Eona: The Last Dragoneye

Gritting my teeth, I picked up the folio; I could feel the golden song of my dragon and the force of the blood ring like a shield within my Hua. Slowly, I worked the ring off my thumb and placed it on top of the squirming wrap of pearls.

“Be still,” I ordered. The rope quieted. Ryko sucked in a startled breath.

“Eona, please, no!” Ido struggled in the islander’s grip. “He will compel us. We will lose everything.”

Bowing on one knee, I held out the book and the ring in the cradle of my outstretched hands.

“Do not touch it, Your Majesty,” Yuso said.

Kygo dismissed the man’s counsel with a raised hand, but his eyes did not leave mine. “You are giving me your power? How do you know Lord Ido is not right?”

“You have always had my power, Kygo,” I said. “Now I am giving you my trust.”

He took the book and ring from my hands. “I know what this has cost you, Eona.”

I looked down at the spread of dark ash that marked the place where I had killed Dillon. The place where I had felt the true power of the black folio.

He could not possibly know the cost.

The girl placed the steaming washbowl on the table set against the tent wall and backed away, her eyes never lifting from the lush overlap of rugs. I wondered what she had been told about me. That I was dangerous? A demon killer? I leaned over the bowl and breathed in the damp heat, the outline of my mouth and eyes reflected against the dark blue fish painted into the porcelain. I scooped my hands in the hot water. Curls of pale red unraveled across the surface as heavier black specks spun and surged around my fingers. The twisting patterns of blood and ash transfixed me.

“Eona!” Dela crossed the soft rugs, a drying cloth in her hand. “Wash it off. Now! You will feel better.” She had already helped me out of my bloodied clothes and cleared them away as I dressed in a clean tunic and trousers. But I could still smell death.

I closed my eyes and splashed my face. The heat against my eyelids, my nose, my mouth was too much like the Righi. I straightened, the clamp of panic shortening my breath.

“Get me some cold water! Now!”

Dela motioned to the girl, who ran forward and picked up the bowl, carefully stepping with it to the tent doorway.

“Here.” Dela held out the cloth to me. I wiped my eyes and mouth. The rough beige cotton came away stained with pink.

“Nothing will ever make me feel better about Dillon,” I said.

“Ryko told me what he saw.” Dela’s face tightened with distaste. “That thing was not Dillon. Not anymore.”

“It was once Dillon.”

She clasped my arm. “He was probably in agony. You said yourself it was like hot acid in your head.”

“Dela, I took the folio’s power,” I whispered. “I used it to kill him. What have I become?”

She pulled me against her chest. I pressed my forehead into her muscular shoulder. “You are not Dillon,” she said briskly, rubbing my back. “Do not even think it. You did what you had to do. And you got His Majesty the folio.” She held me away from her for a moment, her dark eyes solemn. “You have restored Ryko’s faith, too.”

She folded me back against her shoulder.

“The folio is just death and destruction,” I said.

“Well, Yuso has it under guard now,” Dela said. “His Majesty and the leaders are discussing what to do with it.”

I pulled away. “Now? Without me? But I am Naiso. I should be there.”

Dela caught my arm. “Ryko told me what the folio can do, Eona. The leaders are discussing the potential of Lord Ido’s power. His Majesty does not want you to be there.”

The Dragoneye had been right; their first thought was to enslave him with the folio’s blood power.

“No!” I jerked myself free and started toward the door. “I can compel Ido. They do not need to use the black folio on him.”

Dela intercepted me, thrusting her body in front of the closed door. “Eona. I am not here only as your friend. I cannot let you go to that meeting.”

“You are here to guard me?”

She placed her hand on my back, her man’s strength steering me to the bed-seat opposite the door. “Just sit down. Sleep.”

I pushed her hand away. “Sleep? For all I know, they could be deciding to compel my power, too!”

“You do not believe that, Eona. You are exhausted. Try to rest.” She picked up the red folio from a nearby table on which Vida had laid out my few other belongings: the pouch containing the Dragoneye compass, and my ancestor’s plaques set around a small prayer candle. “Or if you cannot sleep, we could work on Kinra’s folio together. I have found another name within it: Pia.” The black pearls wrapped around Dela’s hand in a rattle of recognition.

“It is probably another riddle,” I snapped. “Just let me be.” I turned from her, although I knew it was childish.

In all truth, I was exhausted, in both body and mind. Yet the terrible turmoil of my thoughts — about Ido and the folio and Dillon’s death — kept me pacing the tent for a full bell while Dela sat by the door and kept her head bent over the red folio. At some point, the girl brought back a bowl of clean water, but her wide-eyed fear just made me angrier, and Dela dismissed her quickly. Rage and guilt, however, could not hold off my exhaustion forever. I finally lay down on the bed-seat, curling into my fatigue.

I woke with a sour mouth and a crick in my neck. The smoke circle in the roof of the tent held the dark mauve of dusk. I sat up, digging my thumbs into the cramped muscles at the base of my skull. I had slept the entire day.

“My lady, can I call for anything?” Vida asked from her crosslegged position on the floor. One jailer replaced with another.

“Some tea,” I said ungraciously. “And some light.”

Vida rose and opened the door, leaning out to murmur instructions to someone outside. She pulled back with a lamp in her hand, its glow brightening the wall coverings from shad-owed pink to bright red. Dela had left the folio on the table. She was returning, then; a chance for me to apologize for my surliness.

I stood, smoothing down the ruck of my tunic. “Do the leaders still meet with His Majesty?”

Vida placed the lamp on the table. “They are finished.”

“And?”

“I’m sorry, my lady, I do not know.” From her tone, she knew the question had been about Ido’s fate. “But the word in the camp is that we’ll be fighting within the next few days,” she offered.

“Is that really a rumor, or does it come from your father?” I asked.

“Let’s just say that when I asked to be assigned to a platoon, I was told that I would be staying in camp to help with the injured, and I was to be ready for action soon.”

We were both silent; no doubt there would be plenty of injured to be helped.

“Will you do something for me, Vida?” I asked.

“If I can, my lady.”

“When the fighting starts, will you make sure Lillia is safe? And Rilla and Chart?”

She nodded. “I’ll try.”

A hard knock on the door sent her back across the carpets. I swished my hands through the water in the washbowl, the cool contact making me shiver. I had brought my mother and friends into such danger.

“My lady.”

I turned at Yuso’s clipped voice, my hands dripping.

The captain stood in the doorway, his lean body in shadow. “His Majesty wishes to see you.”

I nodded. No doubt to tell me what had been decided. Vida grabbed a cloth and passed it to me. I dried my hands as Vida picked up my back sheath.

“No, my lady,” Yuso said. “His Majesty wishes me to carry your swords.”

Vida’s eyes met mine. None of us went unarmed in the camp.