Yuso stepped forward. “Is His Majesty safe?” he demanded, breaking Caido’s thrall.
“He is waiting with the rest of my men at the rendezvous,” the resistance man said, but his attention had shifted to the ruins of the palace wall. He squinted into the bil-lowing smoke, then pointed to the dark shapes of soldiers climbing cautiously over the shattered stonework. “More are coming. We must go!”
“They do not learn, do they,” Ido said. He whirled around to face the palace, then pressed his hands outward. The gravel riding track buckled and exploded upward. I ducked as the earth split with a tearing roar along the palace wall, opening up underneath scrambling, shrieking soldiers and consuming them in a sudden collapse of dirt and stone. More and more earth fell away in a thundering rush as the huge crack spread beyond the palace boundaries, ripping the gardens in half until the two sides were separated by an impassable, gaping chasm.
The rumbling died away, leaving an eerie silence and a heavy cloud of dust. Then the screaming started; men shrieking in pain and terror.
Ido looked across at me, then started to walk away. The captain lunged for him, but Ido clenched his fist, and the ground heaved beneath the Shadow Man. Yuso staggered and landed on his back with a pained grunt.
“Lord Ido,” I yelled. “We have a deal. You said you would train me.”
Although his gaunt face was hollow with exhaustion, power still threaded across his amber eyes. “What did you expect, Eona? That I would trot behind you like your islander dog?” He gestured at Ryko who had started to close in on him, alongside Vida and Dela. Ido raised a warning hand, stopping their wary approach. “If you want to learn, Eona, you must come with me. On my terms.” He smiled, and I felt as if the weight of his body was already on mine.
“You know I would never go with you. Never!”
“I know how much you want your power—it is like a hunger in you,” he said. “And I know that without me, you will never have it. So make your choice. Learn how to raze palaces to the ground, or be a useless girl without the steel to follow the path of her power.”
I stepped forward. He was right—I did want my power, so much that it was like a constant ache within my spirit—but he was so very wrong about me not having steel.
With savage anticipation, I rammed my Hua outward, seeking the silvery pathway into Ido’s will. I felt my life force roll over another pulse, a familiar heartbeat sliding under mine in a rush of unstoppable energy. Ryko.
Beside me, the islander dropped to the ground, gasping. I faltered; I had not even thought of him.
Ido crouched, sensing the threat. I saw the burst of silver across his eyes as he gathered his power. No time for hesitation. I punched my Hua through his exhaustion, the taste of him flooding my mouth in a rich wave of pulsing orange power that drove him to his knees.
What are you doing? His fury was like the cut of acid.
I fought to draw his heartbeat to mine, his resistance like a roar through my blood. Slowly, like hauling on a heavy net, I pulled his life rhythm closer and closer to my own. He struggled, the pounding of his rage fighting the grip of my Hua. Slowly, he forced his way through my power and staggered to his feet. The battle cost him: his pulse slid under mine—one beat of unity— then broke free again.
Instinctively I sought more power. Ryko. He writhed on the ground nearby, his frantic energy waiting to be tapped. I grabbed at it, drawing up his bright Hua. Ryko screamed, a terrible rattling sound, but I could not stop. The sudden surge of energy within me leaped like a howling beast and hammered Ido back to his knees.
Sweat soaked the back of the Dragoneye’s shirt as he tried to fend off the savage onslaught, every desperate block ripped apart by the teeth of my power. It was dark energy, raw and shrieking, and it wrenched his Hua into mine, pinning his pulsing rage under the thundering beat of my heart. With the brutal strength of victory, I slammed him onto his hands and knees.
“Your will is mine. Do you understand?”
He strained upward, his mouth drawn back into a snarl. Beside me, Ryko groaned, caught in the backlash.
“Lord Ido, do you understand?”
He raised his head—the effort rippled through my stranglehold. His eyes were dark gold with fury, all silver gone. I slammed him down again until his forehead was pressed into the grass and dirt.
“Do you understand?”
“Yes,” he gasped. “Yes.”
