Eona: The Last Dragoneye

not bear to see him hurt.” His eyes narrowed in a malicious smile. “Now you rip his Hua from him to compel me. Maybe you have enough steel to follow the path of your power, after all.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

THROUGHOUT THE NIGHT we crossed the city using a chain of safe houses, staying only a few minutes in some and over a half bell in others to avoid patrols, all of it a blur of dark rooms, shadowy faces, and urgent whispers. Caido and his lieutenant led us from house to house. The rest of his troop were riding across the city in the opposite direction, brave decoys for the inevitable search.

In one house, Vida and I changed into more modest gowns, and I washed the white paint from my face. In another — the stable of a walled family compound — we stayed long enough to eat soup, brought by the sympathizer’s goggle-eyed wife. By that time, Ido and Ryko were in desperate need of food and rest. The compulsion I had forced upon both men had weakened them, and Caido’s relentless pace was beginning to tell on all of us.

The woman left the iron soup pot on the floor and bowed out of the stable, her eyes fixed on Ido. He was slumped against the far wall, as far from the bristling distrust of the others as possible. Instead of the warden’s ill- fitting clothes, he now wore the dun trousers and tunic of a workman, but the trousers were too short, and Dela had ripped out the tunic sleeves to accommodate his shoulders. Perhaps the goggle-eyed wife was not just overwhelmed by his Dragoneye rank.

In the dim light from the courtyard lanterns, Vida stirred the soup, then ladled out two bowls and passed them to me.

“Don’t let him eat too much.” She measured a small amount between thumb and forefinger. “Otherwise he’ll just be sick.”

Ido, it seemed, had fallen into my care. Not through any desire of mine — more from the refusal of the others to interact with him. I did not blame them. Even starved and exhausted, Ido could strike with venom at any time. His insinuation that I had become ruthless, even to my friends, still pricked at me like a burr caught on my spirit.

I carried the bowls and squatted in front of the Dragoneye. His shorn head was tilted back against the rough wood wall, eyes closed against a shaft of moonlight that slanted across his face.

“Soup,” I said.

He flinched. I had obviously pulled him from the cusp of sleep. The broad planes of his face sharpened into fierce hunger. “Food?”

I held up his portion. Eagerly, he cupped his long fingers around the bowl, but his hands shook so much that he couldn’t raise it to his lips. He bent his head and sucked at the liquid.

“Vida says you should eat sparingly, or you’ll bring it back up.”

He grimaced over the rim. “Shouldn’t be a problem. I can’t even get a mouthful.”

“Here, let me hold it.” I reached for the bowl again.

“No.” He clenched his teeth and slowly raised the soup, the liquid slopping onto his fingers. Finally, he took a mouthful and smiled. Genuine pleasure. It was the first time I had seen him without the arrogance that usually hardened his features, and it stripped years from his face. I had always thought of him as being much older than I, yet Momo had said he was only twenty-four, and if I had ever counted the dragon cycles, I would have known his true age. How did someone get so old in his spirit? The easy answers were brutality and ambition. But perhaps it was impossible to know the truth of another person’s spirit.

I thought of the black gap I had seen in Ido’s crown point of power. Surely such a breach in the seat of insight and enlightenment would affect his spirit in some essential way. And his heart point had shrunk again, too. Did that mean he no longer felt the sense of compassion I had forced upon him?

I took a sip of my own soup — the thin taste almost over-powered by the stink of the sleeping pigs penned nearby — and watched Ido eat with the intensity of a starving wolf.

“Do you still feel remorse for all you have done?” I asked. “I know you felt it in the palace alleyway, and compassion, too. But do you still feel it?”

It was probably a foolish question — he had no reason to admit he was once more without conscience, and every reason to assure me that he was a reformed man.

Slowly, he looked up from his food. “After one hour in Sethon’s company, I stopped feeling anything except pain,” he said flatly. “Do not ask me about remorse or compassion. They did not exist in that cell.”

The memory of his brutalized body leaped into my mind. After what he’d suffered, no wonder his heart point had shrunk again. Perhaps Sethon’s cruelty had created the black gap as well. I watched him again over the rim of my bowl. From the slight turn of his body, it was obvious he did not want to talk of his ordeal. For a moment, I was caught between my own compassion and a sense of macabre curiosity.

“When I healed you, I saw a black gap in your crown point,” I finally said. “Do you know what it is?

“A black gap?” He touched the top of his head, his face suddenly strained. “It is most probably payment exacted.” The wry edge in his voice was softened by resignation.

“Payment?”

“You should know by now that there is always some kind of payment for power.” Tiredly, he rubbed his eyes. “I used a lot of power to survive Sethon.”

“What will such a gap do to you?”

“That remains to be seen.” He gave a harsh laugh. “Perhaps I will never achieve spiritual enlightenment.”

“What did Sethon want from you?” I asked.

The sarcastic smile faded. For a moment he toyed with not answering — the reluctance plain in his face — then he said, “The black folio. And you.”

I had thought as much. “Did you tell him anything?”

“I don’t know.” His eyes met mine and I drew back from the cold accusation within them. “When you called your dragon that first time, you not only ripped my heart point open — you blocked me from my power. I was at Sethon’s mercy for three days.” His voice was a hard monotone. “By the third day I didn’t know what I was saying. Maybe I told him. I would have said anything to stop it.”

I took refuge from his blame in a sip of my soup. I didn’t know I had blocked him from his dragon. Fear feathered down my spine. I had left him powerless against Sethon. Just the memory of the man’s cold touch made me feel sick — even with Ido’s injuries still fresh in my mind, my imagination failed at what he must have endured at Sethon’s hands. I steeled myself against the impulse to apologize. It had been Ido’s own ruthless grab for my power that had blocked him from his dragon. And his own treacherous plans for the throne that had enraged Sethon.

“I think it is safe to assume that Sethon knows everything I know about you and the black folio,” he added.

“You know where it is, then?’

“Dillon has it.”

“He survived the flood?” The news brought a confusion of gladness and foreboding.

Ido smiled grimly. “The black folio looks after its own.”

“But if Sethon knows where it is, he will just go and get it.”

Ido shook his head. “Sethon knows where it was. Dillon is long gone.” With a sigh, he put the bowl on the floor. “Your servant is right. I cannot eat any more.”

“She’s not my servant. Vida is a resistance fighter.”

“And what about you, Eona?” he asked. “Do you fight for the Pearl Emperor?”

I paused, sensing a bite in the question that I could not see. “Yes.”

“And will you fight with your power when I teach you how to control it?”

“No, I abide by the Covenant. As does Kygo.”

“‘Kygo,’ is it?” He crossed his arms, the moonlight showing the stark curve of muscle. “You should watch yourself, girl. Just because you are a Dragoneye does not mean you can call an emperor by his first name. Not even