tribes. He could not refuse, and he could not show weakness. And as his
Naiso
and Dragoneye, neither could I.

Ido's hard gaze moved to me. He was not a man to plead, but I saw something flick across his face. What he saw in mine made him close his eyes.

“For a count of ten,” Kygo agreed.

Ido's hands clenched in the irons.

“Ryko,” Kygo said. The islander looked up. “Take Lillia outside.”

Ryko bowed, crossed the floor, and led my mother from the tent. A tiny spark of warmth penetrated my dread. Kygo had just protected Ryko from the full brunt of my compulsion, and Lillia from the truth. I turned to Rilla—she and Chart should go outside, too—but her face was already set into the stubborn lines I knew so well. She would not leave.

“Yuso,” Kygo ordered, motioning to the brazier.

Yuso grasped Ido's arm, preparing to pull him upright, but the Dragoneye wrenched himself out of the captain's grip and stood under his own volition. He looked around the room, slowly and deliberately—and in that moment I understood the strength of Ido's will, for there was not one friendly face in that crowd. Not one place to find solace. Then he walked to the brazier.

Yuso followed.

“Lady Eona,” Kygo said. He looked at me, and I finally saw what was in his heart: fury at Rulan for forcing his hand, and regret for me. “Show Rulan your power.”

I stood as Yuso undid Ido's shackles, then pulled them off his wrists and stepped back. The tent was so quiet I could hear Ido's quickening breaths. Or perhaps they were just mine. I crossed the distance between us and stood opposite him. He had to have one pair of eyes that offered compassion, even if they belonged to his torturer.

“Again,” I said, hoping he would understand.

The tilt of his head was almost imperceptible, his face paling with anticipation.

I reached with my
Hua
and found his heartbeat, folding his pulse into mine. Then I sought the deeper level; the pathways that flared so dark between us, the pathways that had fused pleasure and pain. This time there was resistance. Ruthlessly, I pushed through it, the compulsion rolling over him, his eyes widening with the energy that leaped through us.

“Lord Ido, put your arm into the brazier,” I ordered, fighting back the rise of bile into my mouth.

I felt Ido's instinct rage against the command, the sinews ridging in his arm as he braced against my will. But he could not withstand the force behind it. He turned, and with head thrown back, plunged his arm into the glowing coals. His choked scream shuddered through me, his agony resonating through my
Hua
.

“One,” Kygo said. “Two.”

I heard the gasps from around the tent, but I was fixed on Ido, concentrating fiercely on the meld of pathways between us. I had a plan.

“Three,” Kygo said above the growing calls of excitement. “Four.”

Pain was just another kind of energy; Ido had said that. And energy could be directed, stopped, absorbed. I caught the torment that surged along the three meridian lines of his arm. Clenching my teeth against the backlash of boiling, blistering pain, I rammed my
Hua
against their convergence in his shoulder, blocking the flow. Blocking sensation.

Ido dropped to one knee. Around us, the calls had thickened into baying.

“Silence,” Tozay roared. The mob subsided into whispers. I could smell the same stench that had been in the ash wind on the beach: pain and burning and fear.

“Five.” Kygo's voice was flat, emotionless. “Six.”

Damming the raw pain was like holding back a battering ram with my bare hands. But I felt Ido's breaths lengthen, the straining shock of his body ease a level.

“Seven … eight.”

Pain seeped through my hold, long splinters of molten fire searing through our
Hua
.

“Nine,” Kygo said.
“Ten!”

I grabbed the back of Ido's tunic and pulled him free of the brazier. And my protection. He collapsed onto the rugs, gasping for breath. My gorge rose at the stink of burnt flesh and the terrible damage to his arm. But there was no time for horror. I gathered the rage that was building in me.

“This is not the purpose of dragon power!” I screamed at Rulan.
“I will show you the Mirror Dragon's true power!”

I splayed my hands on Ido's chest and, with one breath, entered the energy world in a twisting buckle of color.

The tent was a seething mass of
Hua
. Silver savagery leaped through the transparent bodies of the mob around us, the swirl of violent energy streaming around the tent and between the two coiled dragons above. The blue beast shrieked as I felt Ido's union with his power burst through my core, the damage to his arm a small dark death in his energy body. I called the majesty of the Mirror Dragon, my fury meeting the cinnamon torrent of her golden glory in a slam of healing force. Our
Hua
closed over Ido's arm, restoring skin and flesh and charred bone with new authority. We heard the long drawn breath of agony finally released. Ido reached up and grabbed my earthly arm as the blue dragon uncoiled.

But we were not finished. These ignorant, savage people would see the true magnificence of the Mirror Dragon and her Dragoneye.

