Eona (63 page)

His gaze sharpened. “How do you know? Have you read the folio, too?”

“No.” I wet my lips. “I went into my dragon. To escape Sethon's torture.” Kygo's fingers brushed my arm; a fleeting touch of consolation. “I saw memories from an ancestor.”

Dela shifted; no doubt she had guessed which ancestor.

Something flickered across the wary intensity in Ido's face; a moment of empathy, or maybe it was just his own pain, remembered. He smiled thinly. “I thought you vowed you would never do that to your dragon. You keep drawing your moral lines, and you keep crossing them.” His eyes held mine, his voice lowering into a caress. “You and I are the same, Eona. We cross the lines that others dare not step over. Cross this last line with me.”

He wanted the dragons' power. He wanted everything. And he wanted me to take it with him.

“I won't destroy the dragons.”

He jabbed his forefinger against his chest. “Do you want to feel like this for the rest of your life? As if everything important has been ripped out? Do you want to be nothing again? Because that is what will happen.”

“Eona will never be nothing,” Kygo said. “She is my
Naiso.”

Ido snorted. “Why would she be your
Naiso
when she could be a god with me? It is still the same choice, Eona. Either we take all the power or we are left with nothing.” He held out his hand. His smile drove itself into my very core. “You and I can take it all, Eona, together. It would be like the cyclone, a hundred times over. Forever.”

Kygo gripped my shoulder. “If you think Eona would destroy the dragons and take my land, Ido, then you do not know her at all. We would both die a thousand times over before we would let you have anything you want.”

I stared at Ido's outstretched hand. The memory of the sea cabin—our bodies entwined and the glorious rising energy— held me still. All that power between us.

Kygo glanced at me. “Eona?”

I took a deep breath, fighting my way through the wash of sensation. With so much power, there could be nothing else. It would burn everything in its path. And every minute of every hour would hold the bud of distrust, just waiting to blossom into betrayal.

“I am
not
the same as you, Ido,” I said. “I will not destroy the dragons.”

Ido closed his hand into a fist. “You would choose to have no power with him when you could have all the power in the world with me?”

I lifted my chin. “That is not the choice, Ido. I choose the dragons and the land. Not my own ambition. Or yours.”

Beside me, Kygo smiled.

Ido gave a low, harsh laugh. “The emperor and his
Naiso
, standing united.”

Around us, the pitch of the humming pearls changed, the resonance vibrating through my ear bones.

Ido spun on his heel, taking in the swaying dragons.

“What is happening?” Kygo asked.

“The dragons are preparing to lay down their pearls,” Ido said.

I remembered what he had told me on the beach. Once the pearls were separated from the beasts, they could never reclaim them, and the String of Pearls could not be stopped. It was now either the dragons' renewal or the land's destruction.

Ido faced me, his eyes narrowed with fury. “Your misguided loyalty has lost us both our power. All we can do now is avoid annihilation.” His eyes fixed on the white bundle in Dela's tight grip. “Give me the folio.”

Dela pulled back from his reaching hand. “I do not follow your orders.”

He sucked a breath in between his teeth. “Listen to me, Eona. The Mirror Dragoneye is the only one who can direct the String of Pearls' power to the dragons. Otherwise it will raze everything to the ground, including us.”

“I have to direct it?” My voice cracked. “How?”

“With the folio and the
Righi.”

I stared at him, my memory conjuring the blistering heat and terrible power of the ancient words. “But that's the death chant.”

“Isn't that what Dillon used to kill all those soldiers?” Dela asked uneasily.

“It not only destroys,” Ido said, “it creates. It holds the dragons'
Hua
in the black folio so we can use their power. “

“How do you know all this?” Kygo demanded.

“I have been studying the String of Pearls for years. The
Righi
ignites the Imperial Pearl to start the renewal, and it will release the dragons'
Hua
from the folio.”

“The dragons'
Hua
is in the folio?” Kygo echoed.

