It seemed to take forever to edge from column to column. The guards were sharing another illicit drink, and Ryko moved only when their attention was on the pass of the bottle. I counted my breaths between each wait, trying to turn my mind from the shivering weakness that kept loosening my grip around Ryko’s neck. We finally edged around the corner of the pavilion, beyond the guards’ sightline. Ryko scanned the training compound before us—the dark hall and the raked expanse of the training sands were deserted—then ran across to the narrow set of rear steps.
One by one the others ran from the shadowed portico and joined us. Ryko tightened his hold around my waist and turned his head, our noses almost touching.
“All right?” he whispered.
“All right,” I lied.
He nodded, but he was not fooled.
Yuso signed us forward. We skirted the training sands and headed toward the long rear wall of the imperial guard barracks. Before the coup, Ryko and Yuso had been quartered there along with the other imperial guards, but now it housed over two hundred soldiers. Or even more, according to Mama Momo. The dark wall bordered the whole length of the training compound and reached beyond the Pavilion of Autumnal Justice. I had not realized how close the barracks were to the cells. Dangerously within yelling distance.
At the edge of the training compound, Yuso signed a halt.
“From here,” he whispered.
Ryko eased me down onto my feet. I swayed and felt hands grab the silk at my back—Dela, an anchor in the swirling, pitching world.
“She can’t walk by herself,” Dela hissed over my shoulder.
“Between you two, then,” Yuso ordered.
Dela circled her arm across my shoulders, Ryko around my waist. Between them I was held upright, my injured arm hidden from view.
Yuso draped his arm over Vida’s shoulders, then glanced back at us. “Ready?”
And so we stepped through the elegant gateway that separated the training compound from the courtyard of justice: three drunken soldiers and their giggling companions looking for fresh entertainment.
The iron grips of Ryko and Dela kept me moving forward. I smiled up at their laughing banter, hoping the strain did not show on my face. We passed the Pavilion of Autumnal Justice, the pools of lamplight hollowing Dela’s eyes and catching the gleam of sweat at Ryko’s temples.
I chanced a look at the guards. Our stumbling, giggling progress across the courtyard had drawn them close together in front of the doorway. They watched our approach, all evidence of boredom and bottle gone.
Ryko nuzzled my hair. “Almost there,” he breathed. “Almost there.”
Beside the door, a bronze gong hung from a sturdy wooden frame, ready to alert the men in the barracks if we made one misstep. For a moment, I closed my eyes, overwhelmed by the hazards ahead. Even if we did get inside the cell to Ido and I managed to heal him, we also had to get past those two hundred men.
I opened my eyes as Yuso bowed to the guards. “Evening.” He swayed on the return, his drunken grin perfectly judged. “The lovely Dara and Sela here”—he pointed a wavering finger at Vida, then spun around and jabbed it toward me—“would like to view the mighty Dragoneye.” He squinted at the two men. “They’ve never seen one.”
Yuso was a convincing liar.
The older sentry shook his head. “My apologies, honored Leopard. As you must know, it is not possible.” He wore a Bear ranked badge, lower than Yuso’s stolen seventh-rank uniform.
Yuso grinned. “Come on, I’ve heard otherwise,” he said.
“Don’t disappoint the girls. We promised them.” He caught Vida by the waist and pulled her against him. She squealed and giggled. “Say please, Dara.”
“Please,” Vida said. “Let us go on. We could make it worth your while … afterward.”
Bear looked across at his younger partner badged with a Snake, the lowest rank.
“We get off in a quarter bell, sir,” Snake murmured. He eyed Vida and smiled.
“That one looks sick,” Bear said, jerking his head at me. I felt Ryko’s arm pull me closer.
Dela snorted. “Sela chases the dragon a bit hard, don’t you, sweetheart?”
I smiled dreamily and lolled my head against Ryko’s chest. With the courtyard pitching around me, it was not hard to emulate the boneless distraction of a dragon chaser.
Bear peered more closely at my face. “Is she a real Peony?” Suspicion colored his voice. “A real Peony costs a Tiger coin.”
“Of course she’s not,” Dela said quickly. “We can’t afford a real Peony.”
