Eona (53 page)

“You are pale.” His breath was spiced with wine. “Is something wrong?”

I swallowed, trying to force down the oily nausea that I knew heralded the black folio. Unbidden, my gaze found Lord Ido, seated under guard across the circle. Kygo had insisted that he attend the dinner, but the Dragoneye had refused all food and drink. He sat very still as if any movement would break him apart, and his skin had a gray cast that added years to his face. My sickness came from just the approach of the folio, but Ido had a direct connection to it via the Rat Dragon and Dillon. I could not even imagine what he was suffering.

Kygo followed my gaze. “He looks unwell.”

At some point very soon, I would have to tell him that I had forced Ido to call Dillon to us, but it was not a conversation to be tucked in between one goat dish and another.

At Kygo's throat, the Imperial Pearl caught the flickers of orange and red torchlight as though it held its own fire. What would happen if I told him the whole truth? That I had kept Dillon's arrival from him because the black folio held a way to bind my will and power. That I knew the
Hua
of All Men was the pearl stitched into his skin and his blood, and I had not told him because I hoped to find a way to save the dragons that did not make me a threat to his life. Any king in his right mind would kill me on the spot.

I shrugged. “Nothing is wrong with me,” I said. “Except too much goat.”

He smiled, squeezing my hand. “It is not my favorite meat, either, but it is certainly abundant.” He lowered his voice. “The things we do in the name of duty.”

His attention was claimed by Soran with yet another drunken story of battle prowess. I watched him graciously accept a piece of roasted goat from a fresh platter, his eyes meeting mine in a quick slide of amusement. The intimacy of the glance sent a wash of warmth through me that distilled into a single sharp ache of desire.

Where did my duty lie: with this powerful, beautiful man who held my hand and named me moon to his sun; or with the dragons, the source of my own magnificent power? Somehow I had to find a way to serve the interests of both. Yet what if it came to a choice between them? I shifted uneasily on the cushions: Ido was also bound up within that terrible question. As if he had heard my thoughts, the Dragoneye raised his head. There was fear in his eyes, and it chilled me with foreboding. Ido was as much in the balance as Kygo and the spirit beasts. He was tied just as tightly as I was to the dragons and their destiny. And that destiny was walking toward us with a black folio strapped to its arm and madness darkening its mind.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

I WOKE THE NEXT
morning to the sound of a shouting voice. Blearily, I focused on the tent roof above me, the open smoke circle at its peak pinked with dawn light. Pain drummed through my head, each spike sending a wave of nausea into my body. I struggled up on to my elbows and winced as loud barking erupted, the camp dogs roused into their own sharp rhythms of alarm.

Vida rose from her bed on the rugs, both daggers drawn, and crossed to the tent door. “Get up, my lady,” she whispered. “Something is happening.”

I swung my legs over the edge of the bed seat. “Is the battle starting?” The possibility closed a vise of fear around my gut.

“No, it's not the battle alarm.” Vida pushed the door open a crack, her eye pressed against the slice of light, head cocked for listening. “It is one of the scouts. He is shouting something about a demon ripping through Sethon's camp.”

It was no demon: the pain in my head told me it was Dillon. He had arrived, and with him had come hope—and dread. Snatching my trousers from the wooden press, I pulled them on, half hopping across the rugs to the airing rack. I scooped up my tunic and slid my arms into its wide sleeves.

“Vida, help me put on my swords.” I knotted the inner laces of the tunic and wrapped the sash around my waist.

She held up the sheath. I plunged my arms through the brace and shrugged its weight into place on my back. Without the protection of a breast band, the straps dug into my chest, the sharp physical pressure a strange kind of anchor in the turmoil of my fear. Vida bent to secure the waist strap, clicking her tongue at the stiffness of the ties.

The door shuddered under a hard barrage of knocking. “Lady Eona, the emperor commands your presence. Now!” It was Yuso's voice.

“Done,” Vida said, stepping back from me.

“My ancestors' plaques,” I said. “Where are they? I must have them.” Kinra had helped me hold off Dillon once before. Perhaps she would do it again.

Vida lunged across to a small basket on the ground and dug through it. “Here.” She held out the leather pouch. “May your ancestors protect you, my lady.”

