Eona - Alison Goodman [126]
I chose the largest rock in reach and, with a hard flick of my wrist, spun it at the stump. It carved a chunk out of the wood, the sliver flying up in a high arc. That had to be at least twenty points.
“Was it about Lord Ido?” She edged over again, her brows drawn into a worried knit.
“No.”
“What was it, then? You cannot just sit here in the sun, throwing rocks. The perimeter guards are getting edgy. And you are ruining your complexion.”
I fingered the smooth stone in my hand. “What did you find in the folio?”
She looked down at the red journal, its pearls wrapped around her wrist. “How do you know I found something?”
I aimed again. The stone hit square and bounced into the bushes. If I were playing for coins—like I used to with the other Dragoneye candidates—I would be making a fortune.
“I found out who the other man was in the triangle with Kinra and Emperor Dao,” she said softly, breaking the silence.
I flicked over a few rock possibilities and chose a nasty edged piece of flint.
“It was Lord Somo,” Dela said.
“Never heard of him.”
“He was the Rat Dragoneye.”
I paused, my hand drawn back midthrow. “Kinra was in league with the Rat Dragoneye?” I looked across the clearing at Ido, the irony of it welling up into a harsh laugh.
“What do you think it means?” Dela asked.
“Nothing,” I said flatly. “The book is a history, not a prophecy.” I threw the flint. It completely missed the stump.
“But it does have the portent in it,” she said. I shrugged, unwilling to concede the point. “It is just a coincidence, then?”
“Yes,” I said firmly.
“I don’t think so.” Dela was just as firm. “Look at me, Eona.”
I finally met the worry in her deep-set eyes. “All right, then. What do you think it means?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “But Lord Ido is here, and His Majesty is here. And you are between them. A Rat Dragoneye, an emperor, and a Mirror Dragoneye.”
“I am not between them. Lord Ido is here to train me. And Kygo is here to use me,” I said bitterly.
“Use you?”
I cursed my tongue and the tears that had come to my eyes. “It doesn’t matter.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing.” I groped for a change of subject. “Have you spoken to Ryko yet? Now that you know he returns your regard.”
She squinted at me, finally giving in to the clumsy deflection. “Yes, I spoke to him.”
“And?”
“He said that he has nothing to offer me. No rank, no land. Not even his free will.” She sighed.
I leaned forward. “But that doesn’t matter, does it? You would take him with nothing, because you love him.”
“Yes, of course.”
I picked up another rock and lined up the stump. “Lucky Ryko,” I said.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
OUR GOAL WAS the coast. Master Tozay had nominated Sokayo, a small village with resistance sympathies and a good harbor for our rendezvous. It was at least three nights of hard traveling away, even without the added complication of Sethon’s patrols sweeping the land.
Twice during the first night we crouched among the dense foliage, praying to the gods as troops passed by only a few lengths away. And on a dawn scouting mission, Yuso came face to face with a young foraging soldier. Yuso’s description of the encounter was predictably terse; he held up a precious map of the area and two dead rabbits, adding that no one would find the man’s body. The gods, it seemed, were not only hearing our prayers, they were answering them.
Between the tense hours of night travel and snatched hours of sleep during the day, Ido began to teach me the Staminata: the slow-moving combination of meditation and movement that helped to counteract the energy drain of communing with a dragon. I’d had only one Staminata lesson before the coup, but even that had helped me understand the transfer of energy throughout my body. Ido said the training was as much for him as for me. If he was to have any chance of holding back the ten bereft beasts while I practiced the dragon arts, he needed to restore the balance of energy in his own body.
And it was becoming painfully apparent by our second session that balance was the essence of the Staminata.