Eona: The Last Dragoneye

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

DARK CLOUDS ROILED across the sky to form a circle above the twelve beasts on the ground. The still air shifted into a warm breeze that held the scent of sweet spices and salty sweat. And underneath it all was the dank piss-and-blood smell of battlefield death.

I heard the pound of running feet. Kygo’s voice penetrated my pain.

“Eona, are you hurt?” He crouched beside me. A long cut across his shoulder bled in thin streaks down his arm and chest. Dela and Tozay stood behind him, both of them bloodied. Dela held the writhing bundle of shirt and folio.

“My dragon is gone, Kygo,” I rasped. “My dragon is gone.” “No, Eona, she is here before us,” he said. “I can see her in the circle.”

I balled my fists against my chest, rocking with pain. “She has gone from me.” My voice rose into a sob. “I have no link with her anymore. No power.”

He curled his arm around me. I leaned into him, and the cold ache within me eased a little against his warmth.

“Tozay!”

Dela’s cry raised my head. I saw the general sway on his feet, his weathered face paling into a sickly yellow. Dela dropped the folio bundle and caught him, his solid weight straining her arms and bared torso. There was a nasty gash across Tozay’s temple that was still bleeding, and his sword arm hung useless— broken, from the look of it. But I could not heal him. I could not heal anyone ever again.

“He doesn’t look good.” Kygo rose to help.

“He took a bad blow to the head,” Dela said as they carefully helped Tozay sit on the platform. His normally sharp eyes were unfocused, his breathing short and hard. “He should be all right. Just dazed for a while.” Dela gently pressed his head between his knees.

Kygo crouched beside me again. “Did you get the pearl, Eona?”

I opened my trembling hand. The opaque surface shimmered and flicked as if tiny fish teemed beneath its surface. He picked it up between thumb and forefinger, the loss on his face echoing the ache in my own spirit. He, too, was giving up something: the sacred symbol of his sovereignty.

“How do you renew the dragons with it?” he asked.

Ido stirred. “Renew the dragons?” Slowly, he sat back on his heels and cocked his head at me. “Am I missing something here, Eona? What about our plan?”

Kygo stiffened at the Dragoneye’s tone.

“We never had a plan, Ido,” I said, meeting his stare with my own. “The ancients stole the Imperial Pearl from the dragons. It is their egg. We have to give it back. We have to let them renew their power.”

Ido looked sideways at me, the amber eyes hooded. “I know we stole it. I have always known.”

I gaped at him. “What do you mean?” Indignation pulled me up onto my feet. Both Ido and Kygo stood, too, ranged on each side of me in silent antagonism.

“I’ve read the black folio,” Ido said. “I know what the pearl is and what it does.” He crossed his arms. “The theft changes nothing.”

“It changes everything,” I said. “How could you know all this and still ignore your dragon’s need? His hope?”

“No doubt in the same way as many Dragoneyes have before me. No one willingly gives up their own power when it can be the next Dragoneye’s problem.”

“Not anymore, Ido. We are the last of our kind. We have to give the pearl back.”

He shook his head. “You don’t understand. If they renew, we will lose our power forever.”

“I know.” I felt a moment of bitter satisfaction. He was not the only one who knew the secrets of dragon lore. “But we still have to give the pearl back.”

His gaze sharpened. “How do you know? Have you read the folio, too?”

“No.” I wet my lips. “I went into my dragon. To escape Sethon’s torture.” Kygo’s fingers brushed my arm; a fleeting touch of consolation. “I saw memories from an ancestor.”

Dela shifted; no doubt she had guessed which ancestor.

Something flickered across the wary intensity in Ido’s face; a moment of empathy, or maybe it was just his own pain, remembered. He smiled thinly. “I thought you vowed you would never do that to your dragon. You keep drawing your moral lines, and you keep crossing them.” His eyes held mine, his voice lowering into a caress. “You and I are the same, Eona. We cross the lines that others dare not step over. Cross this last line with me.”

He wanted the dragons’ power. He wanted everything. And he wanted me to take it with him.

“I won’t destroy the dragons.”

He jabbed his forefinger against his chest. “Do you want to feel like this for the rest of your life? As if everything important has been ripped out? Do you want to be nothing again? Because that is what will happen.”

“Eona will never be nothing,” Kygo said. “She is my Naiso.”

Ido snorted. “Why would she be your Naiso when she could be a god with me? It is still the same choice, Eona. Either we take all the power or we are left with nothing.” He held out his hand. His smile drove itself into my very core. “You and I can take it all, Eona, together. It would be like the cyclone, a hundred times over. Forever.”

