Eona - Alison Goodman [188]
All of my fury and pain and terror converged into one thought: Kill him.
I drew a deep breath and lunged for the energy world. The room twisted into streaming colors, the energy body of Sethon before me rushing with dark-edged excitement.
The red dragon writhed above me, her golden power locked into the crimson pulse of her huge body. Nearby, the blue beast roared its fury. Could Ido feel what was happening?
“Holy gods,” Sethon whispered. “They are beautiful.”
He could see them through the folio’s power.
Sethon’s energy body leaned down, the heat of his breath against my ear. The words he whispered were bitter and strong—an ancient command that closed around my Hua like a strangling hand. I clawed at it, my desperation useless against the implacable strength.
“Heal your wounds,” Sethon ordered.
It was as if the hand opened for one precious moment, allowing a breath of the red dragon’s golden power and a rush of healing ease. I opened my mouth to call her—Turn the healing on him, take his will, kill him!—but the hand clamped tight again, stifling my voice, blocking me from her glorious power. The energy planes of Sethon’s face solidified into flesh and bone again, the streaming colors around me buckling back into the stillness of the tent.
I gasped, drawing in the sudden absence of pain. The carved mess of my chest was smooth again under the clotting blood, and the swollen ruin of my finger had knitted straight.
Sethon’s head was thrown back as if at the end of an ecstasy. “So that is the energy world,” he whispered. “Such power. No wonder Ido wanted it all.” He broke into a rough laugh. “And when he comes for you, I will have his dragon, too. An army with two Dragoneyes. I will be unconquerable.”
“No!”
He wiped his hand across my chest, smearing the blood. “You have no choice, Lady Eona. Your will is mine.” He raised the knife again. “And, before long, your spirit will be, too.”
Again, he lifted my chin, the shape of him blurred by blood and tears. He was never going to stop. Cutting me over and over again.
Hours must have passed—I could see the brightening of daylight at the base of the tent wall.
At the corner of my eye, I saw him pick up the mallet. He wanted my spirit, and he would have it soon; I could feel the loosening of hope, the ebb of strength and resolve.
I had to find a way beyond his reach. Before it was too late.
Ido had taken refuge in his dragon. But how? With pain, he’d said. Slowly, I found the memory in my clouded mind—we were training, the smell of jasmine, his thumbs pressed into the soft centers of my palms. Our first touch. He had told me that pain was an energy. I could use it to find the dragon. Not a true union. A last resort—and dangerous to the dragon and the Dragoneye.
But Ido had not been held by the bonds of royal blood and the black folio.
Sethon bent down, wrenched off my sandal, and pressed my foot onto the dirt; a solid backing for his mallet. Under my bare sole, I felt rough earth, the wetness of my blood. And something else: a tiny shiver through my foot’s gateway of energy.
I stilled, focusing past the roar of pain in my body. It was earth energy; the oldest power. And my blood—my ancestors’ blood—dripping from me into the dirt of the east, my dragon’s heartland. Her center of power. I drew in a shaking breath to hide my desperate hope, waiting. And dreading.
The smashing blow exploded through me, every part of me gathered in its agony. Screaming, I opened myself to the earth’s energy and the primal power of my blood—an ancient call to an ancient dragon.
Spinning. Weightless. Pain gone. All sensation gone. Only darkness—in my eyes, my nose, my mouth. A cocoon of blessed relief.
Was I dead?
Eona.
A voice. Familiar.
Eona. Come. I have been waiting for so long. We have all been waiting for so long.
Waiting? Who has been waiting?
Come.
The voice drew me out