Eona - Alison Goodman [200]
Sethon pulled the pearl free. ”I have it!” He dropped Kinra’s sword, blood spraying as it spun and landed next to Kygo’s feet.
The men below us roared. All I could see was the gaping wound in Kygo’s throat. His three guards released his arms and legs and jumped back as his body folded heavily onto the platform. Motionless. Then his chest moved, the soft wet sound of his breath the most precious sound I had ever heard.
Sethon triumphantly held up the pearl. He turned, and in a few strides was up on the dais and in the gilded chair. Everyone’s attention was on him as he pressed the pearl against the hollow of his throat.
“Now,” he ordered the physician. “Quick.”
He pushed his body back in the chair and braced.
Twelve stitches. Twelve breaths.
I gathered my rage and my Hua, waiting for Sethon’s pain. Waiting for the first stitch. My best chance. Sweat gathered under my arms and at the small of my back. On the dais, Sethon’s hands tightened around the arms of the chair. I heard him grunt as the needle pierced his flesh. The shock of pain resonated through his clamp of control around my power. Ryko’s head lifted—he had felt it, too.
With all my strength I strained against the blood force. The grip shivered, flexed, then clamped down on me again. Too strong.
Another stitch rippled into the dark energy. I threw all my Hua against it, my heartbeat thundering in my ears. It shifted, then closed once more. I couldn’t break through.
The pool of blood was growing around Kygo’s throat. How many breaths had passed? Five, six? I was running out of time and chances.
“Eona!” Ryko’s call dragged my eyes from Kygo’s laboring chest. “Use me. Like you did outside the palace.”
His guard pushed him down and pressed a knee on his back. “Shut up.”
My mind groped for his meaning.
His Hua! He meant his life-force funneled through our own link. He was not caught in the folio’s dark energy or dragon power. The possibility surged through my despair, bright and sharp. Yet at the palace, I had nearly killed him.
Another stitch spiked its pain through the compulsion.
“Ryko, no,” Dela pleaded.
“I will not see you die, Dela,” he said. “Eona, use it!”
“It will kill you,” I said.
“We are all dead if you don’t.” His voice checked as the guard shoved his knee harder into the islander back, forcing his chest to the platform. Doggedly, he raised his head again. “My choice, Eona!”
His choice, but I was the one who would take his life. I could not do it.
“Eona, honor me.”
I looked into the fierce warrior pride in his face. Honor and duty: the heart of Ryko. He was giving us his heart. I nodded. He smiled with grim satisfaction. Bracing himself, he turned his head to Dela. Her soft moan broke into a sob.
I took a deep breath, poised for Sethon’s pain. It came—shuddering through the blood force, a tiny lessening of the folio’s grip. With a prayer to any god who listened, I reached for Ryko’s Hua.
His pulsing life-force roared through me with a torrent of strength that wrenched Sethon’s grip wide open. With a shriek through my blood, the rope of pearls spun off my wrists, dropping the black folio into my lap. I felt my link with Ryko unravel and snap, leaving a deep tear within me that ached with loss. I heard Ido’s roar of exultation and felt the pounding return of my own power. We were free. But all I could see was Ryko’s dead body slumping to the ground.
As Dela screamed, I felt Ido unite with his dragon. My skin stung with the burn of a fast rising wind, the taste of Ido’s power within it.
Sethon sat up. “Stop them!” He knocked the physician aside, his hand holding the half-stitched pearl to his throat. “Hunters, stop Lady Eona! Stop Ido!”
The hunter behind me grabbed my hair and yanked my head back. I glimpsed