I saw a chance and lunged across the tangle of arms and legs, grabbing the boy’s ragged queue. “Dillon! Stop!” I roared against his ear.
Abruptly, he stilled. With a last click, the rope of pearls collapsed onto the black folio, then slithered around it, binding it back to his left forearm. Dillon’s jaundiced eyes fixed on mine. “Eona, Eona, Eona,” he chanted. “What happened to Eon?” He gave a shrill giggle.
“For Shola’s sake, keep him quiet,” Yuso snapped at me. “Ryko, what’s coming?”
I stroked Dillon’s clammy cheek, hoping to calm him as Ryko gave his report.
“Twenty-four men, fan formation, with a local upfront. They’re tracking the boy. They were two arenas away at least when I picked him up, but they’re moving fast.”
Yuso stared down at Dillon. “Why are they after you, boy?”
Dillon giggled. “Why are they after you, boy?”
Yuso’s lean face darkened.
“They want the black folio,” I said quickly. “Sethon thinks it holds the key to a weapon made of all the dragon power.” Between the tightly coiled pearls, I could make out the twelve interconnected circles embossed on the leather cover: the symbol of the String of Pearls. “Lord Ido thinks so, too.”
“Black words,” Dillon muttered. “Black words. Inside me.”
“I remember this boy now,” Kygo said. “Lord Ido’s apprentice.” His eyes found mine, but I could not read his expression. “Another Dragoneye. How does he come to be here?”
Dillon’s eyes darted from me to the emperor. “My lord sent me,” he said. “He’s in my head. ‘Find Eona, find Eona, find Eona.’ Always in my head.”
“What does he mean?” Kygo asked me.
But I could not speak, silenced by an obvious truth. If Ido died, the only thing that stood between the bereft dragons and me was Dillon—a mind-sick apprentice as untrained as myself. There was no chance he could hold back the beasts. We would both die, torn apart by their grief. I fought for air as if I was surfacing through oil.
We had to get Ido out of the palace, alive.
Yuso suddenly straightened, his dark eyes scanning the eerily quiet woodlands around us. “Your Majesty,” he said quietly. “We don’t have time to question this boy. We must move, now!”
“Not until we get the black book off him.” Kygo’s face held a new intensity. I had seen its like before, on Ido and my master: the burn of ambition.
Yuso’s jaw clenched, but he gave a curt nod and reached for the folio. The last two pearls lifted, like a snake’s head. He yanked back his hand. “Are they alive?”
“They have Gan Hua worked into them,” I said. “They’ll strike at anything that tries to move the folio.”
Even now, the negative energy woven into the pearls was nauseating me. No wonder Dillon was still so sick in mind and body; he did not have a chance between the book and the damage from the overdose of Sun Drug. Both Tiron and Ryko leaned away from Dillon’s arm.
“Your Majesty, we must move,” Yuso said.
Kygo’s jaw tightened. “All right. Leave the book where it is. The boy comes with us. Just keep him and the book safe.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.” Yuso fixed me with a hard stare. “You seem to be able to control him, Lady Dragoneye. Keep him quiet.”
At his nod, all the men loosened their grip on Dillon, allowing him on to his feet. He staggered, striking out weakly at their steadying hands until I hooked him into the circle of my arms. His thin body stank of fevered nights and driven days.
“You’ve got to stay with me and be quiet,” I said, holding him upright. “Do you understand?”
“He’s still in my mind,” Dillon whispered. I grabbed his fist as it arced toward his forehead. It was not going to be easy to keep him quiet—or alive.
With one last look at the tree line, Yuso herded us forward. “Go!”
I pulled Dillon into a stumbling run. A downrush of cold air from the heavens cut through the heat, chilling the sour sweat on my face and neck. The monsoon was coming. Yuso overtook us, joining Kygo a length or so ahead.
“Your Majesty, take Ryko and the others southeast,” the captain said, keeping pace beside the emperor. He looked up at the heavy mass of roiling clouds.
“Ride as long as you can, but don’t take any risks in the mud. I’ll lead the soldiers north, with Solly and Tiron.”
“Understood,” Kygo said.
