Eona - Alison Goodman [29]
The emperor surveyed the courtyard. “Good advice.”
Yuso’s expression shifted into careful neutrality. “Your Highness, we cannot afford to take any prisoners”—he glanced at the fallen figure of one of his guards—“nor care for any injured who cannot ride.”
I saw Ryko straighten, as if in protest. The other imperial guard who had survived the skirmish glanced uncertainly at the islander, then back at the captain.
Beside me, the emperor sucked in a breath. “Is that necessary, Yuso?”
The captain gave one short nod.
“I disagree,” Ryko said, dropping to his knees. “Forgive my outspokenness, Your Majesty, but I think—”
The emperor raised a hand, silencing the islander. The sunlight caught the gold of a heavy ring on his finger as he considered Yuso. “Your reasons, captain?”
“The less information High Lord Sethon gets, the better,” Yuso said. “We hold only a few advantages—our number and direction are not known, and the Lady Dragoneye is still thought to be Lord Eon—all of which will be passed on to the High Lord, either from loyalty or torture, if we leave anyone behind.”
Until that moment, I had not fully understood what they were discussing. Now it became sickeningly clear. Yuso wanted to kill everyone left alive on the field. Friend or foe. I could not even find voice for the brutality of it.
“Ryko?” the emperor prompted. There was a faint plea in his voice.
“What Captain Yuso says is true,” Ryko said reluctantly. “But it is not what your—it does not feel honorable, Majesty.”
“Perhaps you have been in the harem too long, Ryko,” Captain Yuso said.
The emperor’s face stiffened. Kygo had once confessed to me that he feared his harem childhood had made him too tender. Too womanly. If Yuso knew this, then he was a man who played a deep game, for his barb at Ryko had found its true home.
As if nothing had happened, the emperor motioned to someone behind me. “Is that you, Lady Dela?” I turned to see Dela bow deeply. “Escort the Lady Dragoneye from the battlefield and prepare for our evacuation.” The emperor looked up at the pink-streaked dawn sky. “We leave in a quarter bell.”
“No!” I said. “Your Majesty, you cannot be thinking—”
“Lady Dragoneye!” His voice was harsh. Exhaustion had pared the last roundings of youth from his features. His was now a man’s face, weary and heartsick. “Go.” He nodded dismissal to Lady Dela.
She took my hand and pulled me upright. I met her eyes, trying to enlist support, but she gave a slight shake of her head.
“Where are your swords?”
My swords: for a mad moment, I wanted to pick them up and feel Kinra’s strength slide under my skin and into my heart. She would stop the emperor. I shook my head free of the impulse—no, she would kill him.
“I will bring them with me,” Ryko said curtly.
Dela tightened her grip and led me to the edge of the courtyard. On the ground ahead, a sprawled body shuddered. I heard a faint groan.
“Are they really going to . . . ?” I could not finish the sentence.
Dela ushered me past the groaning soldier. “I don’t know. We are fighting for our lives now, Eona.”
“I could try and heal them.”
“Have you found a way to control your power?” Dela asked.
“No.”
“Then you can’t help.”
“But it is wrong.” I pulled against her hand.
She yanked me closer, forcing me to keep up with her quick steps. “They do not want women here to remind them of life—of mercy—when they must embrace war and brutality.”
I thought of Kinra: not all women were about life and mercy. And what of myself? I barely knew how to be a woman and, after the carnage at the village, I was hardly a symbol of life. Even so, Yuso was urging murder. And the emperor was allowing it. I clenched my fists.
Dela bundled me through the red door flags of the lodging house. The single wall lamp had guttered, leaving the foyer in shadowy half-light. I strained to hear what was happening in the courtyard. Part of me dreaded the sounds that might reach us in the stuffy cloister, but another part knew I