Kygo gripped my shoulder. “If you think Eona would destroy the dragons and take my land, Ido, then you do not know her at all. We would both die a thousand times over before we would let you have anything you want.”

I stared at Ido’s outstretched hand. The memory of the sea cabin — our bodies entwined and the glorious rising energy— held me still. All that power between us.

Kygo glanced at me. “Eona?”

I took a deep breath, fighting my way through the wash of sensation. With so much power, there could be nothing else. It would burn everything in its path. And every minute of every hour would hold the bud of distrust, just waiting to blossom into betrayal.

“I am not the same as you, Ido,” I said. “I will not destroy the dragons.”

Ido closed his hand into a fist. “You would choose to have no power with him when you could have all the power in the world with me?”

I lifted my chin. “That is not the choice, Ido. I choose the dragons and the land. Not my own ambition. Or yours.”

Beside me, Kygo smiled.

Ido gave a low, harsh laugh. “The emperor and his Naiso, standing united.”

Around us, the pitch of the humming pearls changed, the resonance vibrating through my ear bones.

Ido spun on his heel, taking in the swaying dragons.

“What is happening?” Kygo asked.

“The dragons are preparing to lay down their pearls,” Ido said.

I remembered what he had told me on the beach. Once the pearls were separated from the beasts, they could never reclaim them, and the String of Pearls could not be stopped. It was now either the dragons’ renewal or the land’s destruction.

Ido faced me, his eyes narrowed with fury. “Your misguided loyalty has lost us both our power. All we can do now is avoid annihilation.” His eyes fixed on the white bundle in Dela’s tight grip. “Give me the folio.”

Dela pulled back from his reaching hand. “I do not follow your orders.”

He sucked a breath in between his teeth. “Listen to me, Eona. The Mirror Dragoneye is the only one who can direct the String of Pearls’ power to the dragons. Otherwise it will raze everything to the ground, including us.”

“I have to direct it?” My voice cracked. “How?”

“With the folio and the Righi.”

I stared at him, my memory conjuring the blistering heat and terrible power of the ancient words. “But that’s the death chant.”

“Isn’t that what Dillon used to kill all those soldiers?” Dela asked uneasily.

“It not only destroys,” Ido said, “it creates. It holds the dragons’ Hua in the black folio so we can use their power. “

“How do you know all this?” Kygo demanded.

“I have been studying the String of Pearls for years. The Righi ignites the Imperial Pearl to start the renewal, and it will release the dragons’ Hua from the folio.”

“The dragons’ Hua is in the folio?” Kygo echoed.

I searched Ido’s face, trying to read beyond the fury that pinched his features into a snarl. I did not trust this turnaround. He was not one to back down so easily. But what could I do? Kinra’s memory had also told me the String of Pearls could not be stopped once the dragons had released their pearls into its power circle — but she had not told me that I had to invoke the Righi to release the dragons from the folio.

I clasped Ido’s arm. He flinched under the dig of my grip. “Is that the truth? Is the Righi the only way for their renewal?”

“Do you think I have a death wish because I cannot have you?” he sneered.

I snatched my hand away.

“You are not the woman I thought you were,” he said. “You do not have the steel to be a true queen.”

“Well, you are exactly the man I thought you were,” I snapped.

I hoped he could not see the bitter truth in my heart; some part of me had believed him when he’d said I had changed him. How could I have been so gullible? He was still the same ruthless, selfish Ido. I was the one who had changed, pulled into his world of power and possibility.

Kygo shoved Ido’s shoulder. “Answer her! Is the Righi the only way to do this?”

Ido stepped back, his body tightening into defense. “Yes.”

He was telling the truth, and it dropped a hundredweight of dread through me. I had barely controlled the Righi against Dillon — now it had the force of renewal in it and the power of all the dragons to draw upon. May the gods protect us. And if they could not, at least I could protect Kygo.

I dragged at his arm. “You have to get off the platform.” With a glance, I gathered Dela into my plea. “You too, Dela. Help Tozay. Get off the platform. You saw what happened to Dillon.”

“I am not going anywhere,” Kygo said. He bent and picked up the sword I had dropped. Kinra’s sword.

“Neither am I, Eona,” Dela said.

“No, both of you must go. I don’t know if I can protect you.”

Kygo shook his head. “I will not leave you alone with Lord Ido.”