My body roared with exhilaration; I had control of Lord Ido—all of his power and all of his pride. Now he knew the agony of enslavement. I could make him do anything—
“Eona, stop it! Now!” A blurred face rose in front of me, all screaming mouth. “You are killing Ryko!”
My head snapped back, the sharp impact of a hand breaking my thrall. Dela’s stern features burst into focus. I cupped my stinging cheek as the rush of power drained from my body. Yet the savage joy lingered like a soft hum in my blood. My grip on Ido’s Hua was gone, but I knew the pathway to it had been blazed into him. And into me.
I stepped back, trembling.
Ido slowly lifted his head, testing his freedom. I knew that feeling: the relief of being in control again. With a deep breath, he pushed himself back on to his heels and spat, wiping his mouth free of dirt. The shaking curl of his fingers was the only sign of his fury.
“That is not dragon power,” he rasped. “What is it?”
Warily, I watched him, ready to clamp down again. “If I heal someone, I can take their will,” I said. “Whenever I want.” But he was right; it was not dragon power. Whatever it was, it came through the connection that had been forged between us when I had healed him, just as it had been forged with Ryko at the fisher village. A thin gold thread of each man’s Hua entwined with my own. Yet I did not truly know where the power came from.
Or maybe I just did not want to know.
He pressed the heel of his hand against his forehead. “It nearly split my skull open.” He looked up at me. “You enjoyed it. I could feel your pleasure.”
“No.” I crossed my arms.
He smiled grimly. “Liar.”
“My lady,” Caido said, “please, we must go now!” The resistance man’s thin face was sharp with anxiety and awe and, I realized, fear of me.
I nodded and turned back to Ido. “Get up.”
Ido’s mouth tightened at the order, but he hauled himself to his feet.
Dela and Vida squatted on either side of Ryko. With a gentle hand, Dela rolled the big man onto his side. Ryko groaned, his face gray. I had almost ripped too much Hua from him. It had won me control over Ido, but I had nearly killed my friend.
“Dela, is he all right?” I moved toward them. “He just got caught up in it. I didn’t—”
“Just let him be!” Her fury was like a brick wall between us. She turned back to Ryko and helped him sit up.
“Maybe I was wrong about you,” Ido said, watching the islander tense and double over, shivering with pain.
“What do you mean?”
Ido’s face angled toward me. The play of light from the flames carved deep hollows under his cheekbones and emphasized the long, patrician nose. “Last time we met, you surrendered to spare your islander pain. You could not bear to see him hurt.” His eyes narrowed in a malicious smile. “Now you rip his Hua from him to compel me. Maybe you have enough steel to follow the path of your power, after all.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
THROUGHOUT THE NIGHT we crossed the city using a chain of safe houses, staying only a few minutes in some and over a half bell in others to avoid patrols, all of it a blur of dark rooms, shadowy faces, and urgent whispers. Caido and his lieutenant led us from house to house. The rest of his troop were riding across the city in the opposite direction, brave decoys for the inevitable search.
In one house, Vida and I changed into more modest gowns, and I washed the white paint from my face. In another—the stable of a walled family compound—we stayed long enough to eat soup, brought by the sympathizer’s goggle-ey
ed wife. By that time, Ido and Ryko were in desperate need of food and rest. The compulsion I had forced upon both men had weakened them, and Caido’s relentless pace was beginning to tell on all of us.
The woman left the iron soup pot on the floor and bowed out of the stable, her eyes fixed on Ido. He was slumped against the far wall, as far from the bristling distrust of the others as possible. Instead of the warden’s ill-fitting clothes, he now wore the dun trousers and tunic of a workman, but the trousers were too short, and Dela had ripped out the tunic sleeves to accommodate his shoulders. Perhaps the goggle-eyed wife was not just overwhelmed by his Dragoneye rank.
In the dim light from the courtyard lanterns, Vida stirred the soup, then ladled out two bowls and passed them to me.
“Don’t let him eat too much.” She measured a small amount between thumb and forefinger. “Otherwise he’ll just be sick.”
