Eona: The Last Dragoneye

Yuso glared at me.

“Do you understand, captain?” I snapped.

“As you wish, Lady Eona.” He bent his neck in a stiff bow.

“Is that what obedience looks like, captain?” Ido asked blandly, but his eyes met mine in lightning amusement.

I quickly turned and walked away. It would do me no good if either man saw my smothered smile.

One of the new faces — a young man with the flatter features of the high plains people — bowed as Vida poured me a cup of water under the trees. I sipped the tepid liquid, then poured a little into my cupped palm and patted its wet relief onto the nape of my neck. I was glad to be out of the sun, and just as glad to be away from the keen mind of Ido: he played us all as if we were the Revered Strategy Game.

Nearby, Dela sat on the grass, the red folio open and her brow creased with concentration as she traced the ancient script with her fingertips. She did not even look up when Ryko brought her a cup of water. The big man placed it beside her, then sat a few lengths away, a silent sentinel guarding her back as she worked.

I found myself watching Ido again, as if he were a lodestone drawing my attention. Jun had finally escorted him to the shade of a tree a good distance from the rest of us. The Dragoneye sat hunched at its base, his bound hands held awkwardly before him. He looked in my direction; the angle of his dark head held a strange intimacy.

“My lady,” the young plainsman at my side said. “His Majesty wishes to see you now.”

With a start, I turned to face Kygo’s level gaze, my skin prickling as if I had been caught doing something wrong. He was seated on a fallen log that had been rolled under the shade of a large tree and covered with a blanket: the throne of a usurped emperor. Even at rest, there was a coiled vigilance in the trained grace of his body.

He pulled the long braid of his imperial queue over his shoulder, and smoothed his hand along its length; something he did, I realized, when he was perturbed. I smiled, and was relieved to see the immediate answer in his face. After Ido’s game-playing, the warmth in Kygo’s smile was like a sweet balm. Holding back the absurd desire to run to him, I crossed the grass with as much stately poise as I could muster.

“Your Majesty,” I said, and bowed.

“Lady Eona,” he said, just as formally.

For a moment we both hesitated, still caught in the hours spent apart. Then he took my hands and pressed his lips against my fingers. In that quick, hard gesture I felt the distance between us close. And I felt something new: possession.

“I could not give you a proper welcome before,” he said, glancing across at Ido. “I underestimated my dislike of the man.”

“Did you order Yuso to punish him, Your Majesty?”

He blinked at the sudden question. I had not meant to ask so abruptly, but the needling disquiet had forced its way out.

“You mean the Blessing? No, I did not order it.”

“Then Yuso is acting alone?”

“Yuso knows how important the black folio is to us. But perhaps I did not make it clear that Ido is to be left alone. For now, anyway.” He lifted my hand. “Come, sit by me.”

The honor of the invitation and the soft lilt in his voice overwhelmed my lingering unease. I rose from my knees. As I settled on to the log, the draw of his fingers guided me close to him, until our thighs almost touched. He rested our interlocked hands across the sliver of space between us. A bridge across our bodies.

Dela looked up from her study of the red folio with a frown. For a moment, I thought she disapproved of my position beside the emperor, but then I realized she was staring past us in thought. She must have found something. Hopefully, it was not another dark portent.

“I have had some good news,” Kygo said. Excitement had stripped away the new, harder lines of command in his face. “Word from the Mountain Resistance. Our strategy of attacking soft targets is beginning to succeed.”

It was the plan he had put in place during our last days in the crater. Using the wisdom of Xsu-Ree, he had ordered the resistance groups to attack weaker outposts and lure Sethon’s forces to defend them. By the time the army reached the position with reinforcements, the resistance would have already moved on to attack the next target. According to Xsu-Ree, it would not only keep Sethon’s forces shifting around, frustrating and exhausting them, it would also provide an insight into Sethon’s own strategy.

“That is excellent news, Kygo.” I tightened my hand around his fingers and smiled at the quick, ardent return. The Imperial Pearl at the base of his strong throat glowed in the periphery of my vision: a pale reminder of our kiss.

“For the moment it seems Sethon’s arrogance does not see us as a coherent threat,” he added. “That will change, but for the time being we will strike and harass his forces and attack the Hua-do of his men.”

His words prompted an image of High Lord Haio and his table of red-faced, sweating officers. “I think Sethon is already losing the Hua-do of his men,” I said. “What was the line in Xsu-Ree about the signs of an enemy’s will?”

“‘Men huddled in small groups, with voices low, give sign of disaffection and dying Hua- do,’” Kygo recited.

“Yes. When we were in the palace, High Lord Haio—” I stopped, realizing the man was another of Kygo’s uncles.

He smiled grimly. “Go on.”

“High Lord Haio and his officers seemed bitter. And when I was brought before Sethon, it was obvious even his top men were afraid of him.”

“That was well observed.” His thumb stroked my finger. “Yuso said you had come face to face with Sethon. Thank the gods he did not recognize you.”

“He is a vile man,” I said, shuddering. “I pity anyone in his power.”

“I have some good news on that front, too,” Kygo said. “A messenger from Master Tozay has caught up with us.” He nodded toward a dusty young man talking to Ryko. “Tozay has found your mother. She is safe from Sethon.”

“My mother?” My heart quickened so fast it brought a pain to my chest.

“Yes. Tozay is sailing to meet us farther along the coast with supplies. He is bringing your mother with him.”

“I will see her?” I could not focus through the tumult raging in me. After so many years, would she recognize me? What if she did not like me? What if she had sold me because I was—

“In four days, if all goes to plan. We can sail out before the cyclone hits,” Kygo said. He squeezed my hand again. “Are you all right?”

I cleared the ache in my throat. “Was there mention of my father and brother, too?”

Regret pulled at his mouth. “There was no word of them.”

At least my mother was safe. I touched the word again, letting it settle into calmer meaning. Mother. All I could remember was a woman crouched beside me, the weight of her arm around my shoulders, and a smile that held the same curve as my own. “I have not seen her since I was about six.”

“She will be very proud of you,” Kygo said. “You have brought great honor to your family.”

A cold shadow fell across my excitement. If Kygo knew the full history of my family, he would not be so gracious.

“There is no possible way she cannot be proud,” he added, misreading my frown. “You are not only the Mirror Dragoneye— the first in over five hundred years — but also the imperial Naiso. You are the most powerful woman in the empire, Eona.”

I looked across at Ido, his head cradled in his arms. I had not yet attained my true power. But I would soon.

Kygo followed my gaze. “He puts us all on edge. I hope he is worth the trouble you took to get him.” He reached over and, with a gentle finger, lifted one of the coils of my bedraggled Peony hairstyle. The warm musk of