Eona - Alison Goodman [211]
“You bastard!” I went for him, my hands tensed into claws. My knees hit the edge of the dais as Ido jumped back out of range.
“I’m just making it easy for you to have what you really want,” he said.
Kygo’s fingers caught my sleeve. “Don’t do it.” Blood flecked his lips. “Don’t give it to him.”
“So much honor, just like his father,” Ido said sarcastically. “I’d say between the dragons and the amount of blood he’s spitting up, you haven’t got long to make up your mind.”
He was right. Kygo’s skin had a bluish tinge around his nose and mouth, and the Righi was building within me again, pushing past my shock to call the bound Hua of the dragons. I could not move, paralyzed by the impossibility of the choice. Kygo or the dragons. My heart or my duty. All the reasons to save the dragons raged through me: Kinra, atonement, the land, the people, the future. And only one reason to save Kygo, tolling through me over and over again.
I loved him.
“Take what you want, Eona,” Ido said. “You have done it all along, so why stop now?”
A slight smile curved his lips. He was so confident that I would agree. I had turned my back and he had struck like a snake.
“You’ll have everything, Eona. Including him.” Ido nudged Kygo’s foot with his own. “It is not so bad to have her control your will, boy.” Ido’s smile turned sly. “I look forward to sharing your compulsion power, Eona. And I think you will enjoy sharing my knowledge. It’s what you’ve wanted all along.”
“I just wanted to be a Dragoneye!”
“You wanted power,” he said. “This way you get it. And you get to save Kygo.”
The Mirror Dragon screeched. Her huge red head swayed from left to right above her blazing pearl. The clouds above us flickered with the light of the flames, reflecting the intense heat.
“All right,” I clenched my fists. “All right.”
“Eona, no!” Kygo lifted his head, the effort forcing a bright trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth. His cold fingers touched my hand, drawing me closer until my forehead rested against his own. I felt his labored breath on my cheek, the metallic smell of his blood in every soft warm gasp. “Do what is right,” he whispered, the words costing him precious air.
I pressed my lips against his cold skin. “I don’t know what is right.”
“Yes, you do, Naiso.” He fell back, panting.
I stood, legs trembling. He wanted me to release the dragons. Yet, if I did, I would lose him and I would lose the Mirror Dragon. I would lose everything. If I took all the power with Ido, I would destroy the dragons and take Kygo’s throne and will from him. He would hate me. I would be left with only power. I would be Ido. A wave of rage swept over me. There was no way to win this battle.
“You must do it now, Eona,” Ido said.
For one despair-ridden moment, I wanted the dragons’ power to explode through the land—to destroy everything in its path, and take away this terrible choice. But I had to choose, and I could not let Kygo die.
I stepped down from the dais, every harsh clicking breath from my beloved pushing me toward the Dragoneye. Ido picked up Kinra’s sword and drew its blade along his hand, inhaling with pleasure as it sliced into his flesh.
“Your turn.” He caught my free hand and turned it over. My palm was already cut from the gold-clawed setting of the Imperial Pearl. My eyes fixed on the moonstone and jade hilt as Ido dragged the sword tip along the same wound. A faint echo of Kinra’s rage shivered through me. Was her Hua still in the folio too? My fingers curled around the stinging draw of fresh blood.
Ido sent the weapon spinning across the boards. “Dragoneye blood to break an ancient Dragoneye binding,” he said. “When the Righi releases the dragons, we must hold on to the folio to take their power.”
He grabbed my hand and pressed it across the white pearls that clamped the folio to my arm, then slapped his own bloodsticky palm over