Eona: The Last Dragoneye

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.”

“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.”

“To do what, Ido — rule the land? Is that your plan?”

“I told you before, chaos brings opportunity.”

“So you brought chaos upon us to create your opportunity?”

“And yours,” he said.

I shook my head at his arrogance. “Even if we get the folio, two Dragoneyes cannot control everything.”

“If we take all the dragon power, we’ll be far beyond Dragoneyes. We will be gods; it is the real promise of the black folio.” Dillon was closing the distance rapidly: less than five hundred lengths. Ido’s voice quickened. “You felt the hunger for more power when we moved the cyclone. Do not deny it.”

I had felt it, and I knew he could see it on my face. “That does not mean I want all the power.”

He gave a pained laugh. “Eona, wake up! The choice is either no power or all the power. There is no middle ground. Kygo will not give up the pearl, and that means our power will soon be gone with the beasts.”

“But we would destroy the dragons.”

He gripped my shoulder as if I was a young child having to hear a hard lesson. “You know by now that there is always a price.”

“But we can’t do that,” I said. “They are part of the land.”

“I do not wish to lose my power, Eona. Do you?” He doubled over again, struggling to keep his head up. “We must keep the folio.” Urgency and pain stripped his voice into breath. “Are you ready?”

Dillon was less than fifty lengths away.

For a moment, fear sucked all sense from my mind. All I could see was a demon running toward me.

There was no flesh left on his bones. His face had been reduced to yellowed skin stretched across the sharp shape of his skull, his pumping arms and hands all swollen joints and knuckles. His eyes were dark holes of black power — ghost eyes — sunken into their sockets. Every step he took sprayed blood and matter, both feet worn to pulp from days and days of relentless running. Everything had been carved away by the driving force of the folio.

Ido grabbed my hand, bringing me back to myself. His hard grip dug the edge of the blood ring into my flesh. “Together,” he said.

He took a breath, seeking a path to the celestial plane, his usual smooth rhythm broken by the ragged draw of pain. I held my own breath as he fought to shift into the energy world. Finally, his eyes silvered into union with the Rat Dragon. The moment echoed deep in my core, bringing an ominous wave of nausea.

Ido’s hand convulsed around mine. “Holy gods!”

Black power surged across the silver in his eyes, like oil across water. I jerked back in reflex, but Ido’s iron grip held me at the length of our outstretched arms. The black folio was inside his dragon power. I could feel the sour slide of its words, the whispering call of it through our linked hands.

I pushed through the seep of dark energy and found Ido’s heartbeat. His pounding pulse folded into mine, our melded Hua roaring through the deep pathways made of our desire, as dark and dangerous as the folio. I could taste acid as the folio’s power surged from Dillon into Rat Dragon and Dragoneye, tainting the sweet vanilla orange of the union.

“The Righi,” Ido panted. “He is chanting the Righi again.”

Twisting around, I fixed on Dillon. He was only twenty lengths away, the black folio bound to his left arm, the white pearls shifting and heaving.

“My lord!” Dillon called, his voice like the hollow scrape of dried bamboo upon itself. “I am coming to you, my lord. I will watch your blood and dust scatter into the wind.”

I felt him drop back into the deep chant of Gan Hua, the bitter song ripped from the earth and the air around us.

I took a shuddering breath, and another, focusing on the pulse of Ido’s energy to guide me to the celestial plane. A third breath and the world shifted and buckled into violent, writhing color. Dillon’s energy body swarmed with black, bloated power, every point spinning the wrong way, every pathway thick with darkness.

Ido’s energy body was a battleground: pounding silver energy forced its way through the thick black veins of power that twisted and coiled around his pathways, anchoring themselves into his life-force. Screaming, he dropped to his knees as Dillon wove the blistering wind-song of the Righi across the water and blood of his body. I could feel it in my own pathways, whispering searing words of death.

“Eona!” Ido’s body twisted in agony, his hand tightening around mine. “Now!”

