His blood.
I stared at his clenched hand, the glint of gold flaring into an idea. “Your ring,” I said, the hope pushing me toward him. “Does it really hold your blood?”
He swung around, the possibility aflame in his face. “Yes.” His voice lowered. “I told you the truth about that.”
I bit my lip.
“There is not much in it.” He measured a sliver between thumb and forefinger. “Will that be enough?”
I looked back at Ido. “Is it?”
“No one has ever seen the folio’s blood power work. I do not know,” Ido said.
Kygo twisted the ring from his finger. “Take it.”
For a moment, I thought he was just going to drop it into my hand, but then he pressed it against my palm, the metal holding his body heat. With an ache in my throat, I remembered the last time he had pushed the ring into my hand. It had been his way of protecting me. Now it was his way of taking more power.
Yuso volunteered to take me on his horse to the plain below— no one dared suggest I ride behind Ido—and the three of us spent the short journey down the escarpment in grim silence. What was there to say? Either Ido and I stopped Dillon or everyone died.
After helping me dismount, Yuso hoisted himself back into the saddle, his attention on Ido. The Dragoneye had walked out a few lengths across the grassland to watch the distant dust cloud. Sethon’s soldiers—both infantry and cavalry—had finally fallen back, leaving Dillon to his single-minded march toward us. Ido could now barely stand upright. No doubt Yuso was asking himself the same question that was on my mind: would the Dragoneye collapse before Dillon even arrived?
I passed Yuso the lead rope of Ido’s horse, the animal tossing its head against the sudden pull on its bridle.
“Is it true what you said about your ancestor’s swords?” Yuso said. “They have power, too?”
I stared up at him. What did that have to do with the ordeal ahead? Then I flushed—no doubt all the men had heard the painful revelations between myself, Kygo, and Ido. “Yes,” I said tightly. “What of it?”
“It is a wondrous thing.” He bowed and turned the horses. The bland response from the man was as strange as his question.
I turned from watching Yuso’s retreat back up the escarpment and, with a deep breath, walked across the grass to join Ido. He was transfixed by the lone figure on the horizon and did not mark my arrival. Suddenly, he doubled over, hands on thighs, as a bout of shivering racked his body. I closed my eyes against a surge of pain in my head; as it subsided, I squinted Dillon back into view.
The boy seemed a lot closer than before. Far too close for the brief time that had elapsed. I craned my head forward, trying to make sense of it, and fear crawled across my scalp. Dillon was moving at a speed that was not quite human.
“Ido, look how fast he’s moving,” I said.
“I know.” He straightened and sucked in a pained breath. “I think there is very little Dillon left now. He is all Gan Hua.”
I touched the blood ring on my thumb. “There are too many maybes in this plan,” I said. “Maybe the black folio will hold off the ten dragons. Maybe Dillon will have to get close to use the Righi. Maybe this ring will work.”
Ido turned his head, the long angle of his profile and his steady eyes reminding me of a watchful wolf. “Eona, it is time that you faced the truth. If we can defeat Dillon and get the black folio, we must not give it to Kygo. We must keep it ourselves.”
“What?”
“The black folio is our only chance to take the dragon power.”
“What do you mean, ‘take it’?”
“With the String of Pearls,” Ido said. “We can have our power a hundredfold. Just think of what we could do.”
I stepped back. “That’s insane. It’s a weapon.”
“No, listen to me.” He shot another glance at Dillon, gauging his approach. “We are the last two Ascendant Dragoneyes. If anyone can contain all the dragon power instead of releasing it as a weapon, it is us.”
“Contain it? How?”
“In our bodies, together, like we do when you compel me.” He licked his cracked lips. “Do you remember what I told you after the King Monsoon? What I read in the black folio? The String of Pearls requires the joining of sun and moon.”
Sun and moon: it was Kygo’s endearment. The resonance caught in my chest like a hand gripping my heart. “I remember you coercing me,” I said, pushing my desolation into anger. “I remember you taking my will.”
“I think you’ve had your revenge,” Ido said dryly.
It was true; I had done the same to him, over and over again.
