Eona: The Last Dragoneye

hastily cleared storage compartment — was near the steps that led to both the upper deck and down below, where the crew lived and, for now, our troop was quartered. Under the junk’s rolling progress, I heard the murmur of their voices and saw the dim glow of lamplight rising up the steps. The guard ducked his head in a duty bow as I passed and climbed into the night.

The slap of fresh air made me gasp. Those sailors on duty and watch marked my arrival in the swinging light of the lanterns, but turned back to their windblown tasks. I made my way across the deck to the thick railing, the dipping roll of the junk every now and again sending me into an inelegant lurch. I found the rail and pressed the lower half of my body against the security of its solid wall.

Spray from the cut of our passage dusted my face with water and the taste of salt. Above, the dark sky bore down upon us, the banks of cloud like a huge bulwark between heaven and earth. As I watched a fork of lightning flash deep within them, I realized the source of my driving need for space and air; the approaching cyclone was affecting my Hua. Was this something that always happened to a Dragoneye? If I was this unsettled, Ido must be crawling up the walls of his narrow prison.

A stocky figure strode along the deck toward me with practiced balance: Master Tozay. I lifted my hand in greeting.

He stopped beside me. “Good evening, Lady Eona.”

“Not really, is it?” I said, tilting my head back at the sky.

“No.” He followed my gaze. “We will outrun most of it, but I think the edge will catch us. These weather patterns are the most bizarre I have ever seen.”

“Where is His Majesty?” I asked.

“Sleeping.” Tozay turned toward me, his thickset body blocking the wind that snatched at our words. With a gesture to his ears, he ushered me to the three-sided shelter created by the high horseshoe-shaped stern deck.

We stepped into the windbreak, the sudden release from the spray and rushing air making me cough. A single lantern, fixed beside a hatch that led below, cast our shadows along the deck. Tozay signaled to a man coiling ropes nearby to move away.

“I have a question for you, Lady Eona,” Tozay said, as the man obediently headed farther along the deck. “Why are you fighting for His Majesty?”

His tone was a return to our discussion in the boat. I settled my body more firmly into the rise and fall of the junk. “He is the true heir. He is—”

“No.” Tozay lifted his hand, stopping me. “I am not looking for an avowal of loyalty or defense of his claim, Lady Eona. I am asking you why you think he is a better choice than Sethon. Why you have joined this fight.”

The question held an intensity that demanded an answer in kind. I paused, and gave it thought.

“He is his father’s son, but he is his own man, too,” I said slowly. “He understands tradition, but he can step beyond it with the energy of renewal. He knows the strategies of war and power, but unlike Sethon, they are not his first love. His love is the land and the people, and he places his duty above all.” I smiled wryly. “He once told me that an emperor should have one truth tattooed upon his body: No nation has ever benefited from a protracted war.”

“From the wisdom of Xsu-Ree,” Tozay said. “Chapter Two.”

“That is strange,” I said sharply. “His Majesty also told me that only kings and generals were permitted to read Xsu-Ree’s treatise.”

I caught the flash of Tozay’s rare smile. “That is my understanding, too.” He leaned on the side partition that supported the small deck above us and looked out across the sea, his profile once more stern. “His Majesty will not ask you to break the Covenant again.”

“Why do you say that?”

Tozay grunted. “I could give you his complicated explanation about you being a symbol of hope, and the need for something that is not tainted by the corruption of power, and the Hua-do of the people.” He turned to face me. “But, in the end, it is because he loves you. He does not want you to suffer.”

Although his statement of Kygo’s love leaped through my blood, I shook my head. “His Majesty will not put his personal feelings above his land and his people. He has told me so.”

“That is what I always thought, but that has changed. For you.” Tozay’s eyes met mine, their expression unreadable. “Xsu-Ree also says that one of the five essentials of victory is a competent general unhampered by his sovereign. As Kygo’s general, my directive is to defeat Sethon. I am asking you for the power to help me do that.”

I gripped a carved scroll on the side partition, steadying myself. “His general? I thought you were a simple fisherman, Master Tozay.”

He gave a gruff laugh. “And I thought you were a lame boy with no chance of becoming a Dragoneye. We are all more— and less — than what we seem, Lady Eona.”

I stared into the water swelling and surging around the junk as we cut through its night-dark depths. A pressure was building within me, a need to release the burden of all the secrets and lies. I could tell Tozay everything. I could tell him that the dragon power was ending and that the only way to save it seemed to be the Imperial Pearl. I could tell him that the black folio was on its way to us, and that maybe — hopefully — there was another way within it to save the dragon power that would not lead to Kygo’s death. I could even tell him that the folio could bind Dragoneye power to the will of a king.

“Has His Majesty told you about the portent?” I asked, feeling my way. The slap of the water against the hull was like the beat of a drum.

Tozay nodded. “Do you think your portent is bound in any way to this war?”

“I don’t know.”

He lifted a dismissive shoulder. “Like Xsu-Ree, I do not put much stock in omens or portents. They create confusion and fear where there should be will and control. The ways of gods are for priests to unravel. I believe in strategy and the means to effect that strategy.”

“And I am a means to your strategy,” I said flatly.

He inclined his head. “As I am. As Lord Ido is, as we all are. History does not care about the suffering of the individual. Only the outcome of their struggles.”

“And you will use all the means you have to defeat Sethon?”

Tozay’s gaze did not waver. “To their utmost limits. And, if needs be, beyond.”

I felt a chill at the innocuous word. Beyond. Who decided when beyond stopped? Part of me longed to tell Tozay everything — let him take on the burden of this knowledge and sort through its terrible intricacies and consequences. But another part drew back. Tozay would use everything he had to win, and the black folio had something within its pages that could force me into a beyond that I did not want to imagine.

“What is your answer, Lady Eona? Will you place all your power under his command — under my command?”

I felt the taste of ash rise into my mouth. Yet Kygo and the hope he brought were worth the fight. And maybe even the cost.

“I will, General Tozay,” I said.

He bowed.

May the gods forgive me, I added silently. May they forgive me for agreeing to break the Covenant again, and for not trusting even Tozay with the secret of the black folio.

After my encounter with Tozay, I knew sleep was even more of a vain hope, but I stepped over the lip of the hatch onto the steep stairs that led to my cabin. Below me, in the gloom, a man sat hunched on the bottom step, bald head in hands. Ido’s guard watched him, arms crossed. I trod heavily as I descended, the slap of my sandals twisting the seated man around. He looked up. Not bald — bandaged — and not a man. It was Dela. She stood as I reached the deck, her smile strained.

“I’ve been waiting for you.”

I glanced at the guard’s renewed interest and drew Dela back toward the steps that led down to the crew’s quarters. In the soft light of the stair lamp, I saw the reddened edges of her eyes. “Is something wrong? Have you found something bad in the folio?”