Eona - Alison Goodman [128]
“Good,” he said tightly. “As you exhale, hold the Hua in the Axis.”
I breathed out, feeling our hands move together. He leaned closer, his head bent to mine.
“Are you sure you want to do that, Eona?”
“What?”
He licked his lips. “You are compelling me.”
“No, I’m not,” I said.
“Yes, you are.”
He drew my hand against his chest. Through the curve of damp muscle, I could feel his heartbeat quickening under my palm. I swallowed, my mouth suddenly dry. His rhythm was in my own blood. I was compelling him, in a different way. A call, not a coercion.
“I’m sorry.” I tried to pull my hand free, but he locked it against his chest.
“I’m not complaining.”
I shook my head. It was wrong. A dark attraction. It felt even more wrong than hurting him. Yet it pushed me toward him, just as much as it pulled him to me. I snatched my hand away and stepped back, the subtle link breaking.
Ido released a long, ragged breath.
“That was some kind of Gan Hua, wasn’t it?” I said.
He touched his chest. “It would seem so.”
“I don’t know how to control it.” I grabbed his arm. “You have to teach me.”
He looked down at my desperate hold. “Don’t be afraid of your power, Eona. It is a gift.”
“It doesn’t feel like a gift. It feels out of control.”
“Of course it is out of control,” he said. “Gan Hua is chaos.”
“But it is dangerous,” I said. “In my candidate training—”
“That is nonsense fed to you by frightened men.” He dismissed the training with a flick of his hand. “We can distill Hua into either Gan or Lin—chaos or order—and neither force is intrinsically dangerous, or good or bad. They just are. The Dragoneye Council was full of fools.” He shook his head. “They never understood the extraordinary power that comes out of chaos. But you understand. You use Gan Hua in a way that I never thought possible. I only wish I had your ability.”
“But you used Gan Hua to go into your dragon.”
He rubbed his hand across his mouth. “A clumsy attempt compared to yours, and only as a last resort.”
“But how did you do it? How did you control it?”
He hesitated. “Pain is energy. I transferred it to my dragon and used Gan Hua to hold myself in the beast, away from what was happening to my physical body.”
For all the heat of the new day, a chill swept over my damp skin. “Is that why your dragon was in such agony?”
“I said it was a last resort.” His voice hardened. “And, as you saw”—he touched his crown—“the damage was not only to the dragon. I stayed too long and drew on too much of my dragon’s power without the requisite return.”
“I would never inflict such pain on my dragon,” I said.
“And yet you inflict pain on me and your friend Ryko,” he said. “It is easy to say ‘never,’ Eona. But you have already stepped over a line, and you did not even see it in your rush to get what you wanted.”
I glared at him. “You have no idea what I want.”
“Tell me, then.”
“I want to master Gan Hua. As quickly as possible.”
“For all your fear, you still want more power?” He smiled. “You are a true queen.”
“No, you don’t understand,” I said, twisting my hands together. “I need to master Gan Hua because the dragons are not immortal. At least, their power is not without end.”
He stilled. “What makes you say that?”
“There is a portent in the red folio. It says that when the Mirror Dragon rises, it is a sign of the end of the dragons.”
“What?” He grabbed my arm. “Show it to me. Now!”
“I know every word of it.” I tapped my head; it was inscribed upon my mind in fire. Slowly, I recited it:
“The She of the dragon will return and ascend
When the cycle of twelve draws to an end.
The She of the Dragoneye will restore and defend
When the dark force is mastered with the Hua of All
Men.”
“Say that last line again,” Ido demanded.
I repeated it.
“Lady Dela and I think ‘the dark force’ means Gan Hua,” I added.
“Yes, that is what our ancestors called it.” His eyes scanned the clear space around us, his whole body tense.
“But we don’t know what ‘the Hua of All Men’ means.”
“I know what it means,” he said.
“What?”
He leaned closer until his lips were against my ear.