I searched Ido's face, trying to read beyond the fury that pinched his features into a snarl. I did not trust this turnaround. He was not one to back down so easily. But what could I do? Kinra's memory had also told me the String of Pearls could not be stopped once the dragons had released their pearls into its power circle—but she had not told me that I had to invoke the
Righi
to release the dragons from the folio.

I clasped Ido's arm. He flinched under the dig of my grip. “Is that the truth? Is the
Righi
the only way for their renewal?”

“Do you think I have a death wish because I cannot have you?” he sneered.

I snatched my hand away.

“You are not the woman I thought you were,” he said. “You do not have the steel to be a true queen.”

“Well,
you
are exactly the man I thought
you
were,” I snapped.

I hoped he could not see the bitter truth in my heart; some part of me had believed him when he'd said I had changed him. How could I have been so gullible? He was still the same ruthless, selfish Ido. I was the one who had changed, pulled into his world of power and possibility.

Kygo shoved Ido's shoulder. “Answer her! Is the
Righi
the only way to do this?”

Ido stepped back, his body tightening into defense. “Yes.”

He
was
telling the truth, and it dropped a hundredweight of dread through me. I had barely controlled the
Righi
against Dillon—now it had the force of renewal in it and the power of all the dragons to draw upon. May the gods protect us. And if they could not, at least I could protect Kygo.

I dragged at his arm. “You have to get off the platform.” With a glance, I gathered Dela into my plea. “You too, Dela. Help Tozay. Get off the platform. You saw what happened to Dillon.”

“I am not going anywhere,” Kygo said. He bent and picked up the sword I had dropped. Kinra's sword.

“Neither am I, Eona,” Dela said.

“No, both of you must go. I don't know if I can protect you.”

Kygo shook his head. “I will not leave you alone with Lord Ido.”

The Dragoneye circled on the spot, watching the dragons, his hands raking his hair.

Kygo looked at Dela. “Take Tozay down to the lower steps. I want you both safe. That is my command.”

Dela hesitated.

“Go!”

Dela bowed. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

She passed me the bundle. The rope of pearls writhed beneath the cloth, jabbing my hands. “Eona, please be careful,” she said. “I have already lost …” She tipped her head back, her throat jumping with the strain of grief. “Just be careful.”

Together, she and Kygo hauled Tozay to his feet. He was still dazed, but he could walk. Dela took his weight and helped him limp to the edge of the platform. As she supported him down the first step, she looked back and pressed her fist against her chest. The warrior salute. I did not feel like a warrior. I felt terrified. I remembered Ryko in the palace alley telling me I had a warrior's courage. He'd had such faith in me then. And he had died for that faith.

I lifted my fist to my chest. For Ryko, and for Dela. With a nod, she turned and led Tozay down the steps.

“What do I have to do?” I asked Ido.

“Go up on the dais,” he said, nodding at the small raised stage. “It is the highest point, and once the
Righi
has ignited the Imperial Pearl, the Mirror Dragon will come for it.”

I looked at the red dragon. Her huge eyes watched me. Kinra's plea whispered in my mind:
Make it right
. I followed Ido across the platform to the dais, holding the squirming bundle away from my body. Kygo walked beside me.

“You've got the Imperial Pearl?' I asked.

He opened his palm. The surface of the gem swarmed with silvery leaps and flicks. “It's hot,” he said.

I laid my fingers across the soft pale curve. It was now almost hot enough to burn.

We stood together for a moment, the Imperial Pearl between our hands. “You are a queen to me,” Kygo said softly. He pressed his lips against my forehead.

“Very touching,” Ido drawled. “Eona, get on the dais.”

I gave him a sour look and stepped up on to the small stage. Kygo stationed himself nearby, sword angled at Ido.

Beyond the circle of swaying dragons, the ragged remains of the two armies watched from a wary distance. The dark clouds above us had swamped the bright day, casting an early gloom over the plain. The air still swirled with the spicy scent of the dragons surrounding us, the heat as much from their earthly presence as from the hot wind that whipped my hair back.

