Alison Goodman: Eona: The Last Dragoneye

“You’ve got the Imperial Pearl?’ I asked.

He opened his palm. The surface of the gem swarmed with silvery leaps and flicks. “It’s hot,” he said.

I laid my fingers across the soft pale curve. It was now almost hot enough to burn.

We stood together for a moment, the Imperial Pearl between our hands. “You are a queen to me,” Kygo said softly. He pressed his lips against my forehead.

“Very touching,” Ido drawled. “Eona, get on the dais.”

I gave him a sour look and stepped up on to the small stage. Kygo stationed himself nearby, sword angled at Ido.

Beyond the circle of swaying dragons, the ragged remains of the two armies watched from a wary distance. The dark clouds above us had swamped the bright day, casting an early gloom over the plain. The air still swirled with the spicy scent of the dragons surrounding us, the heat as much from their earthly presence as from the hot wind that whipped my hair back.

I took a deep breath and unwrapped the black folio, dropping the torn remnants of the shirt. The white pearls snapped straight up, as if they were testing the air, then planed across my hand and along my arm, dragging the folio behind them. Two quick, rattling coils and the book was bound to my arm. The folio’s acid words rose into my mind, burning my pathways, whispering their ancient power. Ido stood hunched before the dais, his arms wrapped around his body. No doubt he remembered the pain of the Righi too.

“It is in my head,” I said. My mouth tasted like it was full of blood and ash.

“Chant it,” Ido said.

The words were waiting. Their bitter keen held the bound Hua of all twelve dragons, and the last cold echoes of Kinra. The chant quickened on my tongue and reached out to the beasts in the circle. It pulled the thrumming energy from their pearls and wove it into the blistering song that hissed from me with the fire of life and death.

The dragons answered the chant with a shrieking chorus of their own. Through the terrible sound, the Rat Dragon bel-lowed urgently, the blue iridescent pearl beneath his chin pulsing with azure-tipped flame. His call silenced the other beasts. They all turned to watch as he lowered his huge wedge head and gently placed his barrel-sized gem on the ground between his opal claws. The separation of dragon and pearl shuddered through the folio and my chant; an ache of loss and hope that brought a sting of tears to my eyes. With a soft cry, the Rat Dragon nudged the sphere with his flared muzzle, rolling the source of his power and wisdom a length from his opal claws.

I glanced across at Ido. He crouched in defeat as he watched his dragon give up the pearl that held their twelve-year bond.

Next to the Rat Dragon, the purple Ox Dragon threw back his horned head and howled his own song of pain and hope. The soft lavender scales under his chin and around his pearl shimmered with violet flames. He lowered his head and gently dropped the pearl onto the ground, tapping it forward with a careful amethyst claw until it lightly touched the Rat Dragon’s blue pearl. As soon as it rocked into place, the green Tiger Dragon lifted his head and sang his own loss. One by one, the male dragons called to their bound spirits in the folio and placed their pearls on the ground.

I felt every longing cry resonate through the folio until eleven enormous dragon pearls — alive with flicks of colored flame — lay side by side in a circle on the trampled earth around the platform.

Only one pearl was missing.

The final call came from the Mirror Dragon. She lifted her majestic head, the glossy crimson scales of throat and chest reflecting the blaze of gold flame from her pearl. Her throbbing call rose up like a heartbeat through my chant. She extended her huge scaled muzzle over the platform, the horselike nostrils flaring, the soft wind of her breath scented with her cinnamon power. Under the curve of heavy horns, her dark, ancient gaze held me inside the endless cycle of life and death — and the dragons’ long wait for release.

Make it right .

“Give Eona the Imperial Pearl,” Ido ordered Kygo. “Now!”

Kygo reached up, and the gem’s smooth heat rolled into my palm. The chant in my head and on my tongue stoked the fire within the heart of their egg. Its silver energy leaped into incandescence.

“Eona, you have to give the pearl to the Mirror Dragon,” Ido said.

But I already knew the ancient path to renewal: it sang in my blood and bones.

First quicken the spark of life within the luminous egg, then press its power into the gold flames of the red dragon’s pearl. Once that was done, I could release the dragon Hua caught in the black folio and send it back to the beasts so that they could die and be reborn.

But the acid words whispered another pathway, too: a way that held all the power of the world. Take the twelve dragon spirits into yourself, it hissed. Take the power waiting to create the new, and leave the old to wither and die. Take everything .

Ido’s words. The black folio’s words.

The Mirror Dragon lifted her huge chin, offering her golden wisdom to me as she had once offered it to me in the arena. The Righi ’s words seared into the Imperial Pearl, igniting its silver Hua into a ball of white fire that stung my hands with sharp flicks of power. This was the start of it. And the end of it.

“Good-bye,” I whispered to my dragon.

Reaching up, I pressed the white flames against the gold at her throat. The two surfaces flared and melded together, the force thrusting my hands away. With a soft cinnamon sigh, the Mirror Dragon swung her head down, the huge glowing pearl dropping to the ground. She nosed it into place. As the circle of pearls closed, gold flame leapt from dragon pearl to dragon pearl, igniting each sphere into bright gold heat.

The Necklace of the Gods.

I felt the chant change within me, the hissing command shifting into a lilting call. The Righi was opening the way for the twelve bound spirits.

Kygo turned to me, his smile full of wonder.

I saw the blur of movement from the corner of my eye, but there was no time to cry out. Kygo’s reflexes swung his sword up, but Ido was already at the end of his leap. All of his body weight drove the long knife into Kygo’s back. Ido’s mouth was a bared snarl of effort as he twisted the blade, arching Kygo against his body into gasping shock. The chant froze in my throat. Kygo staggered sideways and landed heavily on the dais, Kinra’s sword still locked in his hand. The white pearls around my arm heaved and shivered as the Mirror Dragon screamed, her protest soaring above the roar of the male dragons.

“No!” I fell to my knees beside him. “Kygo!”

He gulped for breath, the agonized gasp bubbling with blood. I touched his cheek. Already cold with shock. Or was it my own icy horror? My other hand hovered over the knife hilt embedded in his back.

“I wouldn’t pull that out if I were you,” Ido said. “I aimed for the same place where the arrow hit me. He’s got a few minutes.”

“What are you doing?” I cried.

Ido walked up to the dais, observing Kygo’s struggle for breath.

“Hurts, doesn’t it?” he said.

Weakly, Kygo gripped the hilt of the sword and tried to lift it, but it dropped from his grasp and clattered off the dais, landing at Ido’s feet. The Dragoneye kicked the blade away, then looked down at me.

“I’m going to give you a real choice now, Eona,” he said. “If you take all the power with me, you can heal him. Stop his pain and save his life. Or, if you insist on releasing the dragons, you can watch him drown in his own blood.”

“You bastard!” I went for him, my hands tensed into claws. My knees hit the edge of the dais as Ido jumped back out of range.