Above us, the Rat Dragon thrashed in the sky against the hold of the black folio, his power streaming into Dillon. Beyond the shrieking blue beast, the Mirror Dragon was a swirl of crimson, her massive body contorted, ruby claws and slashing teeth aimed at the dark energy that pulled at her golden power. I screamed our shared name through the hissing words of the chant. Her huge spirit eyes locked on to mine as our union exploded through me in a pounding rush of strength. My earthly body rocked back against Ido’s straining grip as golden union and sensual link fused into a torrent of power.

Dillon stood before me. “Too late, Eona,” he said, his shriveled lips drawing back into a death’s-head smile.

“No!” I lunged for him — trying to touch his dried flesh with the ring — but he was just out of reach. “No!”

His death song seared my body. Deadly heat boiled through me, slamming pressure into my head that drove spikes into my heart with every labored beat. I could taste blood in my mouth, my nose, feel it bubbling in my chest and pounding behind my eyes as if they would burst from my head. Everything blurred into a red haze. Above me, the Mirror Dragon roared as her golden power pushed against the blazing song, trying to dam its destruction. Screams — I could hear screams from Ido at my feet, and deep within my own blistering chest.

“Dillon, stop!”

“You want my power! Just like my lord.”

Gathering my failing strength, I launched myself at him again, half blinded by the pulsing red heat in my head. Our bodies collided, my clawed hands raking wildly for connection.

I felt the hard leather of the folio, and then my fingers closed around papery skin and bone. The circle of gold around my thumb found his wizened flesh. Please, I prayed, let it work.

I tasted metal and the bitterness of the folio, melded into new power. Blood power. The ring was working.

“Stop chanting!” I screamed.

The whispering ceased. Immediately, the consuming heat dropped into dull warmth. My vision cleared. Dillon’s face was inches from mine, his hot breath like the stink of rancid meat. I could feel his mind squirming against the force of the ring, his madness like a savage animal caught in a trap, snapping and clawing against it. So strong. So vicious.

My hold slipped — on his will and his arm.

The ring was not enough.

With a roar, he wrenched himself free and staggered back, the white pearls tightening around the folio in a pale stranglehold.

Searing heat exploded through me again. Ido screamed. Above, the Mirror Dragon bellowed, her golden power meeting the conflagration, holding back its deadly force.

A cold, clear thought pierced the scorching pain in my head. Do not fight it. Take it. As I had on the mountainside. The folio had wanted me, not Dillon. Its madness had reached for my mind, whispering promises of perfect power.

Madness. It would bring madness.

But it was better than this burning death.

“Come,” I screamed and held out my arm. “Come to me.”

“No!” Dillon shrieked. “The power is mine!”

I saw the dark energy gather in him like a snake coiling to strike. The white pearls unraveled from his arm in a spinning snap and leaped at me. They writhed through the air, dragging the folio behind them, then wrapped around my wrist in a slam of weight, binding the book against my skin. Power pulsed up my arm like acid through my veins. Dillon ran for me, his bone fingers ripping and dragging at the folio’s defection. His chanting broke into a howl as its ancient power drained from him into me.

I gasped as the killing heat disappeared. Below me, Ido groaned, his body slumping with relief. “You have it. Kill him.”

I tried to focus past the words that ate into my mind — dark secrets that scored my spirit with old power. The song of the Righi settled on my tongue, hissing into soft sibilance. Its power was a bitter vinegar, drying my mouth, sucking away softness and hope. The chant was in my head, spilling from my mouth, lifting power from the Hua around me — from the earth, the air, the dragons — building into a fire of destruction that bowed to my bidding. I heard the distant screaming protest of the crimson beast, but her power was mine. All power was mine.

Dillon pulled at the folio, yammering with rage. My chant quickened, weaving the power into more and more heat, every whispered word stoking the scorching energy into his destruction. He arched back, screaming, but I kept singing the song of his death.

Clapping his hands to his head, he fell to his knees. Blood streamed from his nose, his ears, from the black pits of his eyes. The words fell from me into him, building and building into a furnace of annihilation. I was killing him, and I could not stop.

Help me, I prayed. Help me, Kinra. But it was too late.

Dillon’s scream cut off, his body disintegrating into a sudden searing wind of dark ash and red mist that pelted my face with wet, gritty death.

I screamed, horror beating against my mind like leathery wings, but the acid words kept coming. Ido rolled away from me, crawling across the ground, coughing with pain.