The Dragoneye circled on the spot, watching the dragons, his hands raking his hair.

Kygo looked at Dela. “Take Tozay down to the lower steps. I want you both safe. That is my command.”

Dela hesitated.

“Go!”

Dela bowed. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

She passed me the bundle. The rope of pearls writhed beneath the cloth, jabbing my hands. “Eona, please be careful,” she said. “I have already lost …” She tipped her head back, her throat jumping with the strain of grief. “Just be careful.”

Together, she and Kygo hauled Tozay to his feet. He was still dazed, but he could walk. Dela took his weight and helped him limp to the edge of the platform. As she supported him down the first step, she looked back and pressed her fist against her chest. The warrior salute. I did not feel like a warrior. I felt terrified. I remembered Ryko in the palace alley telling me I had a warrior’s courage. He’d had such faith in me then. And he had died for that faith.

I lifted my fist to my chest. For Ryko, and for Dela. With a nod, she turned and led Tozay down the steps.

“What do I have to do?” I asked Ido.

“Go up on the dais,” he said, nodding at the small raised stage. “It is the highest point, and once the Righi has ignited the Imperial Pearl, the Mirror Dragon will come for it.”

I looked at the red dragon. Her huge eyes watched me. Kinra’s plea whispered in my mind: Make it right. I followed Ido across the platform to the dais, holding the squirming bundle away from my body. Kygo walked beside me.

“You’ve got the Imperial Pearl?’ I asked.

He opened his palm. The surface of the gem swarmed with silvery leaps and flicks. “It’s hot,” he said.

I laid my fingers across the soft pale curve. It was now almost hot enough to burn.

We stood together for a moment, the Imperial Pearl between our hands. “You are a queen to me,” Kygo said softly. He pressed his lips against my forehead.

“Very touching,” Ido drawled. “Eona, get on the dais.”

I gave him a sour look and stepped up on to the small stage. Kygo stationed himself nearby, sword angled at Ido.

Beyond the circle of swaying dragons, the ragged remains of the two armies watched from a wary distance. The dark clouds above us had swamped the bright day, casting an early gloom over the plain. The air still swirled with the spicy scent of the dragons surrounding us, the heat as much from their earthly presence as from the hot wind that whipped my hair back.

I took a deep breath and unwrapped the black folio, dropping the torn remnants of the shirt. The white pearls snapped straight up, as if they were testing the air, then planed across my hand and along my arm, dragging the folio behind them. Two quick, rattling coils and the book was bound to my arm. The folio’s acid words rose into my mind, burning my pathways, whispering their ancient power. Ido stood hunched before the dais, his arms wrapped around his body. No doubt he remembered the pain of the Righi too.

“It is in my head,” I said. My mouth tasted like it was full of blood and ash.

“Chant it,” Ido said.

The words were waiting. Their bitter keen held the bound Hua of all twelve dragons, and the last cold echoes of Kinra. The chant quickened on my tongue and reached out to the beasts in the circle. It pulled the thrumming energy from their pearls and wove it into the blistering song that hissed from me with the fire of life and death.

The dragons answered the chant with a shrieking chorus of their own. Through the terrible sound, the Rat Dragon bel-lowed urgently, the blue iridescent pearl beneath his chin pulsing with azure-tipped flame. His call silenced the other beasts. They all turned to watch as he lowered his huge wedge head and gently placed his barrel-sized gem on the ground between his opal claws. The separation of dragon and pearl shuddered through the folio and my chant; an ache of loss and hope that brought a sting of tears to my eyes. With a soft cry, the Rat Dragon nudged the sphere with his flared muzzle, rolling the source of his power and wisdom a length from his opal claws.

I glanced across at Ido. He crouched in defeat as he watched his dragon give up the pearl that held their twelve-year bond.

Next to the Rat Dragon, the purple Ox Dragon threw back his horned head and howled his own song of pain and hope. The soft lavender scales under his chin and around his pearl shimmered with violet flames. He lowered his head and gently dropped the pearl onto the ground, tapping it forward with a careful amethyst claw until it lightly touched the Rat Dragon’s blue pearl. As soon as it rocked into place, the green Tiger Dragon lifted his head and sang his own loss. One by one, the male dragons called to their bound spirits in the folio and placed their pearls on the ground.

I felt every longing cry resonate through the folio until eleven enormous dragon pearls — alive with flicks of colored flame — lay side by side in a circle on the trampled earth around the platform.

Only one pearl was missing.