He and Yuso drew away from us, intent on mobilizing the others. I squeezed Dillon’s bony hand, urging more speed. Dela was only thirty or so lengths away, frantically waving us in. Further back, Solly and Vida waited with the horses.
“Is that Lady Dela?” Dillon asked in such a normal voice that I slowed to stare at him. “Why is she dressed as a man?” For a moment, I saw the gentle Dillon I had once known— bewildered and lost—then he was gone again, bright madness back in his eyes. “My lord said he’d get out of my head. Why isn’t he out of my head?” His voice rose piteously. “Find Eona. Find Eona. Find Eona.”
I had heard Dillon call my name like that before. But when? The elusive memory hardened into an image: the dragon battle at the fisher village. Dillon screaming for me through the power of the Rat Dragon. Through Ido.
“Did Lord Ido send you to find me?”
“He’s in my head.”
Yuso and Kygo reached the thicket. I tugged Dillon into a sprint. A second gust of wind brought light pulsing across the dark clouds. For one heavy moment, time hung between hot earth and cold heaven, then the land shuddered under the sky’s roar. Dillon screamed, dragging at my hand. I looked over my shoulder. He was bent, as if the gods pressed him to the ground. Close behind us, Ryko and Tiron led Ju-Long in a tight hold between them, the horse blowing hard with fear.
With grim effort, I pulled Dillon into a run beside me. “Does Lord Ido want you to give me the black book?” I eyed the folio bound to his arm.
Dillon’s features sharpened. “It’s my book,” he panted. “It’s mine. Lord Ido can’t hold onto the dragon. They make him drink the black beast. All his power is draining away.” He giggled in tight, painful gasps. “It will be mine soon, then I can make him hurt. Just like he makes me hurt.”
Part of me hoped I was listening to the ravings of a ruined mind—yet I had seen my old friend in that moment of sanity. Although his words were feverish, they still rang with truth. Dillon knew that Lord Ido was losing hold of the Rat Dragon. And he knew he would soon have Ido’s power. I shuddered, pushing my coursing fear into a final burst of speed. We were almost there.
“Dillon, how sick is Lord Ido?” I tightened my grip on his damp hand. “We can’t let him die. Do you understand? We have to save him.”
“Save him?” Dillon’s glassy eyes narrowed. “No!” This time his fist was too quick. The crack of knuckles against his skull made me wince. “He hurts me.”
“I know, I know,” I soothed. “But we’re going to save him, so he can train us.”
“No!” Dillon shrieked. “I want him to die.”
He twisted in my grip like a wild dog fighting a noose. I stumbled after him, towed by his savage fury. Another blast of cold wind slammed into us, bringing the smell of sweet, wet grass. The piercing cricket song stopped, the sudden silence pounding in my ears. I looked up in time to see a claw of light rake the sky, then a booming shock surged over us.
“Eona, behind you!”
Kygo’s frantic voice swung me around to face the dense tree line at the far end of the slope.
A wide semicircle of soldiers had broken out of the woods, all carrying Ji, the hook-bladed pikes braced for attack. They were no more than one hundred lengths away and moving with wary speed. I heaved on Dillon’s hand, but he had dropped to his knees, a shrieking anchor. I felt the gusty wind flex into the heavier muscle of the monsoon, its brutal strength knocking me back a step and stealing my breath. Before me, the grass flattened and the trees bowed in obeisance as the gale brought the first drumming drops of rain. A panic of starlings b
urst out of the trees and spiraled upward, turning in a sharp arrow ahead of the wind. I gasped as the sudden rush of cool water streamed against my hair and face, its weight stinging my skin and scalp.
A few lengths away, Ryko pushed Ju-Long and Tiron onward, then turned and drew his swords. The islander’s lone figure blurred in the thick veil of pounding rain as the shapes of Tiron and the gray horse forged past us. I thought I heard the young guard call me though the teeming water, but Dillon pulled my hand again. He was back on his feet. My relief froze into realization; I was no longer holding Dillon. He was holding me.
Even as I tried to wrench free, he caught my other hand and with brutal strength swung me around in a splashing circle, as though we were children again, playing Dragon Spin.
“What are you doing?” I yelled. “Stop it!”