“What is she doing in Peony makeup, then?” Bear shifted his Ji forward.
I felt Ryko’s heart quicken through the padding of his vest. For all of our planning, we had not prepared a reason why a Peony would be with low-ranked soldiers.
With the dregs of my strength, I mustered a high-pitched giggle and raised my head. “It’s an extra half-coin for the make-up. I do Orchids, too. That’s a full coin, but it includes a dance.” Clumsily I circled my hips, glad of Ryko’s arm bracing me.
“A dance?” Young Snake said, his eyes lingering on my body.
I summoned another smile. “Not boring dances like the real Orchids. A real dance.”
Bear cleared his throat, his eyes cutting to his subordinate. “We could never afford such attentions, even at that price.” He scratched his chin. “Not on our very, very low pay.” He made the statement a question.
Yuso smiled. “How much, then, to see the Dragoneye?”
“A sixth. Per person,” Bear said promptly.
“Outrageous,” Yuso countered. “A twelfth per person.”
“Done.” Bear licked his lips and exchanged a smug glance with Snake. “Keep it short, though. We’re relieved at the full bell.”
Yuso handed over the coins, the ringing clink of their fall like one of the small prayer chimes.
Bear opened the wooden door and peered into the dimly lit chamber. “Got five for you. They’ve paid.”
He stepped back, ushering us in with a broad smile. “Enjoy.”
Yuso entered first with Vida, her giggling thanks diverting the guards’ attention. As Ryko and I followed them over the raised threshold, Dela quickly stepped behind us and threw her arms over our shoulders; the embrace of a drunken friend, and a shield for my bloodied arm.
We were inside. As the wooden door shut, the rush of relief made me stumble. Dela caught my upper arm and pulled me into the support of her body. I remembered to giggle, but a freeze of fear locked in my gut. Ido was so close … and I could barely stand on my own. Did I have enough strength to help him? To even help myself?
“A few rules.” The harsh voice came from a squat, jowled man behind a desk in the corner of the small chamber. Every one of his features—lips, nose, even eyelids—was overly thick, as though swollen with water. “You can only look through the door bars. And only two at a time. Got it?”
With a grunt, he pushed himself out of his chair and reached for a lamp hanging from a hook in the wall behind him—one of two handsome bronze lanterns that cast good light over the desk’s orderly collection of scrolls, pens, and a deeply grooved ink block. Nearby, a small ceramic stove held glowing coals, the bitterness of burned rice and over-brewed tea barely covering another smell that made my stomach turn—the sour stink of suffering.
He held the lamp close to his face, the yellowed light sculpting the jut of his nose and rubbery lips. “Through the door bars. Two at time. Got it?”
“Got it,” Yuso said. “Are there any other interesting prisoners in there?”
“No, he’s got the whole place to himself,” the warden said. “Nothing too good for the Dragoneye Lord, eh?” He offered the lamp to Vida. “Hold this for me, my dear, while I let you in.”
With a pretty smile, she took the lamp and followed him to the sturdy inner door. Yuso stepped out of their way as the warden unhooked a set of heavy keys from his belt and held them up to the light, their polished brass tops g
linting in his thick fingers.
“This one will get you into the cell itself,” he said. “Maybe if you play your cards right, you can have a closer look.”
Behind him, a duller gleam of metal caught my eye: Yuso’s blade sliding silently from its sheath.
“I’d like that,” Vida said. A tilt of the captain’s head edged her back a step.
The warden inserted the key into the lock. “Me, too.” He gave a low laugh as the lock clicked and the door swung open. “You just give me a call and—”
With savage speed, Yuso clamped his arm around the man’s chest and thrust the knife into the sacral point, low and hard. The warden arched back, the brutal flex of his throat stifling his cry. Yuso yanked out the bloodied blade, raised it again, and plunged it over the man’s shoulder, hard into his chest. The only sounds were the soft thud of hilt hitting home and a tiny wet gasp. The man’s weight sagged against Yuso.
I let out a long, ragged breath—I had not even realized I was holding it. Ryko had spun around to cover the entrance, knife ready. But the door did not open; neither guard had heard the muted sounds of death.
