Eona: The Last Dragoneye

someplace deep came an urge to reach up and run my hand across the soft bristle.

But I had seen that same look in Ido’s eyes. In the whipmaster’s eyes. Even in my master’s eyes. I stepped back.

“I am your Naiso,” I said.

It was a flimsy shield. As my emperor, he had the right to take whatever he wanted. Yet his hand dropped from my face, the intensity pulled back on an indrawn breath.

“My truth bringer,” he said.

I bowed my head. If our eyes met again, he would see the weakness in my armor. And my guilt.

“You are right,” he said. “I should not emulate my father.”

His words brought my head up, but he had already turned away. As he strode past the last of the overhanging trees, he ripped off a branch and flung it with such force that it startled a pheasant into whirring flight.

“You have a talent for irritating His Majesty,” Dela said behind me.

“It is my duty, isn’t it?” I said, not quite sure what had happened between us. “I’m his Naiso.”

“That kind of irritation is not usually one of the Naiso’s duties,” she said wryly. She touched my arm, urging me to walk by her side. “Then again,” she added, “he is only following his father’s example.”

I caught her shoulder, pulling her around to face me. “He mentioned his father, too.”

She nodded, as if she had overheard our conversation. “It was not common knowledge, but the old emperor did have a Naiso. She was his concubine and mother of his first-born son.”

“Lady Jila was his Naiso?” My mind struggled to recast the elegant beauty into political advisor.

Dela’s smile was sad. “And a most worthy one, although the old emperor did not listen to her warnings about his brother. She was a remarkable woman. No wonder the old emperor eschewed all others.”

We both looked at the straight-backed figure of Kygo ahead. “I am not going to be his concubine,” I said fiercely.

“You are missing the point,” Dela said. “Lady Jila was not just a concubine. Certainly, she had the power of her body, but she also had much more.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I know. It is something you must come to yourself.” She held out the red folio, her face somber. “Your ancestress should have considered the dangers of such power.”

“Have you found something?”

She stroked the red leather binding and the rope of pearls in her palm clicked in response. “This is not Kinra’s journal of her union with the Mirror Dragon.”

I closed my eyes, the disappointment like a bright pain in my head.

Dela took my hand and squeezed it gently. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I know you were hoping for some guidance. I don’t think there will be any clues to your link with Ryko, either.”

I returned the pressure; Ryko would be even more unhappy at such news, and I knew it pained Dela to hurt him.

“What is the journal about, then?’

She lowered her voice. “It is not clear yet, but I think it tells of some kind of conspiracy. It must have been dangerous information, since Kinra felt it was necessary to write most of it in such a difficult code. And I have also discovered an entry that is not in Kinra’s hand.”

“Whose hand is it?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. It is not signed in any way. It is little more than a few lines right at the very back.” She paused. “Eona, it notes Kinra’s execution. For treason. I do not know what she did, but Emperor Dao had her killed for it.”

Our eyes met. Within that glance was a whole conversation: my shame and fear of discovery, her grave acknowledgment, and the decision to keep the information between us.

“Is this why you will not touch her belongings?” she asked.

“She was a traitor,” I whispered, knowing such dishonor would be enough for Dela. She did not need to know about the Imperial Pearl or the pull of Kinra’s energy.

“It is a burden I wish you did not have to bear.” She touched the red leather again, delicately tracing the three long gouges in the cover. “Kinra was Emperor Dao’s lover.”

Was this what I felt through Kinra’s swords? Love? Yet it was violent and angry and full of death.

“And she had another lover,” Dela continued. “The unnamed man. It seems her downfall lies in the nexus of this triangle. As I decipher the text, I will bring it to you.”

“Thank you.”

But her attention was on the scrub wood ahead. Kygo had stopped walking, his hand on his sword hilt. Tiron was tugging on Ju-Long’s bridle, pulling the big horse back around.

Then we saw what they had already seen — Ryko, running toward us, someone small slung over his shoulder.

The islander lifted his fist.

The sign for Sethon’s army.

CHAPTER EIGHT

RYKO’S FIST PUNCHED three fast signals: twenty-four, on foot, northbound.

Crouching, I pulled Dela down into the grass and scanned the woodland behind the islander, every part of me focused on finding movement. My eyes caught on the quick flip of a pheasant tail, a branch bobbing in the hot wind, the shift of light between leaves.

“I can’t see any soldiers,” I whispered.

“What’s Ryko carrying?” Lady Dela said. “Is that a child?”

“Lady Eona!” We both spun around at Yuso’s low call. Beyond him, Vida and Solly were struggling to turn the horses.

“Make for those trees,” the captain said, pointing to a thick copse at the steeper edge of the slope.

I knew I should move, but something about Ryko’s small passenger held me still. His presence was almost like a taste in my mouth. Ryko had reached the emperor, and the two men were running side by side through the grass. The islander was losing momentum, his big chest heaving under the strain of his squirming burden. Whoever was slung over his shoulder did not come willingly. Behind them, Tiron had finally faced Ju-Long in the right direction. He dragged the horse into a reluctant trot.

“Lady Eona, you must go now!” Yuso ordered.

Ryko’s head jerked to one side — a nasty punch in the face from his passenger. He stumbled and lost his grip on the child. They both hit the ground and rolled in the long grass, legs and arms flailing. Kygo slowed and turned back. With easy strength, he pulled the child upright, but jumped back from the frenzied kicks and punches. Free of the emperor’s hold, the boy whipped around to face us, his hair half unraveled from a high-bound queue.

My heart tightened with sudden foreboding. I knew that tender curve of cheek and frail shoulder.

“That’s Dillon.” I stood up for a better view.

“Lord Ido’s apprentice?” Dela said, rising to peer at the boy, too. “What is he doing here?”

But I had a more pressing question on my mind.

“Can you see the black folio? Does he still have it?”

The last time I had seen Dillon, he had attacked Ryko and me and wrenched the black folio from my keeping. He had thought he could trade the book to Ido in return for his life. The poor fool did not realize it held more than the secret of the String of Pearls — it held the way for royal blood to enslave us and our dragon power.

No one but Ido and I knew it, and I could still hear the Dragoneye’s last, urgent words to me at the conquered palace. Anyone with the blood can bind us. Find the black folio, before Sethon