The final call came from the Mirror Dragon. She lifted her majestic head, the glossy crimson scales of throat and chest reflecting the blaze of gold flame from her pearl. Her throbbing call rose up like a heartbeat through my chant. She extended her huge scaled muzzle over the platform, the horselike nostrils flaring, the soft wind of her breath scented with her cinnamon power. Under the curve of heavy horns, her dark, ancient gaze held me inside the endless cycle of life and death — and the dragons’ long wait for release.

Make it right.

“Give Eona the Imperial Pearl,” Ido ordered Kygo. “Now!”

Kygo reached up, and the gem’s smooth heat rolled into my palm. The chant in my head and on my tongue stoked the fire within the heart of their egg. Its silver energy leaped into incandescence.

“Eona, you have to give the pearl to the Mirror Dragon,” Ido said.

But I already knew the ancient path to renewal: it sang in my blood and bones.

First quicken the spark of life within the luminous egg, then press its power into the gold flames of the red dragon’s pearl. Once that was done, I could release the dragon Hua caught in the black folio and send it back to the beasts so that they could die and be reborn.

But the acid words whispered another pathway, too: a way that held all the power of the world. Take the twelve dragon spirits into yourself, it hissed. Take the power waiting to create the new, and leave the old to wither and die. Take everything.

Ido’s words. The black folio’s words.

The Mirror Dragon lifted her huge chin, offering her golden wisdom to me as she had once offered it to me in the arena. The Righi’s words seared into the Imperial Pearl, igniting its silver Hua into a ball of white fire that stung my hands with sharp flicks of power. This was the start of it. And the end of it.

“Good-bye,” I whispered to my dragon.

Reaching up, I pressed the white flames against the gold at her throat. The two surfaces flared and melded together, the force thrusting my hands away. With a soft cinnamon sigh, the Mirror Dragon swung her head down, the huge glowing pearl dropping to the ground. She nosed it into place. As the circle of pearls closed, gold flame leapt from dragon pearl to dragon pearl, igniting each sphere into bright gold heat.

The Necklace of the Gods.

I felt the chant change within me, the hissing command shifting into a lilting call. The Righi was opening the way for the twelve bound spirits.

Kygo turned to me, his smile full of wonder.

I saw the blur of movement from the corner of my eye, but there was no time to cry out. Kygo’s reflexes swung his sword up, but Ido was already at the end of his leap. All of his body weight drove the long knife into Kygo’s back. Ido’s mouth was a bared snarl of effort as he twisted the blade, arching Kygo against his body into gasping shock. The chant froze in my throat. Kygo staggered sideways and landed heavily on the dais, Kinra’s sword still locked in his hand. The white pearls around my arm heaved and shivered as the Mirror Dragon screamed, her protest soaring above the roar of the male dragons.

“No!” I fell to my knees beside him. “Kygo!”

He gulped for breath, the agonized gasp bubbling with blood. I touched his cheek. Already cold with shock. Or was it my own icy horror? My other hand hovered over the knife hilt embedded in his back.

“I wouldn’t pull that out if I were you,” Ido said. “I aimed for the same place where the arrow hit me. He’s got a few minutes.”

“What are you doing?” I cried.

Ido walked up to the dais, observing Kygo’s struggle for breath.

“Hurts, doesn’t it?” he said.

Weakly, Kygo gripped the hilt of the sword and tried to lift it, but it dropped from his grasp and clattered off the dais, landing at Ido’s feet. The Dragoneye kicked the blade away, then looked down at me.

“I’m going to give you a real choice now, Eona,” he said. “If you take all the power with me, you can heal him. Stop his pain and save his life. Or, if you insist on releasing the dragons, you can watch him drown in his own blood.”

“You bastard!” I went for him, my hands tensed into claws. My knees hit the edge of the dais as Ido jumped back out of range.

“I’m just making it easy for you to have what you really want,” he said.

Kygo’s fingers caught my sleeve. “Don’t do it.” Blood flecked his lips. “Don’t give it to him.”

“So much honor, just like his father,” Ido said sarcastically. “I’d say between the dragons and the amount of blood he’s spitting up, you haven’t got long to make up your mind.”

He was right. Kygo’s skin had a bluish tinge around his nose and mouth, and the Righi was building within me again, pushing past my shock to call the bound Hua of the dragons. I could not move, paralyzed by the impossibility of the choice. Kygo or the dragons. My heart or my duty. All the reasons to save the dragons raged through me: Kinra, atonement, the land, the people, the future. And only one reason to save Kygo, tolling through me over and over again.

