Eona - Alison Goodman [196]
Kygo’s eyes fixed on the blood caking the front of my tunic. “Eona, what has he done to you?” he rasped. “Are you all right?”
I nodded, although I was not. “I’m so sorry,” I managed. “He’s compelling me.” I tried to raise my hands, but they would not move. “The folio.”
“You have less honor than a piece of shit,” Kygo spat at his uncle.
“And you have all your father’s honor,” Sethon countered.
Kygo’s jaw clenched, the outline of each muscle ridged along the strong bone. “I hope so.”
“It was not a compliment.” Sethon inhaled deeply, as if savoring his next words. “Bow to your emperor.”
Kygo’s voice was steel. “No.”
“Bow!” Sethon said.
“I will not bow before a traitor to this land,” Kygo said loudly.
His words sent a wave of anticipation through the watching soldiers, as if the gates had opened on two fighting dogs.
Sethon jerked his chin at a soldier standing guard. “Bring me one of his men.”
The guard dragged a kneeling prisoner in front of us. It was Caido, his body bent with exhaustion. He lifted his eyes to Kygo, his bloodless lips shifting in a prayer.
Sethon hefted Kinra’s sword. “Bow, or I will kill your man.”
Kygo stiffened, but before he could say anything, Caido suddenly lunged at Sethon, his thin face twisted with desperate rage. “He does not bow to you!”
The sword swung, the heavy crunch of bone coming a moment before the spray of blood through the air. Caido’s body slumped to the ground. I closed my eyes, the image of the man’s head half hacked from his shoulders stark against my lids.
“Yuso,” Sethon snapped. “Which of these prisoners are important to my nephew?”
My eyes flew open as the captain stepped out from the small entourage behind us. I held my breath as he slowly walked the line of prisoners, keeping a wary distance from the palpable hate that rose from the kneeling men. A gob of spittle arced out from their ranks and landed near his feet.
He stopped in front of Dela.
“This is the Contraire, Your Majesty,” he said.
Dela wore men’s armor and had pulled her hair back into a man’s high queue, yet she was all female warrior, fierce and sharp. The wound across her face had opened again, and her cheek was smeared with blood like war paint.
“I hope your death is long and painful,” she said.
Ignoring her, Yuso pointed at Ryko. “And that is the islander. He has been with the prince since the start.”
“Why did you do it?” Ryko said, his voice as hard and honed as a blade—yet in it, I heard the terrible pain of his captain’s betrayal.
“He has my son, Ryko,” Yuso said through his teeth.
For a moment the two men stared at one another. Then Yuso moved on, stopping once more. “Tozay, his general.”
Master Tozay lifted his head, his lined face gaunt and gray, the strong width of his shoulders slumped. He had always been the bulwark behind Kygo. Now, all I saw was a defeated man.
“Bring them up onto the platform,” Sethon ordered. “I want every man to see me claim the pearl and kill the resistance, once and for all.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
SETHON PACED IN front of me across the small central dais. He had placed me at the base of his throne again, so that everybody could see the Dragoneye at his feet. He had removed his armor and undertunic and wore only trousers and boots, his scarred, heavily muscled torso streaked with sweat from the heat and the relentless afternoon sun. From where I knelt, I could smell the stink of his anticipation.
“Strip him,” he said to the waiting guards.
Kygo lifted his head at the command. I knew he did not dare make any other move. He had already struggled once against his guards—breaking one man’s jaw—and his rage had earned Dela ten strokes of a cane across her back. I glanced at the Contraire on her