Another song rose through me, pulling at my mind, bright and cool, a counterpoint to the words of the folio. I knew that song. I had sung its healing with the Mirror Dragon. I felt its golden harmony break through the bitter hiss of Gan Hua, easing the dark hold of its power. My breath broke into a sob as the terrible chanting faded from my throat, my mind. I dug my fingers under the pearls, my nails gouging the flesh of my arm. With the last of my strength I wrenched the folio free and flung it to the ground. It landed in the dirt, the pearls thrashing like a cut snake.

I fell to my knees and vomited over and over again, heaving my anguish into the earth. I had killed Dillon. The atrocity was still wet on my face and hands, the bitter taste of death still in my mouth. Maybe it would never leave me.

Nearby, Ido sat back on his heels, scanning the ground around us. “Where is the folio?” he rasped. “Do you have it?”

I managed a nod. It was beside me, the pearls coiled across the cover.

The sound of hooves resonated through the earth, galloping at speed. I raised my head to see Kygo, flanked by Ryko and Yuso, their horses lathered with effort.

“Eona!” Kygo wrenched the horse to a stop and dismounted into a flat run. His eyes were on me, not the folio. Behind him, Ryko and Yuso swung themselves from their saddles and followed their emperor.

“Eona!” Ido dived across the red-spattered grass. “Give the folio to me. Quick!”

“No!” I knocked it out of his reach with my forearm. The pearls heaved it across the dirt.

Ido scrabbled toward it again. “Eona, what are you doing?”

“Lord Ido, stop!” Kygo shouted.

Ryko grabbed Ido’s tunic and hauled him backward. The Dragoneye twisted around, punching the islander. “Eona, it is the only way,” he yelled. “Get the folio!”

I reached for the book, my hand hovering over the black leather binding and shifting pearls. Above me, Yuso drew his sword. The hissing release of the blade was loud in the sudden silence.

“Yuso, stand down!” Kygo roared.

The captain hesitated, then stepped back and lowered his sword.

I looked up at Kygo. “I promised you I would deliver the folio. It is yours.”

“What!” Ido lunged forward on his knees, but Ryko jerked him back. “Don’t be stupid, Eona! You are giving him our power.”

Gritting my teeth, I picked up the folio; I could feel the golden song of my dragon and the force of the blood ring like a shield within my Hua. Slowly, I worked the ring off my thumb and placed it on top of the squirming wrap of pearls.

“Be still,” I ordered. The rope quieted. Ryko sucked in a startled breath.

“Eona, please, no!” Ido struggled in the islander’s grip. “He will compel us. We will lose everything.”

Bowing on one knee, I held out the book and the ring in the cradle of my outstretched hands.

“Do not touch it, Your Majesty,” Yuso said.

Kygo dismissed the man’s counsel with a raised hand, but his eyes did not leave mine. “You are giving me your power? How do you know Lord Ido is not right?”

“You have always had my power, Kygo,” I said. “Now I am giving you my trust.”

He took the book and ring from my hands. “I know what this has cost you, Eona.”

I looked down at the spread of dark ash that marked the place where I had killed Dillon. The place where I had felt the true power of the black folio.

He could not possibly know the cost.

The girl placed the steaming washbowl on the table set against the tent wall and backed away, her eyes never lifting from the lush overlap of rugs. I wondered what she had been told about me. That I was dangerous? A demon killer? I leaned over the bowl and breathed in the damp heat, the outline of my mouth and eyes reflected against the dark blue fish painted into the porcelain. I scooped my hands in the hot water. Curls of pale red unraveled across the surface as heavier black specks spun and surged around my fingers. The twisting patterns of blood and ash transfixed me.

“Eona!” Dela crossed the soft rugs, a drying cloth in her hand. “Wash it off. Now! You will feel better.” She had already helped me out of my bloodied clothes and cleared them away as I dressed in a clean tunic and trousers. But I could still smell death.

I closed my eyes and splashed my face. The heat against my eyelids, my nose, my mouth was too much like the Righi. I straightened, the clamp of panic shortening my breath.

“Get me some cold water! Now!”

