Eona (54 page)

“I
am
telling you everything,” I snapped, my fear blazing into anger. “I made him call Dillon because I wanted to protect you!”

“From what?”

“From me, Kygo. I know what ‘the
Hua
of All Men' means. It is the Imperial Pearl. I was hoping the black folio would have another way to save the dragons.”

Kygo's jaw clenched, but it was not in shock.

Ido's labored breathing broke into a harsh laugh. “He already knew it was the pearl, Eona. You can see it in his face.”

Ido was right: Kygo knew. I felt the last few weeks shift under me.

“Why didn't you tell me?” I gasped.

Kygo narrowed his eyes. “Why do I need to be protected from you, Eona? Are you about to rip the
Hua
of All Men from my throat?”

“He does not trust you,” Ido said. “That is why he did not tell you.”

“Hold your tongue, or I will cut it out!” Kygo pressed the sword harder against Ido's skin. The Dragoneye froze under the blade.

“It is not me who wants the pearl, Kygo. It is my ancestor.” I dug my knuckles into the pain that clamped my skull, desperately searching for the right words to make him understand. “The red folio was written by Kinra. She was the last Mirror Dragoneye. The one who tried to steal the pearl from Emperor Dao.”

“You lied even about that? Kinra was a traitor!”

“No, she wasn't, I am sure of it. She was just trying to save the dragons.” I took a deep breath. “She is in my mind, Kygo. In my blood. Whispering, driving me to take the pearl and save the dragons. She's even in my swords. Remember at the village inn? She tried to take the pearl then. But I have always stopped her, always held her off. I have
always
kept you safe!”

“She is in the swords? In your mind?”

“Not all the time. Just when I am too close to the pearl.”

“She is there when we kiss?” His hand went to his throat. “When you touch it?”

“Yes.”

His voice hardened. “Is everything between us just this Kinra driving you toward the pearl?”

“No!” I stepped forward. “It is me. With you. I swear it.”

“And what about me, Eona?” Ido said. “Was it an ancestor or you wrapping your legs around me in the cabin?”

Kygo stared down at him. “What?”

“She never told you about my visit to her cabin on the boat, did she?” Ido said.

“Kygo, that is not what—”

Ido raised his voice over mine. “We used the compulsion power to save the boat from the cyclone.” His smile was a taunt. “You know the power I am talking about, Your Majesty.”

“Is that true, Eona?” Kygo's voice was ragged.

“We saved the boat.”

“Did you take pleasure from him?”

I could not help the rush of hot truth to my face. “It is in the power, Kygo. I know Ryko told you about it. We saved the boat; that is what matters.”

“What if she did take pleasure?” Ido said. “She is an Ascendant Dragoneye, not one of your concubines. She takes whatever she wants. It is her due.”

“It was not like that!” I clenched my fists. “It was the power that created it. I did not seek it.”

“Do not hide behind your power,” Kygo said. “You are using it for your own ambitions. Your own pleasure.”

“I am not. I have always placed my power in your service. You know that's the truth.”

His jaw set in disbelief.

There was one way I could show him I was loyal.

I jabbed my finger at the bloody slaughter in the distance. “That black folio can control my power.”

“Eona, what are you doing?” Ido half rose on his knees, stopped by the blade. “You will destroy us.”

I ignored his plea. “Anyone with royal blood can use it to bind a Dragoneye's will.”

Kygo's blade dropped from Ido's throat. “What?”

“Your blood and the folio can compel our power.” My voice cracked.

Kygo released his hold on Ido. The Dragoneye slumped, sucking in air. I could not meet the bleakness in Kygo's face.

“How long have you known that?” he asked.

“I told her when Sethon took the palace,” Ido said savagely. “So much for your truth bringer. Your
Naiso.”

“Why didn't you tell me, Eona?” Kygo said.

I finally looked up at him. “Why didn't
you
tell
me
about the
Hua
of All Men?”

Within the lock of our eyes, the same reason stretched between us like a wasteland; neither he nor I trusted enough to place our power in the other's hands.

