Eona: The Last Dragoneye

Sucking in a desperate breath, I slammed my forehead into his face. The impact jarred my head back in an explosion of bruising pain and streaming light. I heard Dillon howl as he recoiled, pulling me with him. Through a blur of tears, I lunged at the pale rope binding the folio to his forearm. My fingernails scraped the embossed cover and connected with the row of pearls. I rammed my fingers between gems and leather and pried open a gap, enough space to hook the rigid rope. My first yank loosened its straining resistance. On the second, half of the pearls lifted. Once more and I would have it.

I hauled, but instead of releasing, the pearls snapped back, clamping my hand against the leather binding. Dillon straightened, blood welling from a gash above his eye. Frantically, I tried to pull my fingers free, but there was no slack. Both my hands were bound to the folio, and the folio was bound to Dillon. His fist swung back, but I had nowhere to move. The savage undercut caught me in the delta of my ribs and slammed out my air. I doubled over, my breath locked in my chest.

I had lost my chance to get the book.

The pearls closed even more tightly around my fingers, sending burning pressure up my arm. Heat rose through me, unclenching my chest into gasping relief. Sour acid flooded my mouth as soft words seared my mind. The black book was calling me again, whispering ancient promises of perfect power— whispering a way to stop Dillon.

For a moment, the book’s treachery held us still, each caught in our own desperation.

“No!” Dillon screamed. “It’s mine!” His wild punches hammered my arms and chest.

All I could see in front of me was Dillon’s flailing madness and the sickening memory of his black, bloated Hua. Was this the book’s promise to me, too — the dark grip of Gan Hua and burning madness? There was no choice. I had to let the acid words score their power into my mind. I had to risk its madness. Everything else had failed.

Around us, the circling wall was shedding waves of rain laden with stinging stones and mud. The air rippled and streamed with collisions of water, as if huge bucketfuls were being thrown from all directions. An uprooted tree spun out of the torrent and crashed into the ground near Solly, reaming a hole in the mud. Only a few lengths away, Kygo ducked as a bush flew past his head and bounced across the flooding slope. It was all coming down.

I closed my hand around the pearls and prayed to Kinra again. But this time I asked her to call the black book and let it carve its dark Hua into my mind.

The heat slammed through me like a physical blow. I staggered and pulled Dillon off balance. The pearls coiled and squeezed our connected hands like a rattling constrictor, pulling the book across the bridge of our wrists. Bitter gall parched my mouth and throat, shriveling my howling pain into a whimper.

The book was coming to me, bringing its scorching power.

“No!” Dillon swung his body into mine. “No!”

His weight knocked me to my knees in the muddy water, the momentum bringing him splashing down beside me. Bracing his shoulder against mine, he tore at the shifting, contorting pearls. His nails gouged my flesh, his fingers sliding under the gems in the slip of my blood. I rammed my body against his, but it only added more leverage to his heave on the pearl rope. The book lifted. Dillon hauled on them again, murmuring words that sang their power through my head. In an explosion of unraveling pearls and shrieking Hua, he wrenched the book free.

I screamed as the ancient energy ripped out of me.

For a moment, I saw the stark triumph on his face. Then the swirling wall of water dropped with a roaring crash that sent up plumes of mud like a ring of explosions. Huge peaks of water collided around us in all directions, breaking into rolling, swelling waves black with dirt and debris. I saw Solly and Dela disappear under the roiling torrent that swept toward us. Near the tree line, a backrush caught a group of running soldiers, their leather armor dragging them under. A horse squealed, the sound suddenly cut off as the poor beast was swamped. I lunged for Dillon, hoping to grab him before the full force hit us, but my fingers only grazed his shirt. I heard Kygo scream my name. He was only an arm’s length away from me. But so was Dillon. As I lunged for the boy again, the pearls coiled around his forearm, wrapping themselves around the exposed edges of the book. It knew the water was coming.

The wave hit me like a cold sledgehammer. It slammed me backward, then pulled me under its dark surface, flipping me into a straining tumble. I heard only the rush of water and my heartbeat pounding the sudden lack of air. Legs caught in heavy folds of cloth. Swirling stones and twigs pelting me. No air. No air. Was I up or down? Something hit my shoulder. I grabbed it — the buoyant length of a branch. Up, please let it be up. I kicked frantically, my feet tangled in the twists of my gown.

Chest searing with the end of my last breath. Up, up. Clinging to the wood, I broke the surface, gasping, my ears ringing with the relief of air, and the deafening crash of water.

Something snagged my sleeve.

“Grab the tree.”

Yuso’s blurred face. I reached for him. His cold hand locked into mine and pulled me over the solid round of a tree trunk.

“Hold on,” he yelled and hooked his arm over my body.

We spun, caught in a violent eddy, then lurched back into the wild current rushing down the slope. Pale shapes under the roiling water bumped and tumbled past. Bodies, their flailing limbs brushing against me. For a few lengths a sobbing horse swam beside us, struggling to keep its head above the murky rapids. Then our tree trunk snagged on another and swung around. For a breathless moment, I saw Dillon clinging to a tree, the black folio swarming up his body like a rat finding higher ground. The pearls wrapped around a branch and pulled him to safety.

Then our makeshift raft broke loose and Yuso and I spun back into the deadly plummet downhill.

CHAPTER NINE

YUSO’S GRIP TIGHTENED his body locking mine against the trunk, as we plowed relentlessly toward the ridge of the slope. The flood had leveled everything, churning the earth into a thick mud that gushed over the edge.

“We’re going over!” Yuso yelled. “Don’t let go.”

We sheared the tops of scrubby bushes and a bank of foul debris. For a moment the drop hung before us, its base obscured by a cascade of muck — and then we plunged over, heavy mud raining down on us as we rode the sliding, falling earth into the gully below.

Screaming, I felt my hold slip on the slimy bark. All I could taste and smell was dirt. Yuso’s body lifted from mine. I slid forward, groping frantically for a secure hold. Then his strong arms pulled me free and we were falling together, his yell loud in my ear.

We hit, the impact jarring us apart. Blindly, I rolled and rolled, my gown wrapping my legs in a sticky weight. I slammed against something hard. The brutal stop sent a shock of bruising pain through my back. Around me was the sound of loud slapping, and my own hard breathing. I spat out dirt and wiped my eyes, blinking the world back into bleary focus.

A nearby mound of mud resolved into the shape of a dead horse. Next to it was a drowned soldier, still holding his Ji in a death-grip. I sat up — too fast, my head spinning — and backed away from their glassy stares. Cold mud oozed through my toes. I had lost both sandals.

“Lady Eona? Are you all right?”

Yuso’s voice. I jerked around. He was only a few lengths away, buried up to his chest in a deep pocket of sludge. Only one arm was free, held awkwardly in the air. Behind him, mud rained down over the ridge: the source of the slapping sound. It was getting faster and heavier.

I started toward him. “Are you hurt?”

“Stop! I don’t know the size of this hole.”

“Are you hurt? Can you get out?”

He had to get out — I didn’t want to be alone in the middle of all this destruction. For all I knew, Yuso was the only other survivor. I briefly wished it had been Ryko who had saved me. Was the