Eona - Alison Goodman [108]
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,