“Hold the ten beasts back,” I said. “As long as possible.”

Ido nodded as the blue beast launched himself into a sweeping circle around the pulsing crimson of my dragon.

I stood up and walked to Rilla and Chart. Silvered awe and fear pumped through their bodies as I kneeled beside them.

“Eona! What are you doing?” Rilla's voice leapt with her
Hua
.

Chart's body cringed from me as I placed my energy hands on the thin cage of his chest, the power centers along his spine spinning with vitality. Gold power flowed, searching, finding old damage—birth damage buried in the memory of his growth— knitted into the structures of muscle and bone and sinew, and even deeper in the tight twists of energy that flowed from mind to body. Our power dug and unraveled, rebuilt and connected. Our golden union thundered through us. We were
Hua
and we were the force of creation.

They are coming
, Ido's mind-voice warned.

We felt them; the pressure of their keening approach was building in our energy.

I wrenched my hands off Chart's chest, and the swirl of the celestial plane collapsed into the fixed heat and stink and stunned hush of the tent. The abrupt separation from the glory of my dragon was like a freezing hand of loss around my heart. I looked down at Chart's face. His straining fight for control of muscle and sinew was gone, the planes and angles of his features settling into a familiar heart-stopping shape.

My breath caught. He was the image of my old master, the man who had found me in the salt farm and set me on this path of power. Chart lifted his hand and stared at the open splay of his fingers, the dazed incomprehension in his eyes dousing the last of my righteous fury.

Rilla's sob brought my head up. She touched Chart's cheek, her body shaking with shock.

“Lady Eona.” I turned at Kygo's voice. He held out his hand, an anchor in the pounding wash of loss and fading power, and pulled me to my feet. Beyond us, Ido pushed himself up from the ground. The energy between us had left a small smile on his face.

Kygo's eyes swept around the tent. “You have seen Lady Eona's power and resolve,” he said harshly. “Be thankful that you have also witnessed her compassion and restraint.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

RULAN HELD BACK
a branch for me as I followed Kygo past the scrubby stand of trees to the lookout that had the best view of Sethon's camp. The tribal leader and his people had certainly become more respectful since my display of power. I wiped the slip of sweat gathered at the base of my throat and blew a cooling breath upward. The day's heat was building to its peak, and Kygo's pace was relentless. He was set on gaining a rapid overview of the resistance resources and what we faced on the plain below.

I had not even had a chance to see Rilla and Chart and celebrate the wonder of my dragon's healing power. Or tell Chart about the effect of that power on his will. I rolled my shoulders, trying to shake off the dread of that moment; surely his joy would override any distress. And he knew me well enough to know that I had healed him out of love, even if it had looked as if it was done in anger. There had been no time to explain afterward; Kygo had wanted me by his side in the formal negotiations, and Chart had been too shocked to take much in. But I had at least promised him I would visit as soon as I could.

“What do you expect with these shackles?” Ido's low voice, behind me, was full of contempt. “If you want me to move faster, take them off.”

I looked over my shoulder. Yuso was taunting him again, like a mongoose baiting a snake.

After the brutal events of the morning, I had not expected Ido's inclusion in the observation party. Yet, on reflection, it made sense. Both he and I needed to know the terrain of the battlefield and the scope of Sethon's preparation. And Kygo was no doubt reminding Rulan and the other tribal leaders that Ido was not only a murderous traitor—he was also a Dragoneye, and a key player in the battle to come.

Yuso prodded Ido in the back. “I doubt you will ever get out of shackles,
my lord.”
He leaned closer, but I caught his soft words. “And you are the girl's bitch, forever.”

Anger flared in Ido's face. He did not normally rise to Yuso's harassment. Uneasily, I realized my own anger had risen too. I shook it off; Ido did not need me to defend him.

“Lady Eona.” I turned at Kygo's call. “Come look.”

I forged through the thinning copse of trees. Kygo stood with Tozay under a shaded overhang of branches, a scout crouched at their feet. All three men observed the sweep of land below the precipice on which we stood. As I stepped up beside Kygo, the scout ducked his head into a quick bow.

The back of my neck prickled with the sight before me. Sethon's army was camped halfway along the massive plain. The stretch of tents and war machinery and horses and men was so great that, although I squinted, I could not see where the camp ended, its far reaches lost in distance. I had thought I was prepared for the battle ahead, but the plunging freeze in my gut told me otherwise. I'd had no true idea of what we were about to face.

Tozay gestured across the flat expanse of land that stretched between the precipice and the front line of the army camp. “Sethon has staked a battleground. But he will not attack us while we hold the high advantage.”