Eona: The Last Dragoneye

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.

The Necklace of the Gods.

I felt the chant change within me, the hissing command shifting into a lilting call. The Righi was opening the way for the twelve bound spirits.

Kygo turned to me, his smile full of wonder.

I saw the blur of movement from the corner of my eye, but there was no time to cry out. Kygo’s reflexes swung his sword up, but Ido was already at the end of his leap. All of his body weight drove the long knife into Kygo’s back. Ido’s mouth was a bared snarl of effort as he twisted the blade, arching Kygo against his body into gasping shock. The chant froze in my throat. Kygo staggered sideways and landed heavily on the dais, Kinra’s sword still locked in his hand. The white pearls around my arm heaved and shivered as the Mirror Dragon screamed, her protest soaring above the roar of the male dragons.

“No!” I fell to my knees beside him. “Kygo!”

He gulped for breath, the agonized gasp bubbling with blood. I touched his cheek. Already cold with shock. Or was it my own icy horror? My other hand hovered over the knife hilt embedded in his back.

“I wouldn’t pull that out if I were you,” Ido said. “I aimed for the same place where the arrow hit me. He’s got a few minutes.”

“What are you doing?” I cried.

Ido walked up to the dais, observing Kygo’s struggle for breath.

“Hurts, doesn’t it?” he said.

Weakly, Kygo gripped the hilt of the sword and tried to lift it, but it dropped from his grasp and clattered off the dais, landing at Ido’s feet. The Dragoneye kicked the blade away, then looked down at me.

“I’m going to give you a real choice now, Eona,” he said. “If you take all the power with me, you can heal him. Stop his pain and save his life. Or, if you insist on releasing the dragons, you can watch him drown in his own blood.”

“You bastard!” I went for him, my hands tensed into claws. My knees hit the edge of the dais as Ido jumped back out of range.

“I’m just making it easy for you to have what you really want,” he said.

Kygo’s fingers caught my sleeve. “Don’t do it.” Blood flecked his lips. “Don’t give it to him.”

“So much honor, just like his father,” Ido said sarcastically. “I’d say between the dragons and the amount of blood he’s spitting up, you haven’t got long to make up your mind.”

He was right. Kygo’s skin had a bluish tinge around his nose and mouth, and the Righi was building within me again, pushing past my shock to call the bound Hua of the dragons. I could not move, paralyzed by the impossibility of the choice. Kygo or the dragons. My heart or my duty. All the reasons to save the dragons raged through me: Kinra, atonement, the land, the people, the future. And only one reason to save Kygo, tolling through me over and over again.

I loved him.

“Take what you want, Eona,” Ido said. “You have done it all along, so why stop now?”

A slight smile curved his lips. He was so confident that I would agree. I had turned my back and he had struck like a snake.

“You’ll have everything, Eona. Including him.” Ido nudged Kygo’s foot with his own. “It is not so bad to have her control your will, boy.” Ido’s smile turned sly. “I look forward to sharing your compulsion power, Eona. And I think you will enjoy sharing my knowledge. It’s what you’ve wanted all along.”

“I just wanted to be a Dragoneye!”

“You wanted power,” he said. “This way you get it. And you get to save Kygo.”

The Mirror Dragon screeched. Her huge red head swayed from left to right above her blazing pearl. The clouds above us flickered with the light of the flames, reflecting the intense heat.

“All right,” I clenched my fists. “All right.”

“Eona, no!” Kygo lifted his head, the effort forcing a bright trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth. His cold fingers touched my hand, drawing me closer until my forehead rested against his own. I felt his labored breath on my cheek, the metallic smell of his blood in every soft warm gasp. “Do what is right,” he whispered, the words costing him precious air.

I pressed my lips against his cold skin. “I don’t know what is right.”

“Yes, you do, Naiso.” He fell back, panting.

I stood, legs trembling. He wanted me to release the dragons. Yet, if I did, I would lose him and I would lose the Mirror Dragon. I would lose everything. If I took all the power with Ido, I would destroy the dragons and take Kygo’s throne and will from him. He would hate me. I would be left with only power. I would be Ido. A wave of rage swept over me. There was no way to win this battle.

“You must do it now, Eona,” Ido said.

For one despair-ridden moment, I wanted the dragons’ power to explode through the land — to destroy everything in its path, and take away this terrible choice. But I had to choose, and I could not let Kygo die.

I stepped down from the dais, every harsh clicking breath from my beloved pushing me toward the Dragoneye. Ido picked up Kinra’s sword and drew its blade along his hand, inhaling with pleasure as it sliced into his flesh.

“Your turn.” He caught my free hand and turned it over. My palm was already cut from the gold-clawed setting of the Imperial Pearl. My eyes fixed on the moonstone and jade hilt as Ido dragged the sword tip along the same wound. A faint echo of Kinra’s rage shivered through me. Was her Hua still in the folio too? My fingers curled around the stinging draw of fresh blood.

Ido sent the weapon spinning across the boards. “Dragoneye blood to break an ancient Dragoneye binding,” he said. “When the Righi releases the dragons, we must hold on to the folio to take their power.”

He grabbed my hand and pressed it across the white pearls that clamped the folio to my arm, then slapped his own blood-sticky palm over my knuckles. I felt the pearl rope shift and shiver.

“All right. Now we take what is ours. This is our destiny, Eona.” The triumph in his eyes made them as gold as the ring of flames around us. “Call the dragons out of the folio.”

“This is not destiny,” I spat. “This is ambition made from betrayal and murder. Do not dress your atrocities in the garb of the gods.”

He tilted his head, the harsh angle showing the ruthless set of his jaw and the deep lines of brutality from nose to mouth. How could I ever have thought him handsome? His core was rotten and hollow.

“Call it what you will,” he said “But you are standing here with me in the midst of the String of Pearls, and we are about to take all the power in the world. It feels like destiny to me.” He closed his hand over mine, grinding my bones together. “Call the dragons.”

Kinra, help me, I prayed. If you are still within the folio, help me.

On a deep breath, I let the Righi rise again. The words boiled into my mind, a