Eona - Alison Goodman [115]
“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