Eona - Alison Goodman [168]
“Yuso,” Kygo ordered, motioning to the brazier.
Yuso grasped Ido’s arm, preparing to pull him upright, but the Dragoneye wrenched himself out of the captain’s grip and stood under his own volition. He looked around the room, slowly and deliberately—and in that moment I understood the strength of Ido’s will, for there was not one friendly face in that crowd. Not one place to find solace. Then he walked to the brazier.
Yuso followed.
“Lady Eona,” Kygo said. He looked at me, and I finally saw what was in his heart: fury at Rulan for forcing his hand, and regret for me. “Show Rulan your power.”
I stood as Yuso undid Ido’s shackles, then pulled them off his wrists and stepped back. The tent was so quiet I could hear Ido’s quickening breaths. Or perhaps they were just mine. I crossed the distance between us and stood opposite him. He had to have one pair of eyes that offered compassion, even if they belonged to his torturer.
“Again,” I said, hoping he would understand.
The tilt of his head was almost imperceptible, his face paling with anticipation.
I reached with my Hua and found his heartbeat, folding his pulse into mine. Then I sought the deeper level; the pathways that flared so dark between us, the pathways that had fused pleasure and pain. This time there was resistance. Ruthlessly, I pushed through it, the compulsion rolling over him, his eyes widening with the energy that leaped through us.
“Lord Ido, put your arm into the brazier,” I ordered, fighting back the rise of bile into my mouth.
I felt Ido’s instinct rage against the command, the sinews ridging in his arm as he braced against my will. But he could not withstand the force behind it. He turned, and with head thrown back, plunged his arm into the glowing coals. His choked scream shuddered through me, his agony resonating through my Hua.
“One,” Kygo said. “Two.”
I heard the gasps from around the tent, but I was fixed on Ido, concentrating fiercely on the meld of pathways between us. I had a plan.
“Three,” Kygo said above the growing calls of excitement. “Four.”
Pain was just another kind of energy; Ido had said that. And energy could be directed, stopped, absorbed. I caught the torment that surged along the three meridian lines of his arm. Clenching my teeth against the backlash of boiling, blistering pain, I rammed my Hua against their convergence in his shoulder, blocking the flow. Blocking sensation.
Ido dropped to one knee. Around us, the calls had thickened into baying.
“Silence,” Tozay roared. The mob subsided into whispers. I could smell the same stench that had been in the ash wind on the beach: pain and burning and fear.
“Five.” Kygo’s voice was flat, emotionless. “Six.”
Damming the raw pain was like holding back a battering ram with my bare hands. But I felt Ido’s breaths lengthen, the straining shock of his body ease a level.
“Seven . . . eight.”
Pain seeped through my hold, long splinters of molten fire searing through our Hua.
“Nine,” Kygo said. “Ten!”
I grabbed the back of Ido’s tunic and pulled him free of the brazier. And my protection. He collapsed onto the rugs, gasping for breath. My gorge rose at the stink of burnt flesh and the terrible damage to his arm. But there was no time for horror. I gathered the rage that was building in me.
“This is not the purpose of dragon power!” I screamed at Rulan. “I will show you the Mirror Dragon’s true power!”
I splayed my hands on Ido’s chest and, with one breath, entered the energy world in a twisting buckle of color.
The tent was a seething mass of Hua. Silver savagery leaped through the transparent bodies of the mob around us, the swirl of violent energy streaming around the tent and between the two coiled dragons above. The blue beast shrieked