Eona (44 page)

“Holy mother of Shola,” Kygo swore, taking in Ido's injury. He grasped my arm. “Are you all right?”

I nodded. “I have to heal him. We don't have much time.”

“You take one arm, I'll take the other,” Kygo ordered Caido. “Get behind the boat, Eona.” He pushed me toward it.

I heard Ido's wet moan as they hauled him to his feet and dragged him across the sand after me. I scrambled behind the boat and pressed myself against its solid shield. Kygo and Caido rounded the prow at a lopsided run, Ido slumped between them. Caido dropped his sword and braced Ido against his chest. With a small grunt of effort, he eased the Dragoneye down next to me. Kygo crouched at the end of the boat and cautiously peered around the edge.

“I'd say at least two companies, coming in from high ground,” he said. “And so far, only one arrow.” He looked back at Ido. “Straight for the main threat.”

“We've been betrayed,” Caido said.

“But is it one of the villagers?” Kygo returned to his tense watch. “Or one of our own?”

I pressed my hands to Ido's ashen face. Icy skin, but damp with sweat. He was close to the shadow world.

“Ido, stay awake. I need you to block the ten dragons when I heal you.”

He widened his eyes, trying to focus on me through his shallow, labored breaths. “Again?” His smile was no more than a twitch of blue lips.

“Will your healing power destroy the arrow?” Caido asked.

I shook my head. “I don't think so.”

“Then we'll have to get it out.” He touched the sleek feathered end protruding from Ido's back. “That fletching has to come off before I can pull the shaft through his body,” he said. “Your Majesty, I'll hold him still, if you cut.”

Kygo nodded and shifted into position, sword raised. “That fletching is imperial,” he said.

Caido nodded. “Short bolt for a mechanical bow.” He pulled Ido's limp body against his chest, holding him in an iron grip. “Go,” he said.

One downward slice of Kygo's blade and the fletching dropped to the sand. It was a clean, fast cut, but it still pushed the remaining shaft farther into Ido's body, ripping a muffled scream from him. I grabbed his clawed hands.

The distant, unmistakable clash of metal against metal sent Kygo crawling back to the end of the boat. “The villagers have put up
tuaga
, but it's not going to hold that many men back for long.” He looked around at us. “They are going to drive everyone onto the beach. No way back and no way forward. A death ground.” He picked up his sword. “Caido, guard Lady Eona.”

“Kygo, what are you doing?”

“They've broken through!” He launched himself into a low zigzagging run across the sand.

I rose on my knees, enough to see over the boat. With sword raised, Kygo was heading for three soldiers advancing across the beach. Along the seawall, villagers were using hooks and poles to defend their barricade against a vicious attack from ten or so pikemen. Ryko and Dela had marshaled a group of men to hold back more troops who were slowly forcing their way through the maze of
tuaga
spread across the main road. A line of long-bow archers, some of them women, stood on the seawall, firing into the ranks caught in the bottleneck created by the bamboo spikes.

I swallowed my fear and turned back to the task. “Caido, get that arrow out of Lord Ido.”

With a nod, Caido dug his knees farther into the sand, bracing himself. “My lady, at the moment it is plugging the puncture. When I pull it out you're not going to have much time.”

“Do it.”

Caido's thin face tensed. He reached around and hammered his palm against the stub of shaft in Ido's back, pushing it through his body. Ido gasped and arched against the agony. With brutal speed, Caido grabbed the barbed shaft from the front and wrenched it out of Ido's chest in a wet sucking release.

I dug my own feet into the sand, pressing the gateways into the earth's energy. “Quick, lie him down.”

The Dragoneye grunted as his back hit the sand. I pressed my hands against the wound, blocking the escape of air, as Caido scooped up his sword and crawled to the edge of the boat.

The resistance man tensed, rising into a crouch. “My lady,” he said urgently. “His Majesty is in trouble.”

“Go,” I said. “Go.”

He pushed himself up as the sound of sword meeting sword clanged with quickening intensity. Caido roared a battle cry and ran to his emperor's aid. I snatched a glance over the boat again. Kygo was fighting three men, the desperate struggle sending up showers of sand. For a moment I was frozen, caught between Kygo and Ido, both fighting for their lives.