“We are a pair, Eona,” he said. “I know you are as drawn to me as I am to you.” The intensity of his eyes held me. “We are the sun and moon: the male Rat Dragoneye and the female Mirror Dragoneye. Together we can have all of the dragon power.”
“To do what, Ido—rule the land? Is that your plan?”
“I told you before, chaos brings opportunity.”
“So you brought chaos upon us to create your opportunity?”
“And yours,” he said.
I shook my head at his arrogance. “Even if we get the folio, two Dragoneyes cannot control everything.”
“If we take all the dragon power, we’ll be far beyond Dragoneyes. We will be gods; it is the real promise of the black folio.” Dillon was closing the distance rapidly: less than five hundred lengths. Ido’s voice quickened. “You felt the hunger for more power when we moved the cyclone. Do not deny it.”
I had felt it, and I knew he could see it on my face. “That does not mean I want all the power.”
He gave a pained laugh. “Eona, wake up! The choice is either no power or all the power. There is no middle ground. Kygo will not give up the pearl, and that means our power will soon be gone with the beasts.”
“But we would destroy the dragons.”
He gripped my shoulder as if I was a young child having to hear a hard lesson. “You know by now that there is always a price.”
“But we can’t do that,” I said. “They are part of the land.”
“I do not wish to lose my power, Eona. Do you?” He doubled over again, struggling to keep his head up. “We must keep the folio.” Urgency and pain stripped his voice into breath. “Are you ready?”
Dillon was less than fifty lengths away.
For a moment, fear sucked all sense from my mind. All I could see was a demon running toward me.
There was no flesh left on his bones. His face had been reduced to yellowed skin stretched across the sharp shape of his skull, his pumping arms and hands all swollen joints and knuckles. His eyes were dark holes of black power—ghost eyes—sunken into their sockets. Every step he took sprayed blood and matter, both feet worn to pulp from days and days of relentless running. Everything had been carved away by the driving force of the folio.
Ido grabbed my hand, bringing me back to myself. His hard grip dug the edge of the blood ring into my flesh. “Together,” he said.
He took a breath, seeking a path to the celestial plane, his usual smooth rhythm broken by the ragged draw of pain. I held my own breath as he fought to shift into the energy world. Finally, his eyes silvered into union with the Rat Dragon. The moment echoed deep in my core, bringing an ominous wave of nausea.
Ido’s hand convulsed around mine. “Holy gods!”
Black power surged across the silver in his eyes, like oil across water. I jerked back in reflex, but Ido’s iron grip held me at the length of our outstretched arms. The black folio was inside his dragon power. I could feel the sour slide of its words, the whispering call of it through our linked hands.
I pushed through the seep of dark energy and found Ido’s heartbeat. His pounding pulse folded into mine, our melded Hua roaring through the deep pathways made of our desire, as dark and dangerous as the folio. I could taste acid as the folio’s power surged from Dillon into Rat Dragon and Dragoneye, tainting the sweet vanilla orange of the un
ion.
“The Righi,” Ido panted. “He is chanting the Righi again.”
Twisting around, I fixed on Dillon. He was only twenty lengths away, the black folio bound to his left arm, the white pearls shifting and heaving.
“My lord!” Dillon called, his voice like the hollow scrape of dried bamboo upon itself. “I am coming to you, my lord. I will watch your blood and dust scatter into the wind.”
I felt him drop back into the deep chant of Gan Hua, the bitter song ripped from the earth and the air around us.
I took a shuddering breath, and another, focusing on the pulse of Ido’s energy to guide me to the celestial plane. A third breath and the world shifted and buckled into violent, writhing color. Dillon’s energy body swarmed with black, bloated power, every point spinning the wrong way, every pathway thick with darkness.
Ido’s energy body was a battleground: pounding silver energy forced its way through the thick black veins of power that twisted and coiled around his pathways, anchoring themselves into his life-force. Screaming, he dropped to his knees as Dillon wove the blistering wind-song of the Righi across the water and blood of his body. I could feel it in my own pathways, whispering searing words of death.
