Alison Goodman - Eona - The Last Dragoneye

“Sethon will not only be looking for you, Lady Dragoneye,” Master Tozay murmured, a touch to my sleeve drawing me a few steps away. “He will be seeking anyone close to you that he can use as a hostage. Give me the names of those who you think are in danger. We will do our best to find them.”

“Rilla, my maid, and her son Chart,” I said quickly. “They fled before the palace was taken.” I thought of Chart; his badly twisted body would always attract attention, if only to drive others away before his ill fortune tainted them. I felt a small leap in my spirit: never again would I be spat on as a cripple or driven away. “Rilla would seek somewhere isolated.”

Tozay nodded. “We will start in the mid-provinces.”

“And Dillon — Ido’s apprentice — but you are already searching for him. Be careful with Dillon; he is not in his right mind, and Sethon will be hunting him for the black folio, too.”

I remembered the madness in Dillon’s eyes when he had wrenched the black folio from me. He’d known the book was vital to Ido’s plans for power and thought he could use it to trade with his Dragoneye master for his life. Instead, he had brought Sethon and the entire army upon himself. Poor Dillon. He did not truly understand what was in the small book he carried. He knew it held the secret to the String of Pearls. But its pages held another secret, one that terrified even Lord Ido: the way for royal blood to bind any Dragoneye’s will and power.

“Is that all who may be at risk, my lady?” Tozay asked.

“Perhaps …” I paused, hesitant to add the next names. “I have not seen my family since I was very young. I hardly remember them. Perhaps Sethon would not—”

Tozay shook his head. “Sethon will try everything. So tell me, if they were found and held, could Sethon coerce you with their lives?”

Dread curdled my stomach. I nodded, and tried to dredge up more than the few dim images I had of my family. “I remember my mother’s name was Lillia, and my brother was called Peri, but I think it was a pet name. I can only remember my father as Papa.” I looked up at Tozay. “I know it is not much. But we lived by the coast — I remember fishing gear and a beach — and when my master first found me, I was laboring in the Enalo Salt Farm.”

Tozay grunted. “That’s west. I’ll send word.”

Beside us, the herbalist lifted Ryko’s dripping hand from the bowl and laid it back on the pallet. He leaned over and stroked Ryko’s cheek, then pressed his fingertips under the islander’s jaw.

“A sharp increase of heat,” he said into the silence. “The death fever. Ryko will join his ancestors very soon. It is time to wish him a safe journey.”

He bowed, then backed away.

My throat ached with sorrow. Across the pallet, Solly’s face was rigid with grief. He raised a fist to his chest in a warrior’s salute. Tozay sighed and began a soft prayer for the dying.

“Do something,” Dela said.

It was part plea, part accusation. I thought she was talking to the herbalist, but when I looked up she was staring at me.

“Do something,” she repeated.

“What can I do? There is nothing I can do.”

“You healed yourself. You healed Ido. Now heal Ryko.”

I glanced around the ring of tense faces, feeling the press of their hope. “But that was at the moment of union. I don’t know if I can do it again.”

“Try.” Dela’s hands clenched into fists. “Just try. Please. He’s going to die.”

She held my gaze, as though looking away would release me from her desperation.

Could I save Ryko? I had assumed that Ido and I were healed by the extra power of first union between dragon and Dragoneye. Perhaps that was not true. Perhaps the Mirror Dragon and I could always heal. But I could not yet direct my dragon’s power. If we joined and tried to heal Ryko, we could fail. Or we could be ripped apart by the sorrow of the ten bereft dragons.

“Eona!” Dela’s anguish snapped me out of my turmoil. “Do something. Please!”

Each of Ryko’s labored breaths held a rattling catch.

“I can’t,” I whispered.

Who was I to play with life and death like a god? I had no knowledge. No training. I was barely a Dragoneye.

Even so, I was Ryko’s only chance.

“He is dying because of you,” Dela said. “You owe him your life and your power. Don’t fail him again.”

Hard words, but they were true. Although I had lied to Ryko and betrayed his trust, he had still guarded my back. He had fought and suffered for the hope of my power. Yet what was the good of protecting such power if I did not have the courage to use it?

I gathered my skirt and kneeled beside the pallet, instinctively seeking more contact with the earth and the energy within it.

“I don’t know what will happen,” I said. “Everyone must stand back.”

The herbalist hurriedly joined the Beseecher in the far corner of the room. Tozay ushered his daughter and Solly away from the bed, then turned back for Dela, but she ignored his outstretched hand.

“I’m staying.” She saw the argument in my eyes and shook her head. “I will not leave him.”

“Then don’t touch him while I am calling my dragon.” The first time I had called the Mirror Dragon, the wild surge of power had ripped through Lord Ido as his body locked mine against the harem wall.

Dela released Ryko’s hand and sat back.

Perhaps the key to this healing magic was to touch Ryko, just as Ido had been touching me when the dragon and I had forced compassion into his stunted spirit. Gingerly, I placed my palm on the wasted muscle of Ryko’s chest, above his heart. His skin was hot, and his heartbeat as fast and light as a captured bird’s.

Taking a deep breath, I drew on my Hua , using the pulsing life force to focus my mind-sight into the energy world. There was a sudden shift in my vision, as though I had lurched forward. The room shimmered into the landscape of power that only a Dragoneye could see, swirling in intricate patterns of rainbow colors. Silvery Hua pumped through the transparent energy bodies of my friends and around the room, the flow irresistibly drawn east to the huge power presence of the red Mirror Dragon, and returning in abundance from the great beast. Over my left shoulder I caught sight of the coiled form of the Rat Dragon in the north-northwest. His energy was sluggish and thin.

There were still no other dragons in the celestial circle. Were they waiting for another chance to rush to their queen?

Grimly, I pushed away that fear and opened my inner pathways to the Mirror Dragon, calling out our shared name. She answered with a flood of energy, and the sweet spice of her greeting filled my senses until I could no longer contain my delight. A joyous laugh broke from me.

Across the bed, the transparent figure of Dela straightened. The power center at the base of her spine flared red with anger, the emotion igniting the other six centers that lay in line from sacrum to crown. I could see it as though she was made of glass; each spinning colored ball of energy stoking the next, bright with misunderstanding.

Although I stifled my joy, I did not stop to reassure Dela; the ten bereft dragons could return at any moment. I gave myself over to the Mirror Dragon’s power, and was swept into a dizzying gold spiral. For a moment, all was bright, rhythmic color and a single pure note — the song of my dragon — then my vision split between earth and heaven.

Through dragon eyes high above, I saw the fading life force of Ryko, the light within each power center guttering like a spent candle. From my earthbound body, I saw my own transparent hand, flowing with golden Hua , touching Ryko’s chest above his pale green heart point. Just like I had touched Ido. I focused all of my being into one thought: Heal .