Under my hands, Ido's chest jerked in shallow pants, his blood warm and sticky on my skin. Right now, he was in more peril. I forced myself to take a shaking breath. I could do this; I had done it before. Another breath, this time steadier. Finally, on the third, I saw Ido's solid body shift into energy, his seven points of power dull and getting darker with each labored beat of his heart. There was no silvery flow through the meridians along the right side of his body. On the next breath I called the Mirror Dragon, opening myself to her power with the urgent command:
Heal
.

Hua
tore through me in joyous union, filling my body with the ecstasy of golden song and the majesty of dragon-sight. Below us, the battle on the seafront was a swarm of bright dots coming together and breaking apart in a desperate dance. We saw the blue one—his thin tether to the earthly body fading— trying to circle us, trying to protect, but the other ten had already felt our presence.

Heal!
We gathered power from the endless ebb and flow of the sea, from the wild energy of the approaching cyclone, from the crisscross of lines that pulsed deep in the earth. We were
Hua
and our golden howl roared through the pathways of Ido's body, knitting flesh and sinew, fusing dark pathways back into the smooth silvery flow of life. As one, his seven points of power burst back into spinning bright vitality, the black gap in his crown still present, still resisting my influence. Ido gasped—a long, raw breath that leaped through his
Hua
. The Rat Dragon shrieked, power pulsing across his blue scales, opal claws spreading. His energized body coiled into readiness, his huge head swinging left to right, scanning the below-world. The ten dragons were coming—and their need was greater than ever before.

“Eona!” Ido pulled me down on top of him. The sudden contact wrenched me back into my earthly body. His eyes, so close to mine, were all silver. “We can use the ten to stop the soldiers.”

Then I was back with the Mirror Dragon, the lift of her power pulling me into her sinuous strength. We rolled through the heavy clouds, our ruby claws slashing at the pressure that closed in on all sides. Beside us, the blue one shrieked again, twisting to meet the energy that circled in a high-pitched keen of ten sorrowing songs.

Their savage arrival slammed power across our body, knocking us backward through the air. We twisted, muscles straining to stop the impetus. A huge green body rammed us, emerald claws ripping through red scales. We screamed and ducked, our tail battering the bright green flank. The clash of
Hua
boomed across the sky. The Rabbit Dragon pounced, but the blue beast rammed him, and the huge pink body tumbled past.

Go lower
. Ido's mind-voice cut through the fury of dragon battle.
To the soldiers
.

We found the ranks of bright
Hua
streaming down the hill and dived toward them. The ten followed behind us in a shrieking, ragged circle. The Rat Dragon twisted through the air, claws and teeth driving the Ox and Tiger out of formation, flattening the circle of dragons into a lopsided crescent.

Now!

We opened our pathways, the familiar orange taste of his power roaring through us, drawing up our energy. But this time we were not left behind. This time we were riding the roiling wave of
Hua
with Ido and the blue beast. Around us, the dragons were trying to re-form their circle. We had to stop them.

Bind the lightning, Ido ordered
.

We felt the blue beast harvesting the tiny cold sparks of energy within the clouds, drawing them into the burning rush of our united power. We clawed at a bright flicker, pulling it into the rolling force. Deep within us we heard a howling song of destruction, a churning mix of gold and silver power spiked with the flashing fire of lightning.

Eona, aim it at the soldiers. How?

Channel, like you do when you heal
.

We felt our combined power gather into a crest, hanging for a moment as if offering the chance to step back. And then it broke, crashing into a rush of devastation.

With all our strength we tried to channel it downward, but most of it flooded through our unpracticed grasp and slammed into the ten beasts around us. Their circle broke across the celestial plane. Shrieking, they vanished, leaving the bitter taste of despair.

Ido and the Rat Dragon were not so clumsy. With iron control, they sent destruction into the earth below. The fireball of lightning and power ripped through the bright points of
Hua
marching toward the village, obliterating the ranks of soldiers in its roaring path. Flames washed across the hill, the savage energy glowing through the celestial plane like a false dawn. Dirt and rock and ash spun upward into high arcs, then fell across the village and beach in a dark driving rain. The battle lines broke as screaming people ran for cover from the pelting debris.