Ido, it seemed, had fallen into my care. Not through any desire of mine—more from the refusal of the others to interact with him. I did not blame them. Even starved and exhausted, Ido could strike with venom at any time. His insinuation that I had become ruthless, even to my friends, still pricked at me like a burr caught on my spirit.
I carried the bowls and squatted in front of the Dragoneye. His shorn head was tilted back against the rough wood wall, eyes closed against a shaft of moonlight that slanted across his face.
“Soup,” I said.
He flinched. I had obviously pulled him from the cusp of sleep. The broad planes of his face sharpened into fierce hunger. “Food?”
I held up his portion. Eagerly, he cupped his long fingers around the bowl, but his hands shook so much that he couldn’t raise it to his lips. He bent his head and sucked at the liquid.
“Vida says you should eat sparingly, or you’ll bring it back up.”
He grimaced over the rim. “Shouldn’t be a problem. I can’t even get a mouthful.”
“Here, let me hold it.” I reached for the bowl again.
“No.” He clenched his teeth and slowly raised the soup, the liquid slopping onto his fingers. Finally, he took a mouthful and smiled. Genuine pleasure. It was the first time I had seen him without the arrogance that usually hardened his features, and it stripped years from his face. I had always thought of him as being much older than I, yet Momo had said he was only twenty-four, and if I had ever counted the dragon cycles, I would have known his true age. How did someone get so old in his spirit? The easy answers were brutality and ambition. But perhaps it was impossible to know the truth of another person’s spirit.
I thought of the black gap I had seen in Ido’s crown point of power. Surely such a breach in the seat of insight and enlightenment would affect his spirit in some essential way. And his heart point had shrunk again, too. Did that mean he no longer felt the sense of compassion I had forced upon him?
I took a sip of my own soup—the thin taste almost over-powered by the stink of the sleeping pigs penned nearby—and watched Ido eat with the intensity of a starving wolf.
“Do you still feel remorse for all you have done?” I asked. “I know you felt it in the palace alleyway, and compassion, too. But do you still feel it?”
It was probably a foolish question—he had no reason to admit he was once more without conscience, and every reason to assure me that he was a reformed man.
Slowly, he looked up from his food. “After one hour in Sethon’s company, I stopped feeling anything except pain,” he said flatly. “Do not ask me about remorse or compassion. They did not exist in that cell.”
The memory of his brutalized body leaped into my mind. After what he’d suffered, no wonder his heart point had shrunk again. Perhaps Sethon’s cruelty had created the black gap as well. I watched him again over the rim of my bowl. From the slight turn of his body, it was obvious he did not want to talk of his ordeal. For a moment, I was caught between my own compassion and a sense of macabre curiosity.
“When I healed you, I saw a black gap in your crown point,” I finally said. “Do you know what it is?
“A black gap?” He touched the top of his head, his face suddenly strained. “It is most probably payment exacted.” The wry edge in his voice was softened by resignation.
“Payment?”
“You should know by now that there is always some kind of payment for power.” Tiredly, he rubbed his eyes. “I used a lot of power to survive Sethon.”
“What will such a gap do to you?”
“That remains to be seen.” He gave a harsh laugh. “Perhaps I will never achieve spiritual enlightenment.”
“What did Sethon want from you?” I asked.
The sarcastic smile faded. For a moment he toyed with not answering—the reluctance plain in his face—then he said, “The black folio. And you.”
I had thought as much. “Did you tell him anything?”
“I don’t know.” His eyes met mine and I drew back from the cold accusation within them. “When you called your dragon that first time, you not only ripped my heart point open—you blocked me from my power. I was at Sethon’s mercy for three days.” His voice was a hard monotone. “By the third day I didn’t know what I was saying. Maybe I told him. I would have said anything to stop it.”
I took refuge from his blame in a sip of my soup. I didn’t know I had blocked him from his dragon. Fear feathered down my spine. I had left him powerless against Sethon. Just the memory of the man’s cold touch made me feel sick—even with Ido’s injuries still fresh in my mind, my imagination failed at what he must have endured at Sethon’s hands. I steeled myself against the impulse to apologize. It had been Ido’s own ruthless grab for my power that had blocked him from his dragon. And his own treacherous plans for the throne that had enraged Sethon.