“Eona!” Ido’s body twisted in agony, his hand tightening around mine. “Now!”
Above us, the Rat Dragon thrashed in the sky against the hold of the black folio, his power streaming into Dillon. Beyond the shrieking blue beast, the Mirror Dragon was a swirl of crimson, her massive body contorted, ruby claws and slashing teeth aimed at the dark energy that pulled at her golden power. I screamed our shared name through the hissing words of the chant. Her huge spirit eyes locked on to mine as our union exploded through me in a pounding rush of strength. My earthly body rocked back against Ido’s straining grip as golden union and sensual link fused into a torrent of power.
Dillon stood before me. “Too late, Eona,” he said, his shriveled lips drawing back into a death’s-head smile.
“No!” I lunged for him—trying to touch his dried flesh with the ring—but he was just out of reach. “No!”
His death song seared my body. Deadly heat boiled through me, slamming pressure into my head that drove spikes into my heart with every labored beat. I could taste blood in my mouth, my nose, feel it bubbling in my chest and pounding behind my eyes as if they would burst from my head. Everything blurred into a red haze. Above me, the Mirror Dragon roared as her golden power pushed against the blazing song, trying to dam its destruction. Screams—I could hear screams from Ido at my feet, and deep within my own blistering chest.
“Dillon, stop!”
“You want my power! Just like my lord.”
Gathering my failing strength, I launched myself at him again, half blinded by the pulsing red heat in my head. Our bodies collided, my clawed hands raking wildly for connection.
I felt the hard leather of the folio, and then my fingers closed around papery skin and bone. The circle of gold around my thumb found his wizened flesh. Please, I prayed, let it work.
I tasted metal and the bitterness of the folio, melded into new power. Blood power. The ring was working.
“Stop chanting!” I screamed.
The whispering ceased. Immediately, the consuming heat dropped into dull warmth. My vision cleared. Dillon’s face was inches from mine, his hot breath like the stink of rancid meat. I could feel his mind squirming against the force of the ring, his madness like a savage animal caught in a trap, snapping and clawing against it. So strong. So vicious.
My hold slipped—on his will and his arm.
The ring was not enough.
With a roar, he wrenched himself free and staggered back, the white pearls tightening around the folio in a pale stranglehold.
Searing heat exploded through me again. Ido screamed. Above, the Mirror Dragon bellowed, her golden power meeting the conflagration, holding back its deadly force.
A cold, clear thought pierced the scorching pain in my head. Do not fight it. Take it. As I had on the mountainside. The folio had wanted me, not Dillon. Its madness had reached for my mind, whispering promises of perfect power.
Madness. It would bring madness.
But it was better than this burning death.
“Come,” I screamed and held out my arm. “Come to me.”
“No!” Dillon shrieked. “The power is mine!”
I saw the dark energy gather in him like a snake coiling to strike. The white pearls unraveled from his arm in a spinning snap and leaped at me. They writhed through the air, dragging the folio behind them, then wrapped around my wrist in a slam of weight, binding the book against my skin. Power pulsed up my arm like acid through my veins. Dillon ran for me, his bone fingers ripping and dragging at the folio’s defection. His chanting broke into a howl as its ancient power drained from him into me.
I gasped as the killing heat disappeared. Below me, Ido groaned, his body slumping with relief. “You have it. Kill him.”
I tried to focus past the words that ate into my mind—dark secrets that scored my spirit with old power. The song of the Righi settled on my tongue, hissing into soft sibilance. Its power was a bitter vinegar, drying my mouth, sucking away softness and hope. The chant was in my head, spilling from my mouth, lifting power from the Hua around me—from the earth, the air, the dragons—building into a fire of destruction that bowed to my bidding. I heard the distant screaming protest of the crimson beast, but her power was mine. All power was mine.
Dillon pulled at the folio, yammering with rage. My chant quickened, weaving the power into more and more heat, every whispered word stoking the scorching energy into his destruction. He arched back, screaming, but I kept singing the song of his death.
Clapping his hands to his head, he fell to his knees. Blood streamed from his nose, his ears, from the black pits of his eyes. The words fell from me into him, building and building into a furnace of annihilation. I was killing him, and I could not stop.