I gasped, dragged back into my earthly body by the sudden sharp impact of a rock that sent hot pain through my shoulder. I blinked through a blur of tears, the heat and shape beneath me coalescing into Ido's body, the tight wrap of his arms holding me against his chest.

“It's not finished yet,” he said.

He rolled over until I was under him, the full length of his body shielding me, his weight braced on his elbows. The aftershock boomed across the beach, the sand shifting under us, a fine layer of ash sweeping across our skin in a hot wind. Ido winced as stones thudded against his back and clumps of earth exploded around us in plumes of dust.

“It will stop in a moment,” he said, glancing up at the leaden sky.

The wild savagery of the dragon battle and the exhilaration of power slipped away from me. I was hollow, a shell made of distant screaming, falling ash, and the dank stench of incinerated land and people.

“What did we do?”
I whispered, horror locking me under him.

“We stopped Sethon from killing everybody and taking us.” He touched my wet cheek with a bloodstained finger. The coppery tang echoed the drifting smell of death in the air. “You should be celebrating.”

Celebrate? When all I could see was the image of all those soldiers on the hillside extinguished in just one fiery moment. “We killed them all. So fast.”

He watched me, his brows drawn into a small frown. “It was us or them, Eona. Your power just saved all your friends.”

Although it was true, I shook my head, unable to find words for the desolation that pierced my spirit.

“You are too tender.” Hesitantly, he cupped my cheek in his hand. “You will be undone if you think of them as men. They are your enemy.”

“Is that what you do?”

“No, I do this.” He lowered his mouth to mine. I closed my eyes, part of me knowing I should push him away—the other part longing for a moment that held life, not death.

I felt Ido's body tense and opened my eyes. The tip of a sword slid along his jaw, forcing his head back. Kygo stood over us. Under the streaks of ash and sweat, his face was white with fury. “Get off her.”

The shock in Ido's eyes hardened into rage. Slowly, he pushed himself away from my body, the sword guiding him back on to his knees.

“Are you all right?” Kygo asked me. His voice snapped like a whip.

I nodded. Somewhere in the village, a child wailed, the heartrending sound rising above the other calls and shouts; closer, the sporadic sounds of steel meeting steel echoed through the blanketing quiet of the drifting dust.

Kygo shifted the sword against Ido's throat. “Did you make that fireball?”

Ido's lips were drawn back into a snarl. “You should thank us,” he said. “Lady Eona and I saved your precious resistance.”

Kygo's eyes fixed on me. “You did that, Eona?”

I curled my body against the boat, away from the awe in his voice. “You were outnumbered. I didn't want you to get hurt.”

Kygo stepped back from Ido and lowered the sword. The Dragoneye rubbed the thin line of blood that the blade had pressed from his skin.

“Now you have your army of two, Your Majesty,” he said acidly. “Tried and tested.”

I stared at the Dragoneye. “What do you mean?”

“Don't be naïve, Eona.” Ido shot a malicious glance at Kygo. “Do you think he got me out of the palace to nurture crops and redirect rain? I am here as a weapon, and you are here to blunt or sharpen my blade at his command.”

I looked at Kygo. “That's not true, is it?”

Kygo straightened. “You said it yourself, Eona—we are outnumbered. We will always be outnumbered. I swear I never wanted you to break the Covenant. I just wanted you to control
him.”
He nodded at Ido.
“He
has no problem killing people.”

Ido laughed, a sharp bitter sound. “You are not so different from your uncle.”

Kygo's hand tightened around the hilt of his sword.

“When were you going to tell me about this, Kygo?” My voice sounded distant, as if I stood lengths away from myself.

“When we got to the eastern rendezvous. Before the final strike.”

I stood up. “Well, now I know.” Beyond the boat, the bodies of three soldiers lay on the sand. Caido looked up from salvaging their fallen weapons as I rounded the prow.

“Eona,” Kygo called behind me. “I was going to
ask
you.”