Yuso eased the warden’s body to the ground and dragged it out of the inner doorway. He looked around at us, the violence still raging in his eyes.
“Get going,” he ordered.
Vida ripped the ring of keys from the lock, then forged down the shallow set of steps, lamp held up to light the way. I started to follow, but my knees buckled, the fall stopped by Dela’s quick reflexes.
“I’ve got you,” she said. “Just lean on me.”
Together, we lurched down the steps into a stone corridor. Ahead, Vida’s lamp showed a narrow downward slope and low ceiling. The stench of human pain—sweat, vomit, blood— caught in my throat, some primal part of me fighting the descent toward it.
“Holy gods, that’s foul,” Ryko said behind us.
“Here! He’s in here,” Vida called from the far end of the corridor, the ring of keys jangling as she fitted one into a lock.
Dela hauled me past three empty cells, the dark maws of their open doorways waiting for new flesh. The stink seemed embedded in the stone around us, our movements stirring small currents of air like fetid breath. We reached Vida as she pushed Ido’s cell door open and held up the lamp.
The light found him against the back wall: naked, starved body curled side-on against the stone, his forehead pressed into the cradle of his shackled hands. The slow rise and fall of his chest rasped with effort, but he did not stir. His head had been shorn, the two sleek Dragoneye queues reduced to matted spikes. The one eye visible to us was swollen, the strong shape of cheekbone and jaw below it lost in a dark mess of blood and bruising. His nose, too, had been broken, its thin patrician length smashed and swollen. But the worst injuries were on his body: someone had taken a cane to his back and legs and the soles of his feet, and they had not stopped at shredding skin and muscle. The exposed bone and sinew across his shoulders caught the light like slivers of pearl.
“How could he survive that?” Vida whispered.
An image of the Rat Dragon—pale and agonized—leaped into my mind. Was the beast keeping him alive?
Vida pressed her hand over her nose and led us into the cell. A slops bucket, from the smell of it, sat in the far corner. In sharp contrast, an elegant table—its legs carved into four dragons—stood against the left wall. It held a porcelain bowl, the delicate gold edge encrusted with dark ooze, and a jumble of sharp metal objects that my eyes skipped across but my body registered with a shiver. A bamboo cane—half of its length stained with blood—lay on the floor beside a water bucket.
Vida put the lamp down next to Ido as Dela lowered me into a crouch beside him. I had not noted it before, but his beard was gone. Its absence, together with the close crop of his hair, made his face seem strangely young. Vida drew in a shocked breath as the concentration of lamplight showed more injuries. Both shackled feet were broken—the delicate fan of bones smashed and protruding through the skin—and a large character had been carved on his chest: Traitor. I leaned against the wall beside him. How could I heal such terrible damage while I was so weak?
“He’s going to need some clothes,” Dela said tightly. “I’ll get the warden’s.” She squeezed my shoulder. “Be quick. Even Ido doesn’t deserve this.”
Across the room, Ryko picked up the bowl and sniffed the contents. He thrust it away with a grimace. “Black Dragon.”
I looked up at him blankly. Vida crossed the room and sniffed the bowl, too, nodding her confirmation.
“It constricts blood,” she said. “That must be why he hasn’t bled to death.”
“That’s not the only thing it does.” Ryko put the bowl down on the table. “I’ve seen it used to heighten pain and unleash demons in the mind.” The islander had more reason than anyone to hate Ido—the Dragoneye had tortured him—but there was something akin to pity in his voice. “If they’ve been feeding this to him, he won’t know what’s real and what’s not.”
I looked at Lord Ido’s ruined, sweat-filmed face. If he could not distinguish between reality and nightmare, he would not be able to hold back the ten bereft dragons.
“We’ve got to wake him,” I said, panic rising into a surge of desperate energy. “I need him awake.”
I reached across and touched his hand. Even more chilled and clammy than my own.
“Lord Ido?”
No response. I shook his cold arm.
Not even a flicker.
“Lord Ido,” I shook him harder. “It’s me, Eona.”