I loved him.

“Take what you want, Eona,” Ido said. “You have done it all along, so why stop now?”

A slight smile curved his lips. He was so confident that I would agree. I had turned my back and he had struck like a snake.

“You’ll have everything, Eona. Including him.” Ido nudged Kygo’s foot with his own. “It is not so bad to have her control your will, boy.” Ido’s smile turned sly. “I look forward to sharing your compulsion power, Eona. And I think you will enjoy sharing my knowledge. It’s what you’ve wanted all along.”

“I just wanted to be a Dragoneye!”

“You wanted power,” he said. “This way you get it. And you get to save Kygo.”

The Mirror Dragon screeched. Her huge red head swayed from left to right above her blazing pearl. The clouds above us flickered with the light of the flames, reflecting the intense heat.

“All right,” I clenched my fists. “All right.”

“Eona, no!” Kygo lifted his head, the effort forcing a bright trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth. His cold fingers touched my hand, drawing me closer until my forehead rested against his own. I felt his labored breath on my cheek, the metallic smell of his blood in every soft warm gasp. “Do what is right,” he whispered, the words costing him precious air.

I pressed my lips against his cold skin. “I don’t know what is right.”

“Yes, you do, Naiso.” He fell back, panting.

I stood, legs trembling. He wanted me to release the dragons. Yet, if I did, I would lose him and I would lose the Mirror Dragon. I would lose everything. If I took all the power with Ido, I would destroy the dragons and take Kygo’s throne and will from him. He would hate me. I would be left with only power. I would be Ido. A wave of rage swept over me. There was no way to win this battle.

“You must do it now, Eona,” Ido said.

For one despair-ridden moment, I wanted the dragons’ power to explode through the land — to destroy everything in its path, and take away this terrible choice. But I had to choose, and I could not let Kygo die.

I stepped down from the dais, every harsh clicking breath from my beloved pushing me toward the Dragoneye. Ido picked up Kinra’s sword and drew its blade along his hand, inhaling with pleasure as it sliced into his flesh.

“Your turn.” He caught my free hand and turned it over. My palm was already cut from the gold-clawed setting of the Imperial Pearl. My eyes fixed on the moonstone and jade hilt as Ido dragged the sword tip along the same wound. A faint echo of Kinra’s rage shivered through me. Was her Hua still in the folio too? My fingers curled around the stinging draw of fresh blood.

Ido sent the weapon spinning across the boards. “Dragoneye blood to break an ancient Dragoneye binding,” he said. “When the Righi releases the dragons, we must hold on to the folio to take their power.”

He grabbed my hand and pressed it across the white pearls that clamped the folio to my arm, then slapped his own blood-sticky palm over my knuckles. I felt the pearl rope shift and shiver.

“All right. Now we take what is ours. This is our destiny, Eona.” The triumph in his eyes made them as gold as the ring of flames around us. “Call the dragons out of the folio.”

“This is not destiny,” I spat. “This is ambition made from betrayal and murder. Do not dress your atrocities in the garb of the gods.”

He tilted his head, the harsh angle showing the ruthless set of his jaw and the deep lines of brutality from nose to mouth. How could I ever have thought him handsome? His core was rotten and hollow.

“Call it what you will,” he said “But you are standing here with me in the midst of the String of Pearls, and we are about to take all the power in the world. It feels like destiny to me.” He closed his hand over mine, grinding my bones together. “Call the dragons.”

Kinra, help me, I prayed. If you are still within the folio, help me.

On a deep breath, I let the Righi rise again. The words boiled into my mind, a seething summons that rushed through my pathways. Beside me, Ido flinched as he felt the blistering force reach through our bodies to the dragon Hua caught within the folio. It was a torrent of fire through every vein and muscle, bubbling up behind my eyes and drying my mouth into a silent scream. The agony of it pressed me against the brace of Ido’s body. I felt the bindings around the dragons’ Hua blaze and burn, opening their human-made prison of blood and greed.

And I felt another spirit: the faint cool echo of an ancient warrior woman, my ancestress. Kinra.

They are free! I am free! Her joyful voice soared over the disintegrating bonds of the folio.

Free. One simple word and all of my pain crystallized into a terrible certainty. I could not take the renewal power. I could not destroy the hope of rebirth for land and dragon. This was the last chance to right a terrible wrong. The chant stopped in my throat. Time hung still in a silent, bodiless, breathless moment of truth. I had to release the dragons’ Hua. I had to give it back. And it was going to kill Kygo.