Dela motioned to the girl, who ran forward and picked up the bowl, carefully stepping with it to the tent doorway.

“Here.” Dela held out the cloth to me. I wiped my eyes and mouth. The rough beige cotton came away stained with pink.

“Nothing will ever make me feel better about Dillon,” I said.

“Ryko told me what he saw.” Dela’s face tightened with distaste. “That thing was not Dillon. Not anymore.”

“It was once Dillon.”

She clasped my arm. “He was probably in agony. You said yourself it was like hot acid in your head.”

“Dela, I took the folio’s power,” I whispered. “I used it to kill him. What have I become?”

She pulled me against her chest. I pressed my forehead into her muscular shoulder. “You are not Dillon,” she said briskly, rubbing my back. “Do not even think it. You did what you had to do. And you got His Majesty the folio.” She held me away from her for a moment, her dark eyes solemn. “You have restored Ryko’s faith, too.”

She folded me back against her shoulder.

“The folio is just death and destruction,” I said.

“Well, Yuso has it under guard now,” Dela said. “His Majesty and the leaders are discussing what to do with it.”

I pulled away. “Now? Without me? But I am Naiso. I should be there.”

Dela caught my arm. “Ryko told me what the folio can do, Eona. The leaders are discussing the potential of Lord Ido’s power. His Majesty does not want you to be there.”

The Dragoneye had been right; their first thought was to enslave him with the folio’s blood power.

“No!” I jerked myself free and started toward the door. “I can compel Ido. They do not need to use the black folio on him.”

Dela intercepted me, thrusting her body in front of the closed door. “Eona. I am not here only as your friend. I cannot let you go to that meeting.”

“You are here to guard me?”

She placed her hand on my back, her man’s strength steering me to the bed-seat opposite the door. “Just sit down. Sleep.”

I pushed her hand away. “Sleep? For all I know, they could be deciding to compel my power, too!”

“You do not believe that, Eona. You are exhausted. Try to rest.” She picked up the red folio from a nearby table on which Vida had laid out my few other belongings: the pouch containing the Dragoneye compass, and my ancestor’s plaques set around a small prayer candle. “Or if you cannot sleep, we could work on Kinra’s folio together. I have found another name within it: Pia.” The black pearls wrapped around Dela’s hand in a rattle of recognition.

“It is probably another riddle,” I snapped. “Just let me be.” I turned from her, although I knew it was childish.

In all truth, I was exhausted, in both body and mind. Yet the terrible turmoil of my thoughts — about Ido and the folio and Dillon’s death — kept me pacing the tent for a full bell while Dela sat by the door and kept her head bent over the red folio. At some point, the girl brought back a bowl of clean water, but her wide-eyed fear just made me angrier, and Dela dismissed her quickly. Rage and guilt, however, could not hold off my exhaustion forever. I finally lay down on the bed-seat, curling into my fatigue.

I woke with a sour mouth and a crick in my neck. The smoke circle in the roof of the tent held the dark mauve of dusk. I sat up, digging my thumbs into the cramped muscles at the base of my skull. I had slept the entire day.

“My lady, can I call for anything?” Vida asked from her crosslegged position on the floor. One jailer replaced with another.

“Some tea,” I said ungraciously. “And some light.”

Vida rose and opened the door, leaning out to murmur instructions to someone outside. She pulled back with a lamp in her hand, its glow brightening the wall coverings from shad-owed pink to bright red. Dela had left the folio on the table. She was returning, then; a chance for me to apologize for my surliness.

I stood, smoothing down the ruck of my tunic. “Do the leaders still meet with His Majesty?”

Vida placed the lamp on the table. “They are finished.”

“And?”

“I’m sorry, my lady, I do not know.” From her tone, she knew the question had been about Ido’s fate. “But the word in the camp is that we’ll be fighting within the next few days,” she offered.

“Is that really a rumor, or does it come from your father?” I asked.

“Let’s just say that when I asked to be assigned to a platoon, I was told that I would be staying in camp to help with the injured, and I was to be ready for action soon.”

We were both silent; no doubt there would be plenty of injured to be helped.

“Will you do something for me, Vida?” I asked.

“If I can, my lady.”