“Dragon day, dragon night, dragon spirit with the right,” he sang. “Call your name, bring your light—show us who will have the sight!”
The wet hem of my gown wrapped around my legs. I tripped, collapsing onto one knee in the pooling water. The wind was gone, the rain now falling in a seamless gray curtain as if the gods were emptying a pitcher over our heads.
“Dillon, the soldiers are coming!” I blinked, trying to clear my stinging eyes of water. It ran in rivulets down my face and the front of my gown, soaking the rough cloth into a dead weight. “We have to run.”
“Which dragon? Which dragon? Choose!” he singsonged. “Choose!”
He yanked at my hands, grinding the thin bones together as he hauled me upright. Such strength was not natural. I threw my weight backward in a bid to jerk free, but he held me locked in his game.
Just above our wrists, the rope of white pearls loosened its stranglehold. The last two perfect gems lifted again, this time like a snake tasting the sodden air. With clattering purpose they uncoiled, leaving only one loop binding the folio to Dillon’s arm. The rest of the rope slithered around the edges of the book and settled a protective rank of pearls along each groove of exposed paper. Then, with a snap and lunge, the lead length wrapped around my right wrist, strapping my hand to Dillon’s as if it was a wedding bind.
I strained against the shackle. Heat engulfed my arm and rolled through my body on a wave of thick nausea. Bitter power rose behind my eyes, whispering words that struck at my mind with acid. Ancient words. The book was calling me, folding me into its secrets. It was a book of blood, of death, of chaos. It was the book of Gan Hua.
If this was what burned in Dillon’s mind, no wonder he screamed and pounded at his head.
Desperately, I pulled against the pearls; I did not want to follow Dillon into madness. Already, the words were searing their mark into me. Although I had beaten back the Gan Hua in Kinra’s swords, that had been a mere flicker compared to this blazing bitterness. If I did not stop it now, it would consume me.
I pushed back against the scorching power as I had pushed back against Kinra’s swords. It made no difference to the book’s relentless, blistering force.
Perhaps Kinra could hold back this ancient power. I did not trust her influence, nor did I want to touch her treachery. Yet she’d had the strength and skill to shape Hua into a dark force and send it across five centuries—the swords were proof.
I still had her death plaque in my pocket, although I could not reach for it. Would its presence be enough? I sent out my plea: Kinra, please stop the folio from burning its madness into me. Then I sent another prayer to my ancestors who had brought her Dragoneye power to me: Stop Kinra’s own madness from burning me, too.
As if in answer, a force rose through my blood. An aching cold flowed across the acid words like frost, extinguishing the burn of the book. Then the words and the chill were suddenly gone. But neither the pearls nor Dillon eased their brutal grip.
“Choose,” Dillon cried again.
I shook my head, trying to clear away the aftershock of the searing words.
“Choose.” His fingers tightened into a bone-crunching demand. “Choose!”
“I choose the Ox,” I gasped. The second dragon; two spins in the game. If I could find Kygo, maybe I could drag us in his direction.
“I choose the Rooster,” Dillon called. Ten spins.
I clenched my teeth and swung with him into the twirling count of twelve.
“One,” he yelled. The landscape was a blur of gray and green, Dillon’s pale, grinning face the only fixed point.
“Two.” His weight pulled at the end of my hands, wrenching me into a splashing stagger.
“Three.” His voice changed. No more playful singsong— just flat command. I closed my eyes against the relentless water and the whirling sickness in my head.
“Four.”
Every spin dug us deeper into the mud, closer to the raw force of the earth. At the edge of my reeling senses, I heard him murmuring more words. Although their form and meaning were lost in the deafening tattoo of water, the Dragoneye in me knew they were the same ancient words that had attacked my mind.
Dillon was calling dark energy. It was embedded in the deep resonance of the numbers and in his fevered chant. Four was the number of death, and I could feel it coming with the pounding certainty of my own heartbeat.
“Eona!” Kygo’s voice. I opened my eyes. His tall figure flashed past.
I dropped onto my knees in the watery mud, dragging all of my weight against Dillon’s hold, but his savage strength jerked me back up into stumbling submission. Power prickled along our bound hands.
“Five,” he yelled.
“Dillon, what are you doing?” I yelled.