Kygo turned his face away. “And you have put all that power in reach of Sethon, in the middle of his army.”

His words hollowed me into a cold husk. All he wanted was the folio and its power. I took a rough breath, fighting tears. Ido lifted his head, vindication in his haggard face. He had been right. Power always wanted more power. It was the nature of the beast.

“Sethon will not be able to stop Dillon,” the Dragoneye said tightly. “The boy is using the
Righi.”

Kygo straightened his shoulders. “What is the
Righi?”

“It is the folio's death chant. It rips every bit of moisture from a man's body and reduces him to dust.”

“Is that what is happening to those men down there?” Kygo touched the blood ring on his finger. “May Bross protect us.”

“Even Bross would find it difficult to stop him,” Ido said.

I looked down at the red churn of Dillon's death march. He was coming for us. We had to face him or he would kill everything in his path—including the entire resistance army. His power drove a spike into my mind, over and over again, in time to my heartbeat. How could we possibly defeat a madness driven by hate and fed by the immeasurable power of the black folio? Even if we did, and wrenched the book from Dillon's mind and body, what would happen then?

I looked across at Kygo. He was watching me, and in his eyes I saw the same dark question.

Beside me, Yuso unshackled Ido, the irons clinking as he pulled them away from the Dragoneye's wrists. Ido slowly flexed his hands and rolled his shoulders, ignoring the captain's belligerent refusal to step back.

“Your Majesty!” The scout rose from his crouch and pointed across the plain. “Sethon's men have turned on each other!”

I hung back as Kygo crossed to the precipice edge. I did not know where to stand anymore. At his side? I doubted it.

“Lady Eona. Lord Ido. See this,” he ordered brusquely.

I followed Ido across the small clearing. We both peered over the edge. Below us, the ragged waves of foot soldiers around Dillon had changed direction and were pushing back against the horsemen driving them to their death. I squinted, trying to gain more detail in the haze of red mist and flying mud. They were not only pushing; they were hacking at each other and trying to flee.

“The boy has forced his way through an entire army,” Kygo said into the sickened silence.

“I would say Sethon has lost near to a thousand men,” Tozay said. “And the
Hua-do
of those left. He will have a task ahead to regroup.”

Kygo looked at Ido. “Are you sure you have to get near Dillon to defeat the folio?”

Ido nodded. “Dillon is draining the Rat Dragon's power. My power.” Pain roughened his voice. “I will strike from that angle and block him from the beast in the celestial plane, but Lady Eona will have to strike the black folio. And that means contact with it.”

I flinched, remembering the burn of its words in my mind.

“We will need to use every source of power we have,” Ido added. “Including her compulsion over me.”

Even now, he baited Kygo. The two men stared at one another in fierce silence.

“You are ignoring another source of power,” Kygo finally said. “My blood and the black folio together can compel dragon power. If Lady Eona can get me close enough, I can stop Dillon.”

“No!” Tozay and I said together.

“Your Majesty, you must not risk yourself,” Tozay insisted.

“You want me to sit by while Lady—” He bit off what he was about to say. “I cannot sit by while others face such horror.”

A tiny glimmer of warmth broke across my desolation.

“That is what a king does,” Tozay said flatly. “Your Majesty, if you attempt to go down there, I will stop you by force. Even if it means my execution.”

Kygo glared at him. “I am not my father, Tozay. I do not blindly hand over my trust and my military because I cannot face the realities of war. I am not afraid of fighting.”

I gasped. He would anger the gods with such disrespect.

Tozay drew himself up. “Your revered father was never afraid,” he said. “He was devoted to this land and he did not want to see it plunged into eternal warmongering. I thought his son was the same.”

“I am,” Kygo ground out. “To a certain point.”

“We are not at that point yet, Your Majesty. Believe me.”

Kygo turned and walked a few paces across the clearing as if working the frustration from his body. “Then at least take some of my blood.”

His blood.

I stared at his clenched hand, the glint of gold flaring into an idea. “Your ring,” I said, the hope pushing me toward him. “Does it really hold your blood?”

He swung around, the possibility aflame in his face. “Yes.” His voice lowered. “I told you the truth about
that.”