“When the fighting starts, will you make sure Lillia is safe? And Rilla and Chart?”

She nodded. “I’ll try.”

A hard knock on the door sent her back across the carpets. I swished my hands through the water in the washbowl, the cool contact making me shiver. I had brought my mother and friends into such danger.

“My lady.”

I turned at Yuso’s clipped voice, my hands dripping.

The captain stood in the doorway, his lean body in shadow. “His Majesty wishes to see you.”

I nodded. No doubt to tell me what had been decided. Vida grabbed a cloth and passed it to me. I dried my hands as Vida picked up my back sheath.

“No, my lady,” Yuso said. “His Majesty wishes me to carry your swords.”

Vida’s eyes met mine. None of us went unarmed in the camp.

“Give Captain Yuso my swords, Vida,” I said, overriding the mute objection in her face.

I recalled Yuso asking about their power. Did Kygo think they were a threat? Did he think I was a threat?

Yuso slung the back sheath over his shoulder. “My lady, you are expected now.”

“She has just risen,” Vida said quickly. She kneeled beside me, twitching the hem of my tunic into place. “She needs a few moments to prepare herself.”

Yuso’s gaze swept over the room, stopping on the table with my belongings. Perhaps Kygo thought everything I owned was a threat.

Yuso’s eyes shifted back to me. “Lady Eona is expected now,” he repeated.

“It’s all right, Vida.” I patted her hands, which were busy repleating my waist sash. Reluctantly, she pulled away.

I walked across to Yuso. He wore his usual dour expression, but there was energy coiled tight in him, distilled into the continual rub of his forefinger against his thumb. He knew something was about to happen.

“I will wait here, my lady,” Vida said.

I looked back and smiled as reassuringly as I could, then stepped over the threshold. Yuso shut the door and silently led me across the large space outside the meeting tent. We passed small groups of people talking and laughing around fires, their warm camaraderie grating against my disquiet. I caught the slink of a shadow dog between two tents, only the white tip of its tail giving it substance in the gloom. A child howled in the distance, or maybe it was the keen of a night animal. It was soon obvious that we were headed beyond the heavily settled areas of the camp, toward a round tent set well apart from its neighbors, a guard stationed at its door.

“Is that where you are keeping the black folio?”

“Yes,” Yuso said.

I stopped. “Why does His Majesty want to see me in there?”

“That is for him to tell you.”

The guard saluted as we approached. Yuso opened the door, the wash of yellow lamplight casting his thin, lined face into seamed relief. He bowed and shifted aside for me to enter, hanging back a moment to give a murmured order to the sentry. With a crawl of unease across my shoulders, I stepped into the tent. Uncovered walls, no carpets. Just one man — another guard — standing beside a table that held a black lacquered box. No Kygo. The guard ducked his head in a duty bow.

Yuso ushered me farther inside.

“Sirk, your watch is over,” Yuso said, dismissing the man, who bowed again and backed out of the tent, closing the door behind him.

I walked over to the black box, its polish catching the lamplight in a slide of bright reflection. Why did Kygo want all the guards gone? Was he going to compel my power?

I turned to face Yuso. “What does His Maj—”

My head snapped back, the blow as solid as the man behind it. I staggered, my hands pressed into the pulsing agony across my cheekbone. The second blow into my stomach was so heavy it lifted me off my feet and punched away my air. I doubled over, gulping silently for breath, my vision blurred by shock and pain. He hooked his shin behind my knees. My legs buckled and I dropped on my back. The tent around me hazed into streaming lines of gray. Something slammed into my chest like a stone weight, pinning me to the ground; Yuso’s knee. He bent over, his mouth set with the business at hand.

“Open up,” he said.

He clamped my nostrils together. I gasped for air and saw the white porcelain of a herbalist’s bottle in his hand. He forced it into my mouth, the cold ceramic edge clipping my teeth. Foul, briny liquid ran down the back of my throat. I wrenched away, coughing and gagging against the bitter draught, trying to spit it up. Trying to yell. He dug his fingers into either side of my jaw and forced my head back. I punched at him, connecting once onto a hard edge of bone, but the tent was already fading into soft blackness, the drug dragging me down into the thick silence of the shadow world.