The chant burst out of me again, my scream of anguish swept up into the howling rhythm of release.

Kinra, help me, I prayed. Help me make it right.

The rope of white pearls heaved against my hand. Kinra’s cool presence rushed into me, the liberated dragon Hua following like a tornado made of fire and power. Every one of my nerves was stretched to the breaking point, my mind unraveling into the maelstrom of raw energy, throat shredding with the acid chant that pulled their Hua into the conduit that was my body. It slammed through me and into Ido, the force making us both stagger.

“Eona, hold the power,” he yelled.

“No!”

He thrust his face into mine. “What are you doing?”

The hissing song of chaos poured through me. I bared my teeth into a smile, and in my mind I saw Dillon’s death’s-head grin. The Righi was life and death. And so was I.

Ido closed his hand around my throat, trying to choke off the words, but the Hua still came. Twelve spirit tethers gathering within us with the force of a cyclone. Ido wrenched at my hand, bending my fingers away from the pearls. A thin bone snapped, but I felt no pain. Everything was subsumed by the whirling, blazing power.

Against the backdrop of gold flames and plunging dragons, I saw men scrambling onto the platform, cringing away from the inferno rising from the circle of pearls. The familiar shapes of Dela and Tozay crouched among wild-eyed soldiers and resistance fighters, everyone cowering together against the intense heat and the huge thrashing, screaming beasts.

Ido dug his fingers under the white pearls. “I will not lose my power!” The spittle spray of his rage was cool against my scorching skin. “I am the Rat Dragoneye!”

I heaved against his weight. “I am the Mirror Dragoneye— and I give the power back.”

I felt the Mirror Dragon’s howl shift into a cry of joy.

Ido slammed his fist into my jaw, the sound of bone against bone loud in my head. I felt no pain, although the heavy impact knocked me backward. We both staggered, tied together by Ido’s iron grip on the pearls. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Kygo pulling himself along the dais, every tiny shift forward shuddering through his determined face.

Ido yanked at the folio. “Give it to me!”

The end of the pearl rope curled and snapped across his hand. He forced his fingers beneath it again and ripped at the tight coils, his desperate strength sliding the folio down my arm to my wrist. With a grunt of victory he wrenched the folio free, the power unraveling out of me and pouring into his body.

I reeled from the sudden loss and crashed to the ground. The pearls swung out in a snapping circle, then wrapped around Ido’s hands.

He looked down at me, his eyes black pits of Gan Hua. “I do not need you anymore. I can hold this power by myself.”

I scrabbled backward. His body was silhouetted against the flames. Energy bathed his skin, casting him into shimmering silver light. The power of the ages, the power of all twelve dragons. And Ido believed he could hold it by himself.

I drew in a deep breath, hot air scorching the cavities of my chest, and found the pathway to the energy world. The platform around me warped and shuddered into the celestial plane. I flinched under the assault of blinding light and the writhing spectrum of color that leaped from the gold flames around the dragon pearls. Ido’s energy body swarmed with silver and black Hua. His seven points of power from sacrum to crown circled at a speed that blurred them into solid spheres of bright color: red, orange, yellow — and then the stunted green heart point. Never truly changed.

A wedge of darkness in all the bright fury drew my eyes to the purple sphere in his crown, the center of enlightenment. The black gap was still there like a deep wound within its spinning purple vigor. And it was getting bigger. The silver energy in his body pulsed and swelled, again and again. Every throbbing influx of power forced the gap wider and wider. Suddenly it split apart, a white-hot bolt of dragon Hua bursting from its spinning center.

“Ido, you cannot hold it,” I screamed. “Give it back to them. Let it go!”

His silvered eyes found mine. “I have it all, Eona! I am a god!”

“Let it go, now!”

His heart point exploded first. The green sphere burst under the pressure of the dragon power, a bright emerald flare that died into a dark hole in his chest. The orange sacral point was next, its flash cascading into his yellow delta, tiny exploding suns that left darkness in their wake. He writhed in agony as the blue and indigo points heaved and vaporized.

For a long moment, the split purple sphere in his crown spun with all the power of the world. Then it erupted into a blazing torrent of Hua, streaming into the waiting dragons. The roaring power engulfed Ido’s body in gold and silver flames. I saw him reach out toward me. Then he was gone, incinerated into a glowing spiral of ash and dust, our link severed into searing loss. The black folio dropped onto the platform, the white pearls rattling around its leather binding like dry bones.

