Eona (59 page)

It stopped. There was only the patter of falling dirt, and Sethon's harsh breathing, then screaming, from below.

I blinked away the grit and tears. The chasm had sliced past the platform and run the length of the plain, splitting a third of Sethon's forces from the rest of the army.

“My nephew knows his Xsu-Ree,” Sethon snarled. He closed his hand around the pearls binding my wrists. “Show me the dragons!” he said, his face so close I could smell the metallic power of the folio on his breath.

The blood compulsion propelled me into the energy world, the transparent shape of Sethon's features streaming with thick black
Hua
, the pathways along my arms riddled with dark veins. Sethon gasped at the sudden shift.

Below us, the battlefield whirled in violent iridescent reds and oranges—thousands and thousands of soldiers reduced to pulsing points of
Hua
, caught in the shock of the double attack from earth and air. The resonance of the lightning strikes lit the mangled earth in a fading white afterglow, and the dark scar of the chasm held the
Hua
of dying men flickering like the tiny glow of fireflies.

Above, the blue dragon circled the plain, his huge body doggedly resisting the folio. Another gossamer thread linked the beast to the ridge: Ido, working his power. The red dragon thrashed against the thicker stream of energy being pulled from her body, the dark return of
Hua
from the folio dulling her crimson scales. My eyes locked on the golden pearl under her chin. Her renewal.

Make it right
. Kinra's plea pounded through my blood.

The Rat Dragon dived, his power tearing another gaping chasm on the right side of the battlefield, straight through the red and green battalions. Hundreds and hundreds of bright points of
Hua
flickered and disappeared, caught and consumed in the splitting earth. Ido was carving out two unbreachable chasms that divided Sethon's army into three. At the top of the ridge, bright lines of
Hua
—the resistance—surged down the steep slope to meet the remnants of the red and green battalions corralled between the deep trenches. I knew Kygo was among them, no doubt at the front, and I sent a desperate prayer to Bross to protect him. Ido's position was easy to see; his thin thread of power rose from the center of the advance straight to the dragon, the beast above him still ripping the earth at his command.

“Stop him!” Sethon yelled.

The compulsion surged through me and reached toward the red dragon. Bitter black energy hooked her power, forcing us into union. There was no glorious warmth or cinnamon joy; just rage and fear in both of us. I fought it, trying to wrench myself free from the union—to save her from Sethon's control— but the blood power burned its way through like acid eating another pathway to our bond.

“Stop Ido's dragon,” Sethon ordered. “Attack it.”

“No!” I gasped, feeling the howling denial echoed through my bond, but the Mirror Dragon and I were already coiling our strength toward the blue beast.

We spread our talons into weapons, our massive muscles bunching into deadly intent. We launched ourselves at the Rat Dragon. He swung around and met our attack, shrieking, his power dragged away from the second chasm. It was not finished—a bridge of land still connected the two battalions. Our claws caught on blue scales, slicing open one flank into a gash of bright energy. He roared, his huge tail slamming into our chest and knocking us backward. The energy world spun past us in a blur of color as we strained to break free of the hold on us, but the tether was too tight. Circling upward, we swung around to face the blue beast again. He retreated through the air, but we followed, slashing at his deep chest.

Ido!
I tried to force my mind-voice through the barrier of the folio, but it was like trying to call to him through a thick stone wall.

We charged, the blue dragon ducking under our impetus, one of his curled horns scraping along our belly. We twisted through the air.

Below us, the resistance streamed down the slope between the trenches Ido had carved into the earth. The soldiers caught in the corridor of land rushed to meet them. The two forces clashed, the tiny points of
Hua
smashing together into a morass of heaving energy. The gossamer thread between blue beast and Ido shone like an arrow pointing to his position.

“Send the hunters,” I heard Sethon order the flagmen. “Ido is straight ahead.”

The swish of the flags sent his command below. At the foot of the platform, the tight formation of the hunters broke apart, their bright points swallowed into the huge pulsing energy knot of the battle.