“I think it is safe to assume that Sethon knows everything I know about you and the black folio,” he added.
“You know where it is, then?’
“Dillon has it.”
“He survived the flood?” The news brought a confusion of gladness and foreboding.
Ido smiled grimly. “The black folio looks after its own.”
“But if Sethon knows where it is, he will just go and get it.”
Ido shook his head. “Sethon knows where it was. Dillon is long gone.” With a sigh, he put the bowl on the floor. “Your servant is right. I cannot eat any more.”
“She’s not my servant. Vida is a resistance fighter.”
“And what about you, Eona?” he asked. “Do you fight for the Pearl Emperor?”
I paused, sensing a bite in the question that I could not see. “Yes.”
“And will you fight with your power when I teach you how to control it?”
“No, I abide by the Covenant. As does Kygo.”
“‘Kygo,’ is it?” He crossed his arms, the moonlight showing the stark curve of muscle. “You should watch yourself, girl. Just because you are a Dragoneye does not mean you can call an emperor by his first name. Not even a usurped emperor.”
I lifted my chin. “I am his Naiso.”
Ido’s heavy brows met over the high bridge of his nose. I pressed my lips together, half of me enjoying his astonishment, the other half tensing for the inevitable jeer.
“You are his Naiso? His truth bringer?” His shoulders started to shake with silent laughter. “You do not have a truthful bone in your body.”
“Kygo trusts me,” I said, hoping my vehemence would persuade him. And me.
He lowered his voice. “Then tell me, have you told Kygo that royal blood and the black folio can bind a Dragoneye’s will and power?”
I hesitated, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of the answer.
He smiled, his old arrogance lifting one corner of his mouth. “I didn’t think so. You may be misguided, but you are not a fool.”
“I haven’t kept it from him,” I said through my teeth, although I also spoke more softly. A habit: too many years lived with too many secrets. “I just haven’t told him. He would not use it against me
.”
Ido gave a snort of derision. “He is royal and he wants the throne. Of course he will use it.” He leaned forward. “Ask yourself why you haven’t told him. It is because deep down you know he is a threat to us.”
In my mind, I once again saw that moment of hard ambition on Kygo’s face as he stared at the black folio on Dillon’s wrist; the book held such tempting riches for us all—the secrets of Gan Hua, the String of Pearls, and even how to stop the ten grieving dragons—but the cost was so high. Insanity and, in the wrong hands, enslavement.
“Kygo is not the threat,” I said. “The threat is Sethon.”
Ido sat back, a small smile playing across his lips. “You lie even to yourself. Now that is the mark of a fool.”
I stood up. “You do not know Kygo,” I said. “And you do not know me.”
I turned and walked the length of the stable, my unease driving me as far from the man as possible. I stopped at the edge of the doorway and gulped at the cleaner air, ignoring the curious glance from Dela, seated on a bale of hay nearby.
As my mind quieted, a sick realization crept through me. Ido was right; I was a fool.
He had just manipulated me into admitting that we were Dragoneye allies against the threat of royal blood.
It was a full bell after dawn before we neared the rendezvous in the hills outside the city. The hot weight of the monsoon was back in the air, its presence like a hand pressing on my chest. Or maybe the tightness across my heart was from the prospect of seeing Kygo again. I circled my fingers around the leather thong tied to my other wrist. The hard lump of the blood ring gave no reassurance. We had been physically apart little more than a day and a night, but I felt as though a chasm had opened up between us. As Xan, the poet of a thousand sighs, once wrote: Too many doubts grow in the cracks of silence and separation.
Caido’s lieutenant was scouting ahead, his forest skills rendering him invisible and silent. In front of me, Ido walked between Yuso and Caido. Although the Dragoneye was stooped with fatigue, he was still a head taller than the two men guarding him, and the overhang of trees forced him to duck under branches.