The celestial plane snapped back into the earthly platform. I stared at the charred space on the wooden boards.

Lord Ido was dead, consumed by the dragon power he had craved. All that ambition and drive, gone. I took a breath, a strangled half-sob within it. We had been bound together through power and pain. And pleasure. But he had betrayed and tortured and murdered: he did not deserve my grief. Yet there was a part of me that mourned him — the part that had smiled at his sly humor, felt the slow touch of his hand and the thrill of his power. The part of me that had once thought he could change.

Lord Ido was dead, and even in death the man divided me.

I hauled myself on to my hands and knees and crawled to the dais. My true grief was waiting for me, sprawled on his side, breath so shallow that it hardly moved his chest. His eye-lids flickered as I stroked his face, cold and clammy although his skin was reddened by the heat. He licked parched lips and opened his eyes. They were already dulled and unfocused.

“Ido?” His voice was just a wisp of wet breath.

“Dead.”

“Good.”

I cupped his cheek, the pain of my broken bones and scorched skin suddenly sharp and full. “I have no power to heal.”

He tried to lift his hand, but got no farther than a shift of his wrist. “Did right,” he whispered. I slid my hand under his curled fingers, the slack weight bringing a sob into my throat. He swallowed, gathering moisture to make the words. “The dragons?”

“They have their power. They are renewing.”

The corners of his beautiful mouth lifted. “Let me see.”

Around us, the flames from the circle of pearls were like a curtain of leaping gold and red, the shapes of the dragons glimpsed behind it. Carefully, I settled Kygo’s head onto my lap, the pain of the shift shivering through his body. The knife hilt still protruded from his back. Dark blood seeped from the sucking wound, the gloss of it catching the flicker of the gold fire. I carefully pressed my thumb and finger around the wound, trying to stop the leak of his precious breath.

The Mirror Dragon lifted her head and sang — a long rising scale that called beyond the earthly plane. The sound was like kindling to the gold flames. Every pearl flared up into high, bright heat. One by one, the male dragons moved forward and stepped into the fire of their pearls. A scorching wind rolled off the fierce combustion, the intense blaze snapping and roaring around the old beasts. The charred smell of dragon death was thick and harsh in my aching throat as each one of their huge bodies was reduced to ash. Finally, only the Mirror Dragon stood behind her pearl. She turned her head toward me, her gold and bronze flecked mane already ablaze as she stepped into the fire of her rebirth. I moaned as the flames overwhelmed her, drying the tears in my eyes into stinging salt.

The circle of fire exploded upward into bright embers that swirled and danced in multicolored streams. The huge dragon pearls cracked and split.

My breath caught as shapes emerged within the flames: curled horns, long, elegant muzzles and muscled legs, talons that sparked with the hard color of precious stones. The new Horse Dragon emerged first from his flaming pearl — bigger than the old beast, his magnificent orange scales steaming with heat, pale watersilk wings flicking out into a tentative stretch. He shook himself, his soft ocher beard shifting to show the gleam of the apricot pearl beneath his chin. The neverending cycle. As he launched himself up into the dark clouds, the flames of his pearl guttered and died. I craned my head back to watch his flight; a wide circle around the plain, his big body sleek and supple in the air. With a loud, triumphant call, he disappeared into the celestial plane.

“The land will be well,” Kygo whispered.

We watched as, one by one, the male dragons were reborn.

New wings stretching, tongues tasting the air, the huff and blow of spicy breath, and the first flights that circled above us, ending in the long call of triumph and return to the celestial plane.

Only one flaming pearl remained. I held my breath as it split and fell apart, the leap of gold flames around it tinged with crimson.

Her horns emerged first, curled and tapered over her broad forehead, the fall of gold mane shifting in the fire-wind of rebirth. She rose out of the dying flames of her egg, her massive body gleaming with red scales that graduated from rose-blush around her eyes to a deep crimson across her muscular shoulders and legs. She lifted her flared muzzle and sniffed the air, the new pearl nestled under her chin a paler gold than the one before. Silk-thin wings spread and flapped once, then folded back against the long sinuous curve of her scarlet spine. She opened a curl of ruby claws, and I saw a tiny, luminous orb cupped within; the Imperial Pearl, reborn with the dragons. The ruby talons closed over it. Lowering her head, she looked directly at me. I leaned forward, hoping to see recognition in her great spirit eyes. Their dark endlessness held the wisdom of the world, but they did not hold me.

