Alison Goodman: Eona: The Last Dragoneye

“I’m just making it easy for you to have what you really want,” he said.

Kygo’s fingers caught my sleeve. “Don’t do it.” Blood flecked his lips. “Don’t give it to him.”

“So much honor , just like his father,” Ido said sarcastically. “I’d say between the dragons and the amount of blood he’s spitting up, you haven’t got long to make up your mind.”

He was right. Kygo’s skin had a bluish tinge around his nose and mouth, and the Righi was building within me again, pushing past my shock to call the bound Hua of the dragons. I could not move, paralyzed by the impossibility of the choice. Kygo or the dragons. My heart or my duty. All the reasons to save the dragons raged through me: Kinra, atonement, the land, the people, the future. And only one reason to save Kygo, tolling through me over and over again.

I loved him.

“Take what you want, Eona,” Ido said. “You have done it all along, so why stop now?”

A slight smile curved his lips. He was so confident that I would agree. I had turned my back and he had struck like a snake.

“You’ll have everything, Eona. Including him.” Ido nudged Kygo’s foot with his own. “It is not so bad to have her control your will, boy.” Ido’s smile turned sly. “I look forward to sharing your compulsion power, Eona. And I think you will enjoy sharing my knowledge. It’s what you’ve wanted all along.”

“I just wanted to be a Dragoneye!”

“You wanted power,” he said. “This way you get it. And you get to save Kygo.”

The Mirror Dragon screeched. Her huge red head swayed from left to right above her blazing pearl. The clouds above us flickered with the light of the flames, reflecting the intense heat.

“All right,” I clenched my fists. “All right.”

“Eona, no!” Kygo lifted his head, the effort forcing a bright trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth. His cold fingers touched my hand, drawing me closer until my forehead rested against his own. I felt his labored breath on my cheek, the metallic smell of his blood in every soft warm gasp. “Do what is right,” he whispered, the words costing him precious air.

I pressed my lips against his cold skin. “I don’t know what is right.”

“Yes, you do, Naiso.” He fell back, panting.

I stood, legs trembling. He wanted me to release the dragons. Yet, if I did, I would lose him and I would lose the Mirror Dragon. I would lose everything. If I took all the power with Ido, I would destroy the dragons and take Kygo’s throne and will from him. He would hate me. I would be left with only power. I would be Ido. A wave of rage swept over me. There was no way to win this battle.

“You must do it now, Eona,” Ido said.

For one despair-ridden moment, I wanted the dragons’ power to explode through the land — to destroy everything in its path, and take away this terrible choice. But I had to choose, and I could not let Kygo die.

I stepped down from the dais, every harsh clicking breath from my beloved pushing me toward the Dragoneye. Ido picked up Kinra’s sword and drew its blade along his hand, inhaling with pleasure as it sliced into his flesh.

“Your turn.” He caught my free hand and turned it over. My palm was already cut from the gold-clawed setting of the Imperial Pearl. My eyes fixed on the moonstone and jade hilt as Ido dragged the sword tip along the same wound. A faint echo of Kinra’s rage shivered through me. Was her Hua still in the folio too? My fingers curled around the stinging draw of fresh blood.

Ido sent the weapon spinning across the boards. “Dragoneye blood to break an ancient Dragoneye binding,” he said. “When the Righi releases the dragons, we must hold on to the folio to take their power.”

He grabbed my hand and pressed it across the white pearls that clamped the folio to my arm, then slapped his own blood-sticky palm over my knuckles. I felt the pearl rope shift and shiver.

“All right. Now we take what is ours. This is our destiny, Eona.” The triumph in his eyes made them as gold as the ring of flames around us. “Call the dragons out of the folio.”

“This is not destiny,” I spat. “This is ambition made from betrayal and murder. Do not dress your atrocities in the garb of the gods.”

He tilted his head, the harsh angle showing the ruthless set of his jaw and the deep lines of brutality from nose to mouth. How could I ever have thought him handsome? His core was rotten and hollow.

“Call it what you will,” he said “But you are standing here with me in the midst of the String of Pearls, and we are about to take all the power in the world. It feels like destiny to me.” He closed his hand over mine, grinding my bones together. “Call the dragons.”

Kinra, help me, I prayed. If you are still within the folio, help me .

On a deep breath, I let the Righi rise again. The words boiled into my mind, a seething summons that rushed through my pathways. Beside me, Ido flinched as he felt the blistering force reach through our bodies to the dragon Hua caught within the folio. It was a torrent of fire through every vein and muscle, bubbling up behind my eyes and drying my mouth into a silent scream. The agony of it pressed me against the brace of Ido’s body. I felt the bindings around the dragons’ Hua blaze and burn, opening their human-made prison of blood and greed.

And I felt another spirit: the faint cool echo of an ancient warrior woman, my ancestress. Kinra.

They are free! I am free! Her joyful voice soared over the disintegrating bonds of the folio.

Free . One simple word and all of my pain crystallized into a terrible certainty. I could not take the renewal power. I could not destroy the hope of rebirth for land and dragon. This was the last chance to right a terrible wrong. The chant stopped in my throat. Time hung still in a silent, bodiless, breathless moment of truth. I had to release the dragons’ Hua . I had to give it back. And it was going to kill Kygo.

The chant burst out of me again, my scream of anguish swept up into the howling rhythm of release.

Kinra, help me, I prayed. Help me make it right .

The rope of white pearls heaved against my hand. Kinra’s cool presence rushed into me, the liberated dragon Hua following like a tornado made of fire and power. Every one of my nerves was stretched to the breaking point, my mind unraveling into the maelstrom of raw energy, throat shredding with the acid chant that pulled their Hua into the conduit that was my body. It slammed through me and into Ido, the force making us both stagger.

“Eona, hold the power,” he yelled.

“No!”

He thrust his face into mine. “What are you doing?”

The hissing song of chaos poured through me. I bared my teeth into a smile, and in my mind I saw Dillon’s death’s-head grin. The Righi was life and death. And so was I.

Ido closed his hand around my throat, trying to choke off the words, but the Hua still came. Twelve spirit tethers gathering within us with the force of a cyclone. Ido wrenched at my hand, bending my fingers away from the pearls. A thin bone snapped, but I felt no pain. Everything was subsumed by the whirling, blazing power.

Against the backdrop of gold flames and plunging dragons, I saw men scrambling onto the platform, cringing away from the inferno rising from the circle of pearls. The familiar shapes of Dela and Tozay crouched among wild-eyed soldiers and resistance fighters, everyone cowering together against the intense heat and the huge thrashing, screaming beasts.

Ido dug his fingers under the white pearls. “I will not lose my power!” The spittle spray of his rage was cool against my scorching skin. “I am the Rat Dragoneye!”