I bit my lip.

“There is not much in it.” He measured a sliver between thumb and forefinger. “Will that be enough?”

I looked back at Ido. “Is it?”

“No one has ever seen the folio's blood power work. I do not know,” Ido said.

Kygo twisted the ring from his finger. “Take it.”

For a moment, I thought he was just going to drop it into my hand, but then he pressed it against my palm, the metal holding his body heat. With an ache in my throat, I remembered the last time he had pushed the ring into my hand. It had been his way of protecting me. Now it was his way of taking more power.

Yuso volunteered to take me on his horse to the plain below— no one dared suggest I ride behind Ido—and the three of us spent the short journey down the escarpment in grim silence. What was there to say? Either Ido and I stopped Dillon or everyone died.

After helping me dismount, Yuso hoisted himself back into the saddle, his attention on Ido. The Dragoneye had walked out a few lengths across the grassland to watch the distant dust cloud. Sethon's soldiers—both infantry and cavalry—had finally fallen back, leaving Dillon to his single-minded march toward us. Ido could now barely stand upright. No doubt Yuso was asking himself the same question that was on my mind: would the Dragoneye collapse before Dillon even arrived?

I passed Yuso the lead rope of Ido's horse, the animal tossing its head against the sudden pull on its bridle.

“Is it true what you said about your ancestor's swords?” Yuso said. “They have power, too?”

I stared up at him. What did that have to do with the ordeal ahead? Then I flushed—no doubt all the men had heard the painful revelations between myself, Kygo, and Ido. “Yes,” I said tightly. “What of it?”

“It is a wondrous thing.” He bowed and turned the horses. The bland response from the man was as strange as his question.

I turned from watching Yuso's retreat back up the escarpment and, with a deep breath, walked across the grass to join Ido. He was transfixed by the lone figure on the horizon and did not mark my arrival. Suddenly, he doubled over, hands on thighs, as a bout of shivering racked his body. I closed my eyes against a surge of pain in my head; as it subsided, I squinted Dillon back into view.

The boy seemed a lot closer than before. Far too close for the brief time that had elapsed. I craned my head forward, trying to make sense of it, and fear crawled across my scalp. Dillon was moving at a speed that was not quite human.

“Ido, look how fast he's moving,” I said.

“I know.” He straightened and sucked in a pained breath. “I think there is very little Dillon left now. He is all
Gan Hua.”

I touched the blood ring on my thumb. “There are too many maybes in this plan,” I said. “Maybe the black folio will hold off the ten dragons. Maybe Dillon will have to get close to use the
Righi
. Maybe this ring will work.”

Ido turned his head, the long angle of his profile and his steady eyes reminding me of a watchful wolf. “Eona, it is time that you faced the truth. If we can defeat Dillon and get the black folio, we must not give it to Kygo. We must keep it ourselves.”

“What?”

“The black folio is our only chance to take the dragon power.”

“What do you mean, ‘take it'?”

“With the String of Pearls,” Ido said. “We can have our power a hundredfold. Just think of what we could do.”

I stepped back. “That's insane. It's a weapon.”

“No, listen to me.” He shot another glance at Dillon, gauging his approach. “We are the last two Ascendant Dragoneyes. If anyone can contain all the dragon power instead of releasing it as a weapon, it is us.”

“Contain it? How?”

“In our bodies, together, like we do when you compel me.” He licked his cracked lips. “Do you remember what I told you after the King Monsoon? What I read in the black folio? The String of Pearls requires the joining of sun and moon.”

Sun and moon: it was Kygo's endearment. The resonance caught in my chest like a hand gripping my heart. “I remember you coercing me,” I said, pushing my desolation into anger. “I remember you taking my will.”

“I think you've had your revenge,” Ido said dryly.

It was true; I had done the same to him, over and over again.

“We are a pair, Eona,” he said. “I know you are as drawn to me as I am to you.” The intensity of his eyes held me. “We are the sun and moon: the male Rat Dragoneye and the female Mirror Dragoneye. Together we can have all of the dragon power.”