Eona: The Last Dragoneye

rose piteously. “Find Eona. Find Eona. Find Eona.”

I had heard Dillon call my name like that before. But when? The elusive memory hardened into an image: the dragon battle at the fisher village. Dillon screaming for me through the power of the Rat Dragon. Through Ido.

“Did Lord Ido send you to find me?”

“He’s in my head.”

Yuso and Kygo reached the thicket. I tugged Dillon into a sprint. A second gust of wind brought light pulsing across the dark clouds. For one heavy moment, time hung between hot earth and cold heaven, then the land shuddered under the sky’s roar. Dillon screamed, dragging at my hand. I looked over my shoulder. He was bent, as if the gods pressed him to the ground. Close behind us, Ryko and Tiron led Ju-Long in a tight hold between them, the horse blowing hard with fear.

With grim effort, I pulled Dillon into a run beside me. “Does Lord Ido want you to give me the black book?” I eyed the folio bound to his arm.

Dillon’s features sharpened. “It’s my book,” he panted. “It’s mine. Lord Ido can’t hold onto the dragon. They make him drink the black beast. All his power is draining away.” He giggled in tight, painful gasps. “It will be mine soon, then I can make him hurt. Just like he makes me hurt.”

Part of me hoped I was listening to the ravings of a ruined mind — yet I had seen my old friend in that moment of sanity. Although his words were feverish, they still rang with truth. Dillon knew that Lord Ido was losing hold of the Rat Dragon. And he knew he would soon have Ido’s power. I shuddered, pushing my coursing fear into a final burst of speed. We were almost there.

“Dillon, how sick is Lord Ido?” I tightened my grip on his damp hand. “We can’t let him die. Do you understand? We have to save him.”

“Save him?” Dillon’s glassy eyes narrowed. “No!” This time his fist was too quick. The crack of knuckles against his skull made me wince. “He hurts me.”

“I know, I know,” I soothed. “But we’re going to save him, so he can train us.”

“No!” Dillon shrieked. “I want him to die.”

He twisted in my grip like a wild dog fighting a noose. I stumbled after him, towed by his savage fury. Another blast of cold wind slammed into us, bringing the smell of sweet, wet grass. The piercing cricket song stopped, the sudden silence pounding in my ears. I looked up in time to see a claw of light rake the sky, then a booming shock surged over us.

“Eona, behind you!”

Kygo’s frantic voice swung me around to face the dense tree line at the far end of the slope.

A wide semicircle of soldiers had broken out of the woods, all carrying Ji, the hook-bladed pikes braced for attack. They were no more than one hundred lengths away and moving with wary speed. I heaved on Dillon’s hand, but he had dropped to his knees, a shrieking anchor. I felt the gusty wind flex into the heavier muscle of the monsoon, its brutal strength knocking me back a step and stealing my breath. Before me, the grass flattened and the trees bowed in obeisance as the gale brought the first drumming drops of rain. A panic of starlings burst out of the trees and spiraled upward, turning in a sharp arrow ahead of the wind. I gasped as the sudden rush of cool water streamed against my hair and face, its weight stinging my skin and scalp.

A few lengths away, Ryko pushed Ju-Long and Tiron onward, then turned and drew his swords. The islander’s lone figure blurred in the thick veil of pounding rain as the shapes of Tiron and the gray horse forged past us. I thought I heard the young guard call me though the teeming water, but Dillon pulled my hand again. He was back on his feet. My relief froze into realization; I was no longer holding Dillon. He was holding me.

Even as I tried to wrench free, he caught my other hand and with brutal strength swung me around in a splashing circle, as though we were children again, playing Dragon Spin.

“What are you doing?” I yelled. “Stop it!”

“Dragon day, dragon night, dragon spirit with the right,” he sang. “Call your name, bring your light — show us who will have the sight!”

The wet hem of my gown wrapped around my legs. I tripped, collapsing onto one knee in the pooling water. The wind was gone, the rain now falling in a seamless gray curtain as if the gods were emptying a pitcher over our heads.

“Dillon, the soldiers are coming!” I blinked, trying to clear my stinging eyes of water. It ran in rivulets down my face and the front of my gown, soaking the rough cloth into a dead weight. “We have to run.”

“Which dragon? Which dragon? Choose!” he singsonged. “Choose!”

He yanked at my hands, grinding the thin bones together as he hauled me upright. Such strength was not natural. I threw my weight backward in a bid to jerk free, but he held me locked in his game.

Just above our wrists, the rope of white pearls loosened its stranglehold. The last two perfect gems lifted again, this time like a snake tasting the sodden air. With clattering purpose they uncoiled, leaving only one loop binding the folio to Dillon’s arm. The rest of the rope slithered around the edges of the book and settled a protective rank of pearls along each groove of exposed paper. Then, with a snap and lunge, the lead length wrapped around my right wrist, strapping my hand to Dillon’s as if it was a wedding bind.

I strained against the shackle. Heat engulfed my arm and rolled through my body on a wave of thick nausea. Bitter power rose behind my eyes, whispering words that struck at my mind with acid. Ancient words. The book was calling me, folding me into its secrets. It was a book of blood, of death, of chaos. It was the book of Gan Hua.

If this was what burned in Dillon’s mind, no wonder he screamed and pounded at his head.

Desperately, I pulled against the pearls; I did not want to follow Dillon into madness. Already, the words were searing their mark into me. Although I had beaten back the Gan Hua in Kinra’s swords, that had been a mere flicker compared to this blazing bitterness. If I did not stop it now, it would consume me.

I pushed back against the scorching power as I had pushed back against Kinra’s swords. It made no difference to the book’s relentless, blistering force.

Perhaps Kinra could hold back this ancient power. I did not trust her influence, nor did I want to touch her treachery. Yet she’d had the strength and skill to shape Hua into a dark force and send it across five centuries — the swords were proof.

I still had her death plaque in my pocket, although I could not reach for it. Would its presence be enough? I sent out my plea: Kinra, please stop the folio from burning its madness into me. Then I sent another prayer to my ancestors who had brought her Dragoneye power to me: Stop Kinra’s own madness from burning me, too.

As if in answer, a force rose through my blood. An aching cold flowed across the acid words like frost, extinguishing the burn of the book. Then the words and the chill were suddenly gone. But neither the pearls nor Dillon eased their brutal grip.

“Choose,” Dillon cried again.

I shook my head, trying to clear away the aftershock of the searing words.

“Choose.” His fingers tightened into a bone-crunching demand. “Choose!”

“I choose the Ox,” I gasped. The second dragon; two spins in the game. If I could find Kygo, maybe I could drag us in his direction.

“I choose the Rooster,” Dillon called. Ten spins.

I clenched my teeth and swung with him into the twirling count of twelve.

“One,” he yelled. The landscape was a blur of gray and green, Dillon’s pale, grinning face the only fixed point.

“Two.” His weight pulled at the end of my hands, wrenching me into a splashing stagger.

“Three.” His voice changed. No more playful singsong— just flat command. I closed my eyes against the relentless water and the whirling sickness in my head.

“Four.”

Every spin dug us deeper into the mud, closer to the raw force of the earth. At the edge of my reeling senses, I heard him murmuring more words. Although their form and meaning were lost in the deafening tattoo of water, the Dragoneye in me knew they were the same ancient words that had attacked my mind.

Dillon was calling dark energy. It was embedded in the deep resonance of the numbers and in his fevered chant. Four was the number of death, and I could feel it coming with the pounding certainty of my own