Eona - Alison Goodman [190]
“We only use three in the worst situations,” he protests.
“See, you are downplaying it, too. Just like the rest of the Council.”
For a moment he stares at me. Then, reluctantly, he nods. “How would this renewal be achieved?”
I lower my voice. “Somo, I think the dragons are reborn through the String of Pearls.”
He steps back. “The weapon?” He gives an uneasy laugh. “Do you intend to kill us all to release all the dragon power?”
“No, it is not meant to be a weapon. It is supposed to be the way for the dragons to renew.” I point to the symbol tooled into the book’s black leather cover. “See, there are twelve interlocking circles. They symbolize the pearl that each dragon carries under its chin. They are not just pearls of wisdom, Somo. They are each dragon’s new self, waiting to be born.” I run my finger around the large circle created by the smaller interlocking circles. “And this, the thirteenth pearl. The Imperial Pearl—the catalyst—that brings their renewal. What we stole from them.”
Somo stares at me. “If they are reborn, what will happen to our union with them?”
I straighten, knowing the pain I am about to cause, because I feel its deep ache myself. “It will go with the old beasts.”
“Go? You mean for good?”
“Yes. We will lose our dragons forever.”
“Kinra, we will lose our power!”
“It is a power built on the enslavement of the dragons, Somo! We are creating a massive imbalance in the land’s Hua by not allowing them to renew.” I point to our daughter, click-clacking her horse across the parquetry. So innocent. “Do you want her children’s children to bear the bad luck that our greed will bring upon them? They will curse our names as the land dies around them! And we will have no rest in the garden of the gods if we do not right this terrible wrong.”
The dim, rose-scented room snapped back into the bright ebb and flow of the celestial plane. Kinra’s memory seared through me. I would lose my dragon. Ido had been right; there was no middle ground. It was all the power or nothing.
Far below me, the energy in the tent broke and swirled as someone burst through the doorway and knelt, every pathway in the newcomer’s body rushing with frantic Hua.
Sethon turned. “What is it?”
“The resistance is massing at the top of the ridge, Your Majesty.”
Sethon’s dark energy surged. “Excellent. Prepare for engagement.”
He circled the chair, pacing, then picked up a knife and sliced into the palm of his hand. Hua gathered at the pulsing leak. He closed his fist around the pearls. “Return to your body, now.”
The blood command reached toward me, calling me back to my flesh.
Not yet!
Kinra’s voice was desperate, dissolving the streaming colors around me into—
—the same bedchamber. Alone. Six months of preparations nearly complete.
Tonight, Emperor Dao will call for my body, and I will steal the pearl. He thinks he has finally seduced the Dragoneye Queen, the only woman in his empire who can reject him with impunity. He thinks he has won me away from Somo. I slot the calligraphy brush into its porcelain rest and press the back of my hand to my wet eyes, stemming the useless tears. Whether I succeed or not, tonight everything changes.
At least Pia is safe—hidden far away with a good family. Leaning down, I blow on the wet ink of the last entry in the red journal. Woman script and code; it should be safe. The journal is my letter to Pia, the only way she will ever know why she lost her mother and father and her Dragoneye heritage. And if we fail, it will show her the way to make it right.
I close the journal and watch the black pearls settle around the smooth red leather; an idea I have borrowed from the first Dragoneyes. They knew how to guard their secrets.
If all goes according to plan, I will take the pearl from Dao on the hour of the Ox and meet Somo outside the palace,