Eona - Alison Goodman [182]
Searing heat exploded through me again. Ido screamed. Above, the Mirror Dragon bellowed, her golden power meeting the conflagration, holding back its deadly force.
A cold, clear thought pierced the scorching pain in my head. Do not fight it. Take it. As I had on the mountainside. The folio had wanted me, not Dillon. Its madness had reached for my mind, whispering promises of perfect power.
Madness. It would bring madness.
But it was better than this burning death.
“Come,” I screamed and held out my arm. “Come to me.”
“No!” Dillon shrieked. “The power is mine!”
I saw the dark energy gather in him like a snake coiling to strike. The white pearls unraveled from his arm in a spinning snap and leaped at me. They writhed through the air, dragging the folio behind them, then wrapped around my wrist in a slam of weight, binding the book against my skin. Power pulsed up my arm like acid through my veins. Dillon ran for me, his bone fingers ripping and dragging at the folio’s defection. His chanting broke into a howl as its ancient power drained from him into me.
I gasped as the killing heat disappeared. Below me, Ido groaned, his body slumping with relief. “You have it. Kill him.”
I tried to focus past the words that ate into my mind—dark secrets that scored my spirit with old power. The song of the Righi settled on my tongue, hissing into soft sibilance. Its power was a bitter vinegar, drying my mouth, sucking away softness and hope. The chant was in my head, spilling from my mouth, lifting power from the Hua around me—from the earth, the air, the dragons—building into a fire of destruction that bowed to my bidding. I heard the distant screaming protest of the crimson beast, but her power was mine. All power was mine.
Dillon pulled at the folio, yammering with rage. My chant quickened, weaving the power into more and more heat, every whispered word stoking the scorching energy into his destruction. He arched back, screaming, but I kept singing the song of his death.
Clapping his hands to his head, he fell to his knees. Blood streamed from his nose, his ears, from the black pits of his eyes. The words fell from me into him, building and building into a furnace of annihilation. I was killing him, and I could not stop.
Help me, I prayed. Help me, Kinra. But it was too late.
Dillon’s scream cut off, his body disintegrating into a sudden searing wind of dark ash and red mist that pelted my face with wet, gritty death.
I screamed, horror beating against my mind like leathery wings, but the acid words kept coming. Ido rolled away from me, crawling across the ground, coughing with pain.
Another song rose through me, pulling at my mind, bright and cool, a counterpoint to the words of the folio. I knew that song. I had sung its healing with the Mirror Dragon. I felt its golden harmony break through the bitter hiss of Gan Hua, easing the dark hold of its power. My breath broke into a sob as the terrible chanting faded from my throat, my mind. I dug my fingers under the pearls, my nails gouging the flesh of my arm. With the last of my strength I wrenched the folio free and flung it to the ground. It landed in the dirt, the pearls thrashing like a cut snake.
I fell to my knees and vomited over and over again, heaving my anguish into the earth. I had killed Dillon. The atrocity was still wet on my face and hands, the bitter taste of death still in my mouth. Maybe it would never leave me.
Nearby, Ido sat back on his heels, scanning the ground around us. “Where is the folio?” he rasped. “Do you have it?”
I managed a nod. It was beside me, the pearls coiled across the cover.
The sound of hooves resonated through the earth, galloping at speed. I raised my head to see Kygo, flanked by Ryko and Yuso, their horses lathered with effort.
“Eona!” Kygo wrenched the horse to a stop and dismounted into a flat run. His eyes were on me, not the folio. Behind him, Ryko and Yuso swung themselves from their saddles and followed their emperor.
“Eona!” Ido