Nothing. He was far beyond a simple touch and call. More drastic measures were needed—more brutality. The thought of adding to such pain made me nauseous. But if he and I were to be healed, he had to be woken. Pushing past my own pity, I dug my fingers into the ridged, weeping damage across his shoulder.
His whole body flinched under my grip, his hands convulsing against the shackles. I jerked back. Surely that would wake him. But his eyes remained closed, no twitch of animation upon his drawn face.
“He’s not waking,” I said.
“Try again.” Vida crossed the room.
I dug my fingers in harder. “Lord Ido!”
This time the pain flung him back against the wall, the raw contact shuddering through him. Even that did not open his eyes.
“He’s deep in the shadow world. Probably a blessing,” Vida said. She held up the warden’s ring of keys. “I’ll undo the shackles. Maybe that will speak to his spirit.”
She fitted a slim key into the wrist irons, the heavy cuffs separating with a hollow click. Ido’s hands dropped, their raw, bloodied weight slapping against his thighs. The freedom did not stir him. Vida bent and unlocked the ankle irons. “I can’t pull them free.” Her voice was small. “I think they’ve broken his feet in them.”
Ryko squatted beside me and set the water bucket on the stones between us. He grabbed a handful of ragged hair and pulled Ido’s head up. His pity, it seemed, did not translate into gentleness. “Lord Dragoneye. Wake up.”
The harsh, slow breathing did not alter.
Ryko pushed Ido’s head back against the wall, then stood and picked up the bucket. “You might want to move,” he said to me.
The water hit Ido in the face with a drenching force that caught me in its cold backsplash. I gasped, wiping the wet sting out of my eyes. It had certainly roused me from my exhaustion. I blinked and focused on Ido. The dripping water tracked through the crusted filth and blood on his face, but he was still beyond us.
I turned away as Ryko swung the bucket again. The water slapped and streamed over the Dragoneye. We all leaned forward, watching for any flicker across the closed eyes, or change in the rasping rise and fall of his chest.
“He’s too far gone,” Ryko said.
“No!” Frantically I shook Ido again, the back of his head thudding against the wall. “Wake up!”
Vida pulled my hand away. “Eona, stop!”
“If he’s not awake,
I can’t risk healing him,” I said through my teeth. “The other dragons will come, and he won’t be there to stop them.”
Ryko stood. “He’s not going to wake any time soon. We’re going to have to carry him out.”
“It’ll kill him,” Vida protested.
“Maybe, but we can’t leave him here.”
The sound of running footsteps turned us toward the doorway. Dela rounded the corner, clothes piled in her arms. “Yuso is keeping watch in the front room,” she panted. “But he says hurry, we’ve only got a few minutes before the new guard shift.”
“We can’t get Ido awake,” I said. “I can’t heal him.”
She dumped the clothes on the filthy stone floor. “Let me have a look.”
Ryko made way as she leaned over and peeled back Ido’s left eyelid. The pale amber iris was almost all black pupil. Then something moved across the dark dilation—a slide of silver.
Dela recoiled. “What was that?”
Hua.
I lunged forward, lifting his eyelid again. The silver was dull and its shift across his eye slower than I had ever seen before, but it was definitely his power. “He’s not in the shadow world. He’s in the energy world.”
“Is that good?” Vida asked.
“It means he’s probably with his dragon already.” I released his eyelid and sat back, remembering the blue dragon reaching toward me. Was it possible that Ido had taken refuge in his spirit beast?
“Does that mean you can heal him?” Ryko demanded.
I looked down at my bound arm. A slow throb was building through the numbness, leaching energy with every pulsing ache. I was not sure I had enough strength to get into the energy world. And even if I did, the ten bereft dragons were so fast. By my reckoning, I had less than a minute to find Ido and heal him before they attacked.
“I have to try,” I said. “Everyone stand back. You saw what happened last time.”
All three edged away to the other side of the cell.
Help me, I prayed to any god who listened, and pressed my hand flat against Ido’s wet chest, above the brutally carved character. His labored heartbeat thudded under my palm. A tight knot of terror clamped my breath. What if I could not do it? What if I killed us all?