“With you, I’m strong enough,” he screamed.
Strong enough for what?
Around us the rain slanted, caught in the roaring gusts of a sudden wind from the northwest. Kygo flashed past again, bent into the brutal slam of air, his swords drawn. I tried to call his name, but water filled my eyes and mouth.
“Six.”
I shook my head, fighting for sight and breath. A smear of dark figures coalesced into running soldiers, their battle cries broken into a staccato wail by the buffeting wind and the spine-snapping momentum of our spins.
“Dillon, the soldiers!” I screamed.
“Seven!”
His eyes were closed, head craned back. The drone of his chant rose into a shrill keen that matched the shriek of the wind. I tasted the ancient power within it. It dried my mouth like a sour plum, but something else lay within the bitterness. A familiar, sweet tang of cinnamon—the taste of the red dragon’s power. Was he calling my dragon? Impossible, yet there were also the faint notes of vanilla and orange. Lord Ido’s beast. Dillon’s ravings sharpened into one clear moment of fury: I want him to die.
Merciful gods, he was using me to kill Ido.
“Dillon, no!” I slammed my body back, yanking at his hands, but I was still held fast.
“Eight.”
From nearby came the clash of steel meeting steel. Swords! My heart contracted into a hard ball, then burst back into drumming fear. Had the soldiers attacked Kygo? A dark knot of struggling men flickered past. Ryko, beating back three soldiers.
“Nine.”
There was nothing I could do to stop Dillon in the earthly plane; he was too strong. Focusing on his ecstatic face, I tried to shift into mind-sight. It was like forcing my way through a briar made of pelting water and panting terror. As he spun me around, I managed three deep breaths. On the fourth, the gray-green earthly plane yielded to the iridescence of the energy world.
“Ten.”
I staggered into the next spin, disoriented by the sudden assault of bright color. Before me, Dillon’s flesh and blood shifted into the streaming pathways of his energy body. I gasped, repulsed by the swollen network of dark power that flowed through him in a thick, oily slip. What had happened to his Hua? Even the seven points of power along his spine—usually pumping with the silvery life force—were black and bloated. And something else was wrong with them. I stared at the heart- point in his chest,
only a faint tinge of its green vigor left in the murky depths. It was spinning in the wrong direction.
He raised his head, the dark energy swarming through his eye sockets.
“Eleven,” he said and smiled. “He’s dying.”
My head snapped back as he pulled me into the second- to-last pivot. I locked my eyes on the crimson dragon above, desperate for a fixed point of sanity. Her huge, sinuous body thrashed against an invisible enemy. Ruby claws raked the air in futile slashes. A channel of bright gold Hua stretched between her and Dillon—he was siphoning her power, with no return of vital energy. With no defense against the ten bereft dragons.
“Dillon, let her go. Before the others come. You can’t control this!”
“I can do anything,” he yelled.
Fury roared through me, bringing a new surge of strength. He was hurting my dragon. Using my power.
“Eona!” I screamed, calling our shared name, but there was no answering cascade of golden energy through me. It was all streaming into Dillon. Somehow, he was blocking us from union. Another channel, thin and stuttering, leached from the blue dragon. The beast was barely an outline, its small, pale body rolling in agony.
“Dillon, stop it! You’re hurting them.” A terrible thought seized me—could he kill the dragons?
He cannot. Ido’s voice. It was barely a whisper in my mind, ragged with pain and effort.
Are the others coming, Ido? Can you hold them back?
They will not come near the Black Folio, he rasped. Stop the boy from draining my dragon. Please, before— His voice broke into a scream that ripped through me.
“How?” I yelled. “How do I stop him?”
Get the book, Ido panted. Cut him from its power.
I did not want to touch the book.
“Twelve!” Dillon shouted, triumphant.
He wrenched me into the final spin, breaking my hold on the energy world. Its jewel colors slid back into the dull, wet landscape of the mountainside. With a shrieking rush, the rain and wind disappeared, the flooded ground suddenly dry and hard under my stumbling feet. No more driving rain. My face, gown, hair: all dry. Ryko and the three soldiers flashed past again, but they were no longer fighting. All four men were staring up at the sky.