The blue dragon roared, turning with sinuous speed toward the unfinished chasm. We swept around, massive head down as we rammed him, the impact shuddering through the red dragon into my human body. Our huge jaws closed on his neck. Sethon laughed beside me as the blue dragon flailed with desperate opal claws and plunged, ripping himself free from our vicious grip.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!
I screamed in my mind, but I knew Ido could not hear me.

“Send in the rest of the red battalion,” Sethon ordered the flagmen. “We will finish this now.”

Reinforcements surged around the end of the unfinished trench. The thin silver line of their progress bunched, then pushed through the ragged lines of the resistance. We streaked after the blue dragon, screaming our defiance but unable to stop the attack compelled from within. Below, the gossamer thread of power that linked Ido to his beast was under siege. A shifting circle of bright
Hua
surrounded Ido, a smaller circle within it desperately holding back the assault: resistance fighters shielding the Dragoneye, trying to repel the hunters intent on capturing him. The circle broke, then regrouped, but not fast enough. The shield had been breached by two points of
Hua
. The thread of power flickered, and snapped. The Rat Dragon shrieked.

“They have him!” Sethon exulted.

“No,” I screamed. “No!”

“End your union.”

I felt the compulsion close around my power and tear me from the Mirror Dragon. The vibrant, pulsing colors of the energy world slid and buckled into the solid flesh of Sethon's triumph. I lurched at him, pearl-bound hands useless, but in my mind I was clawing at his smug face. He caught me by the shoulders.

“It is just a matter of time now,” he said. “Look.” He forced me to face the battlefield.

Before us, the plain was no longer swirling
Hua
. It was straining bodies and screams and clashing steel. Mud made of dust and blood sprayed through the air as men whirled and lunged. But even to my untrained eye, the resistance lines were falling back. They could not hold out.

Sethon surveyed the chaos. “How does it feel to be the agent of your friends' defeat, Lady Eona?”

It felt like my heart was being ripped from my body.

It took longer for the resistance army to surrender than Sethon expected. They fought to the end of their strength and hope, finally succumbing to the greater numbers and the loss of their Dragoneye support. I watched silently as each group of valiant fighters was defeated—either killed or taken prisoner—until the narrow battlefield that Ido had carved from the earth became a picking ground for looting soldiers and the scavenger birds that hopped from body to body in black-hunched eagerness. I was long past tears, my spirit so arid I could not even dredge up enough wet to whisper a prayer to Shola for the dying and dead. My mind had withered into only one thought: I had failed them all—Kygo, Kinra, and the dragons we had enslaved.

Sethon's impatience finally took him down the steps to wait for the prisoners. He kept me by his side, his entourage of aides and attendants scrambling into positions behind us as he paced, one of Kinra's swords swinging from his hand, his other arm hooked through mine as if we strolled in a garden. The wind that Ido had created was long gone, leaving a heavy humidity that was already pulling a meaty stink from the corpses. Soldiers gathered around us to watch Sethon's final victory. Their morbid curiosity pressed on me, as hot and weighty as the air.

Another terrible thought wormed its way into my horror; was Kygo still alive? Was Ido? Sethon had ordered their capture, but things went awry in battle.

A murmur through the waiting throng announced the arrival of the prisoners. Sethon's hold on my arm tightened as the crowd parted and a straight, proud figure slowly walked into view between two guards: Kygo, his hands clasped behind his head like a common prisoner, the Imperial Pearl on defiant display above the open gorget of his armored vest. He was alive. Behind him, two hunters dragged the limp form of Ido between them—delivered senseless, as ordered.

Kygo's head was high, but I could see the pain and regret breaking through his body with every heartbeat. The defeat had stripped his spirit bare. Everything that was left was written upon his hollowed face—desperation, despair, and the core of courage that kept him upright. As the distance closed between us, his dark eyes sought mine, and I saw what else was left within his spirit. Me.

Sethon stopped Kygo's guards with a raised hand. They pushed him to his knees, a length from us. The hunters released their hold on Ido, and he collapsed onto the ground, his eyelashes and brows the only color in his pale face. I found Ryko, Dela, and Tozay, too; bloodied but alive and kneeling behind Kygo, among the weary ranks of resistance prisoners. There was no sign of Vida. I prayed that she was safe back at the camp with my mother, and Rilla and Chart.