I took a deep breath and unwrapped the black folio, dropping the torn remnants of the shirt. The white pearls snapped straight up, as if they were testing the air, then planed across my hand and along my arm, dragging the folio behind them. Two quick, rattling coils and the book was bound to my arm. The folio's acid words rose into my mind, burning my pathways, whispering their ancient power. Ido stood hunched before the dais, his arms wrapped around his body. No doubt he remembered the pain of the
Righi
too.

“It is in my head,” I said. My mouth tasted like it was full of blood and ash.

“Chant it,” Ido said.

The words were waiting. Their bitter keen held the bound
Hua
of all twelve dragons, and the last cold echoes of Kinra. The chant quickened on my tongue and reached out to the beasts in the circle. It pulled the thrumming energy from their pearls and wove it into the blistering song that hissed from me with the fire of life and death.

The dragons answered the chant with a shrieking chorus of their own. Through the terrible sound, the Rat Dragon bel-lowed urgently, the blue iridescent pearl beneath his chin pulsing with azure-tipped flame. His call silenced the other beasts. They all turned to watch as he lowered his huge wedge head and gently placed his barrel-sized gem on the ground between his opal claws. The separation of dragon and pearl shuddered through the folio and my chant; an ache of loss and hope that brought a sting of tears to my eyes. With a soft cry, the Rat Dragon nudged the sphere with his flared muzzle, rolling the source of his power and wisdom a length from his opal claws.

I glanced across at Ido. He crouched in defeat as he watched his dragon give up the pearl that held their twelve-year bond.

Next to the Rat Dragon, the purple Ox Dragon threw back his horned head and howled his own song of pain and hope. The soft lavender scales under his chin and around his pearl shimmered with violet flames. He lowered his head and gently dropped the pearl onto the ground, tapping it forward with a careful amethyst claw until it lightly touched the Rat Dragon's blue pearl. As soon as it rocked into place, the green Tiger Dragon lifted his head and sang his own loss. One by one, the male dragons called to their bound spirits in the folio and placed their pearls on the ground.

I felt every longing cry resonate through the folio until eleven enormous dragon pearls—alive with flicks of colored flame—lay side by side in a circle on the trampled earth around the platform.

Only one pearl was missing.

The final call came from the Mirror Dragon. She lifted her majestic head, the glossy crimson scales of throat and chest reflecting the blaze of gold flame from her pearl. Her throbbing call rose up like a heartbeat through my chant. She extended her huge scaled muzzle over the platform, the horselike nostrils flaring, the soft wind of her breath scented with her cinnamon power. Under the curve of heavy horns, her dark, ancient gaze held me inside the endless cycle of life and death—and the dragons' long wait for release.

Make it right
.

“Give Eona the Imperial Pearl,” Ido ordered Kygo. “Now!”

Kygo reached up, and the gem's smooth heat rolled into my palm. The chant in my head and on my tongue stoked the fire within the heart of their egg. Its silver energy leaped into incandescence.

“Eona, you have to give the pearl to the Mirror Dragon,” Ido said.

But I already knew the ancient path to renewal: it sang in my blood and bones.

First quicken the spark of life within the luminous egg, then press its power into the gold flames of the red dragon's pearl. Once that was done, I could release the dragon
Hua
caught in the black folio and send it back to the beasts so that they could die and be reborn.

But the acid words whispered another pathway, too: a way that held all the power of the world.
Take the twelve dragon spirits into yourself, it hissed. Take the power waiting to create the new, and leave the old to wither and die. Take everything
.

Ido's words. The black folio's words.

The Mirror Dragon lifted her huge chin, offering her golden wisdom to me as she had once offered it to me in the arena. The
Righi
's words seared into the Imperial Pearl, igniting its silver
Hua
into a ball of white fire that stung my hands with sharp flicks of power. This was the start of it. And the end of it.

“Good-bye,” I whispered to my dragon.

Reaching up, I pressed the white flames against the gold at her throat. The two surfaces flared and melded together, the force thrusting my hands away. With a soft cinnamon sigh, the Mirror Dragon swung her head down, the huge glowing pearl dropping to the ground. She nosed it into place. As the circle of pearls closed, gold flame leapt from dragon pearl to dragon pearl, igniting each sphere into bright gold heat.