“And yours, too, Vida.”

As I took the pouch, her hand closed around mine. A brief press of hope and fellowship.

I tucked the pouch into my sash and pushed open the door. A blaze of pain rocked me on my feet. Captain Yuso bowed, his shrewd eyes noting my recoil. Beyond him, men ducked around shifting horses, tightening straps, and checking tack. I saw Ryko issuing orders, and Kygo in close conference with Tozay. The air still held the freshness of dawn, but an edge of heat was already in the bright sunlight.

And something else—a faint dankness that made me shudder.

“We ride to the lookout, my lady,” Yuso said. “A scout has reported something in Sethon's camp.” He watched me closely. “He says it is a demon.”

Although I tried to hold firm, my eyes slid from his scrutiny. “A demon?”

The truth was finally bearing down with all the force of a mountain avalanche. I looked past Yuso at a figure crouched into a tense ball a few lengths away; a man with his arms wrapped over his head, his back heaving with each rasping breath. There was no mistaking that powerful line of shoulder or dark, ragged hair.

Ido.

I pushed past Yuso and sprinted toward the Dragoneye as one of his guards dragged at his arm.

“Leave him!” I shouted. The guard straightened.

“Ido?” I dropped to my knees beside him. “Ido, look at me.” He did not raise his head. “Give him some air,” I ordered, waving back the two guards.

Tentatively, I touched the dark hair. It was wet with sweat. He finally lifted his head.

“Eona.” His shackled hands clasped mine, his skin hot and damp with fever. “He has arrived. Do you feel him?”

“Yes. Why is it so bad?”

“He is far stronger than I thought he'd be,” he whispered. “He is using the death chant from the folio. I can feel death all around him.”

“Can Sethon stop him and take the folio?”

“I don't think anyone can stop him. Not even us.”

“We have to,” I said. “He wants to kill you.”

Ido's grasp tightened around my fingers. “He wants to kill both of us.”

His face changed, a warning etched over the lines of pain. At the edge of my vision, I saw the two guards drop into kowtows. I whirled on my knees to face the emperor.

“What is wrong with him?” Kygo said, jerking his chin at Ido. “He looks worse.”

I bowed, but before I could answer, Ido struggled to his feet. All of his grace was gone, stripped away by pain and the awkwardness of his shackled hands.

“There is nothing wrong with me,” he said.

He bent his neck—almost a bow—and walked toward the horses. It must have cost him greatly to move as if his body was not wracked with agony. I dug my fingers into my forehead, pressing back my own pain.

“Come,
Naiso.”
Kygo offered his hand and pulled me to my feet. “You will ride behind me.”

Very soon, he would know that the demon was Dillon. Was this the time to tell him everything? Truly be his
Naiso?
If I did, the love in his eyes would be gone forever, replaced by fury and betrayal. Yet it had to be done. I knew it had to be done.

“It will be all right,” he said, drawing my hand to his lips.

His soft kiss on my palm broke my tenuous resolve. It was not going to be all right, but I could not bear to tell him. Not yet.

We rode at a flat gallop, the bone-grinding discomfort barely registering. Every part of me was fixed on the sensation of Kygo's body against mine: the work of his muscles beneath my hands, the braided rope of his queue pressed under my cheek, the smell of last night's smoke still in his hair. The ordeal of Dillon and the folio hung over me like a stone weight, but for that short ride, I held on to Kygo and lived within his breath and heartbeat, and the foolish wish that we could stay like this forever.

At the lookout, Ryko caught me as I slipped down from the horse, and held me steady as my trembling leg muscles recovered. My head was full of thick pain.

“Thank you,” I managed.

He gave a quick nod. “My lady”—he pressed his lips together—“Dela says I went too far.”

Before I could respond, Kygo swung neatly out of the saddle and took my hand. Ryko bowed and backed away, the moment gone.

Behind us, Ido dismounted, but his legs buckled beneath him. He rolled away from the horse's startled stamp, the reflex seeming to take the last of his energy.

“Get him up,” Tozay ordered the guards.

The two men hauled the limp Dragoneye to his feet again, bracing him by his elbows.