She was not my Mirror Dragon.

The harsh truth hit me: I had lost my dragon. Without even realizing it, I had expected that our union would cross the bridge of her rebirth. But it had not.

I felt Kygo’s body tense against mine, the wheeze of his breath hardening into a harsh rasp. I knew that sound: the death rattle. His agonized eyes were fixed on my face. No, I could not bear it. I could not lose him, too. I cradled his head in my arms, trying to anchor him to the earthly plane. Perhaps if I held him close enough, he would not walk the path to his ancestors.

“Kygo, do not go, “ I pleaded. “Do not go.”

Sudden screams lifted my head. The men who had taken refuge on the top steps were diving out of the way as the new Mirror Dragon’s huge muzzle planed across the platform and stopped a length or so above my head, the heat of her breath carrying the unfamiliar spice of nutmeg. I stared past the razored fangs and looked up into her dark eyes, my heart pounding. Within the wise depths of her gaze, I saw something shift. An echo of an old bond. Slowly, she lowered her great chin and delicately nuzzled Kygo’s chest. She drew in a breath and on its sweet nutmeg exhale, golden Hua flowed into his body.

She was healing him.

I remembered Caido’s wisdom and grabbed the knife hilt, yanking the blade from Kygo’s body. The wound closed as the steel slid from his flesh, his cold skin warming under my touch. With a stuttering gasp, his breath settled into a deep, regular rhythm. Then I felt the soft touch of her muzzle brush against my head. Her power flowed into me: a glorious rush of joy and gratitude. The golden Hua pulled the bone of my snapped finger together, knitting it back into unity, and soothed my scorched skin into smooth ease. My own breath broke into a long hard sob.

I stretched up and stroked the ridged silk scales, hoping she understood my joy and gratitude, too. She crooned and pulled her head away. As she launched herself into the sky, Kygo’s eyes opened. He spread his hand against his chest, pushing himself up onto an elbow.

“I can breathe,” he said. He reached over his shoulder, his fingertips sweeping the flat, unmarked muscle of his back. “I thought you could not heal?”

“I can’t.” I pushed through the pang of loss. Kygo was alive and the dragons were free. It would be enough. “The Mirror Dragon healed you.”

He sat up. “But you held me here. I was so close to the garden of the gods, I could hear my father’s voice.” He pressed his forehead to mine, dark eyes somber. “Then I heard your voice.” His head tilted until his mouth was only a warm breath from my own. “My Naiso.” The title softened against my lips into a kiss.

The triumphant call of the Mirror Dragon broke into the sweet moment. She was returning to the celestial plane. Kygo took my hand, and together we stood as the great dragon circled above the platform, her cries echoing around us. She arrowed her body upward, the dark ring of clouds breaking apart as her huge crimson body cut through them. With one last spiraling plunge she disappeared from the brightening sky.

Silence settled across the platform. Slowly, soldiers and resistance fighters clambered to their feet, their awe gathering them into a loose semicircle before us. Farther back, Dela helped Tozay to stand. Both alive. I sent a small prayer of thanks. And another prayer for Ryko—May he walk in the garden of the gods.

The semicircle parted as Dela led Tozay to us. Although the general’s face was pale and drawn with pain, shrewd sense was back in his eyes.

“His Majesty is truly blessed by the gods and beloved of the dragons,” he said loudly as he and Dela limped through the ragged collection of men. “He and his Naiso have returned the Imperial Pearl to the spirit beasts and brought renewal and peace to our land.” Slowly he turned, eyeing the reverent men. “Bow before your true emperor. And bow before the last Dragoneye.”

One by one, the men on the platform knelt before us in low obeisance. With Dela’s help, Tozay slowly lowered himself to his knees, his keen glance meeting Kygo’s in silent strategy. The Contraire gracefully bowed beside him, a fleeting smile answering mine. She had lost so much, yet she still had the strength to smile.

Kygo straightened, his hand tightening around mine. “Rise,” he ordered the bowing men. “Balance has been restored to the heavens and earth, but we have work ahead of us to restore order to the empire.”

Balance in the heavens. Could I still see the dragons? On a deep breath I sought the pathways of my mind-sight, shifting into the familiar streaming colors and swirling Hua of the energy world. High above us, the Circle of Twelve was complete, all the dragons in their celestial domains. As if she recognized my presence, the new Mirror Dragon turned her huge crimson head toward me. I felt her curious spirit brush against mine, and within it was the soft cinnamon joy of a remembered bond.