Help me, I prayed. Help me, Kinra. But it was too late.
Dillon’s scream cut off, his body disintegrating into a sudden searing wind of dark ash and red mist that pelted my face with wet, gritty death.
I screamed, horror beating against my mind like leathery wings, but the acid words kept coming. Ido rolled away from me, crawling across the ground, coughing with pain.
Another song rose through me, pulling at my mind, bright and cool, a counterpoint to the words of the folio. I knew that song. I had sung its healing with the Mirror Dragon. I felt its golden harmony break through the bitter hiss of Gan Hua, easing the dark hold of its power. My breath broke into a sob as the terrible chanting faded from my throat, my mind. I dug my fingers under the pearls, my nails gouging the flesh of my arm. With the last of my strength I wrenched the folio free and flung it to the ground. It landed in the dirt, the pearls thrashing like a cut snake.
I fell to my knees and vomited over and over again, heaving my anguish into the earth. I had killed Dillon. The atrocity was still wet on my face and hands, the bitter taste of death still in my mouth. Maybe it would never leave me.
Nearby, Ido sat back on his heels, scanning the ground around us. “Where is the folio?” he rasped. “Do you have it?”
I managed a nod. It was beside me, the pearls coiled across the cover.
The sound of hooves resonated through the earth, galloping at speed. I raised my head to see Kygo, flanked by Ryko and Yuso, their horses lathered with effort.
“Eona!” Kygo wrenched the horse to a stop and dismounted into a flat run. His eyes were on me, not the folio. Behind him, Ryko and Yuso swung themselves from their saddles and followed their emperor.
“Eona!” Ido dived across the red-spattered grass. “Give the folio to me. Quick!”
“No!” I knocked it out of his reach with my forearm. The pearls heaved it across the dirt.
Ido scrabbled toward it again. “Eona, what are you doing?”
“Lord Ido, stop!” Kygo shouted.
Ryko grabb
ed Ido’s tunic and hauled him backward. The Dragoneye twisted around, punching the islander. “Eona, it is the only way,” he yelled. “Get the folio!”
I reached for the book, my hand hovering over the black leather binding and shifting pearls. Above me, Yuso drew his sword. The hissing release of the blade was loud in the sudden silence.
“Yuso, stand down!” Kygo roared.
The captain hesitated, then stepped back and lowered his sword.
I looked up at Kygo. “I promised you I would deliver the folio. It is yours.”
“What!” Ido lunged forward on his knees, but Ryko jerked him back. “Don’t be stupid, Eona! You are giving him our power.”
Gritting my teeth, I picked up the folio; I could feel the golden song of my dragon and the force of the blood ring like a shield within my Hua. Slowly, I worked the ring off my thumb and placed it on top of the squirming wrap of pearls.
“Be still,” I ordered. The rope quieted. Ryko sucked in a startled breath.
“Eona, please, no!” Ido struggled in the islander’s grip. “He will compel us. We will lose everything.”
Bowing on one knee, I held out the book and the ring in the cradle of my outstretched hands.
“Do not touch it, Your Majesty,” Yuso said.
Kygo dismissed the man’s counsel with a raised hand, but his eyes did not leave mine. “You are giving me your power? How do you know Lord Ido is not right?”
“You have always had my power, Kygo,” I said. “Now I am giving you my trust.”
He took the book and ring from my hands. “I know what this has cost you, Eona.”
I looked down at the spread of dark ash that marked the place where I had killed Dillon. The place where I had felt the true power of the black folio.
He could not possibly know the cost.
The girl placed the steaming washbowl on the table set against the tent wall and backed away, her eyes never lifting from the lush overlap of rugs. I wondered what she had been told about me. That I was dangerous? A demon killer? I leaned over the bowl and breathed in the damp heat, the outline of my mouth and eyes reflected against the dark blue fish painted into the porcelain. I scooped my hands in the hot water. Curls of pale red unraveled across the surface as heavier black specks spun and surged around my fingers. The twisting patterns of blood and ash transfixed me.