Kygo's eyes fixed on the blood caking the front of my tunic. “Eona, what has he done to you?” he rasped. “Are you all right?”

I nodded, although I was not. “I'm so sorry,” I managed. “He's compelling me.” I tried to raise my hands, but they would not move. “The folio.”

“You have less honor than a piece of shit,” Kygo spat at his uncle.

“And you have all your father's honor,” Sethon countered.

Kygo's jaw clenched, the outline of each muscle ridged along the strong bone. “I hope so.”

“It was not a compliment.” Sethon inhaled deeply, as if savoring his next words. “Bow to your emperor.”

Kygo's voice was steel. “No.”

“Bow!” Sethon said.

“I will not bow before a traitor to this land,” Kygo said loudly.

His words sent a wave of anticipation through the watching soldiers, as if the gates had opened on two fighting dogs.

Sethon jerked his chin at a soldier standing guard. “Bring me one of his men.”

The guard dragged a kneeling prisoner in front of us. It was Caido, his body bent with exhaustion. He lifted his eyes to Kygo, his bloodless lips shifting in a prayer.

Sethon hefted Kinra's sword. “Bow, or I will kill your man.”

Kygo stiffened, but before he could say anything, Caido suddenly lunged at Sethon, his thin face twisted with desperate rage. “He does not bow to you!”

The sword swung, the heavy crunch of bone coming a moment before the spray of blood through the air. Caido's body slumped to the ground. I closed my eyes, the image of the man's head half hacked from his shoulders stark against my lids.

“Yuso,” Sethon snapped. “Which of these prisoners are important to my nephew?”

My eyes flew open as the captain stepped out from the small entourage behind us. I held my breath as he slowly walked the line of prisoners, keeping a wary distance from the palpable hate that rose from the kneeling men. A gob of spittle arced out from their ranks and landed near his feet.

He stopped in front of Dela.

“This is the Contraire, Your Majesty,” he said.

Dela wore men's armor and had pulled her hair back into a man's high queue, yet she was all female warrior, fierce and sharp. The wound across her face had opened again, and her cheek was smeared with blood like war paint.

“I hope your death is long and painful,” she said.

Ignoring her, Yuso pointed at Ryko. “And that is the islander. He has been with the prince since the start.”

“Why did you do it?” Ryko said, his voice as hard and honed as a blade—yet in it, I heard the terrible pain of his captain's betrayal.

“He has my son, Ryko,” Yuso said through his teeth.

For a moment the two men stared at one another. Then Yuso moved on, stopping once more. “Tozay, his general.”

Master Tozay lifted his head, his lined face gaunt and gray, the strong width of his shoulders slumped. He had always been the bulwark behind Kygo. Now, all I saw was a defeated man.

“Bring them up onto the platform,” Sethon ordered. “I want every man to see me claim the pearl and kill the resistance, once and for all.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

SETHON PACED IN
front of me across the small central dais. He had placed me at the base of his throne again, so that everybody could see the Dragoneye at his feet. He had removed his armor and undertunic and wore only trousers and boots, his scarred, heavily muscled torso streaked with sweat from the heat and the relentless afternoon sun. From where I knelt, I could smell the stink of his anticipation.

“Strip him,” he said to the waiting guards.

Kygo lifted his head at the command. I knew he did not dare make any other move. He had already struggled once against his guards—breaking one man's jaw—and his rage had earned Dela ten strokes of a cane across her back. I glanced at the Contraire on her knees behind him, shivering with pain, her pale shoulders scored with red welts. Sethon had promised that if Kygo struggled again, I would be next.

Deftly, the two guards cut the leather bindings that held Kygo's armored vest in place and pulled it from his body. Then the knife sliced through his close-fitting tunic. He fixed his eyes grimly on the horizon as the wet, clinging cloth was peeled off his skin, baring his torso. I heard Sethon's sharp intake of breath at the clear sight of his prize. Without the high collar around it, the pearl seemed even larger, its gold claw setting dug deep into Kygo's flesh. When the pearl was removed, it would take half of his throat, too.