No one spoke as we wove our way through the trees, led by the scout who had raised the alarm. I think we could all feel the presence of something dark ahead—a distant disturbance that shivered across the air and lodged in the teeth like a blade drawn across stone.

Another scout turned from his surveillance as we approached the edge of the precipice. It was the same keen-eyed man who had been on duty yesterday. He bobbed his head into a bow as we clustered around him. Everyone except Ido. I looked back at the Dragoneye. He had fallen to his knees, bent double, every breath holding a wheeze of pain.

“It started just before dawn,” the scout said, pointing to a dark cloud of dust on the horizon.

Something was moving through Sethon's camp toward us, slicing through the soldiers as they tried to stop its progress. Every few moments a surge of men rushed at it, herded forward by a column of cavalry. And each time, the front line of foot soldiers broke against the force of the single moving figure and disappeared into dark dust like black foam on the crest of a wave. An ominous pink mist hung above it all, sweeping rain across the men that churned the mud beneath them red. Their distance from us stole any sound, but the morning breeze brought a stink of fear and offal and the dank metallic edge of blood.

Sethon wanted the black folio so much he had created a death ground for his own men. My stomach lurched. I turned my face away, fighting back an acid rise of vomit.

“In Bross's name, what is that moving through them?” Kygo said, pressing his hand over his nose.

“It is a boy.” The scout squared his shoulders. “I swear that is what I see, Your Majesty. Yet the soldiers that approach him shrivel into dust and a rain of blood.” He shivered. “It must be a demon.”

“Whatever it is, it's doing a good job of culling Sethon's men,” Tozay said.

Kygo looked at Ido, hunched and panting, and then back down at the tiny figure carving its way through the army below. His quick mind was forging the link. He would soon arrive at the answer, and I would be left behind, forever caught in my silence. Forever caught in betrayal.

I had to offer this truth, before it was too late to offer him anything. The huge risk clawed at my breath. But it was now or never.

“It is Dillon and the black folio,” I said. The momentum of truth quickened my words. “I compelled Lord Ido to call him to us. Before Sokayo.”

Kygo's head snapped up. “Before Sokayo?” he echoed. The suspicion in his face was like a hand around my throat. I heard Ryko hiss.

“A long time for a
Naiso
to stay silent,” Tozay said caustically.

Ido straightened on his knees, his face gray. “Eona, do not say any more.”

I shook my head. “Dillon is here, Ido. It must all come out now.”

Kygo turned on me. “Are you in league with him?”

“No!”

“Of course we are in league.” Ido swayed with the effort of speaking through his pain. “We are the last two Dragoneyes. Our destinies are locked together, just like our power.” His eyes flicked across to me. “And our desire.”

I froze. What was he doing?

Kygo lunged and grabbed the Dragoneye by his hair, wrenching his head back.
“What do you mean by that?”

Ido looked up into Kygo's face and bared his teeth in a smile. “Ask her what happens when she compels me.”

“Your Majesty, please, we must focus on this boy and the folio,” Tozay said. “He is killing everything in his path and heading straight for us!”

“Lady Eona has some questions to answer,” Kygo snarled. He drew his short blade and laid it across Ido's straining throat. “Leave us.” Kygo's hard glance swept the order around the circle of men. “Now!”

“Your Majesty,” Tozay said sharply. “This is not the time—”

“Leave us!”

Tozay glanced around the circle and jerked his head back toward the copse of trees. With deep bows, they all backed away. My eyes skipped over Ryko's devastation, only to be caught by Tozay's savage mix of accusation and demand. This was my fault, and it was up to me to stop it.

I gritted my teeth; it was only the start of the truth. There was a lot more to come.

Kygo pulled Ido's head back harder, forcing a grunt from the Dragoneye. “I should have killed you the moment I saw you.”

“We have been here before,” Ido said, eyeing him steadily. “You will not kill me while you can use my power.”

I flung my hand out at the plain below. “Kygo, Dillon is coming to destroy us. I cannot stop him by myself.”

He glared across at me. “Why didn't you tell me the boy was on his way? Why are you keeping secrets with this whoreson?” He jerked the Dragoneye's head back even more. “Tell me everything, or I will cut his throat and be done with it.”