Eona - Alison Goodman [55]
If this was what burned in Dillon’s mind, no wonder he screamed and pounded at his head.
Desperately, I pulled against the pearls; I did not want to follow Dillon into madness. Already, the words were searing their mark into me. Although I had beaten back the Gan Hua in Kinra’s swords, that had been a mere flicker compared to this blazing bitterness. If I did not stop it now, it would consume me.
I pushed back against the scorching power as I had pushed back against Kinra’s swords. It made no difference to the book’s relentless, blistering force.
Perhaps Kinra could hold back this ancient power. I did not trust her influence, nor did I want to touch her treachery. Yet she’d had the strength and skill to shape Hua into a dark force and send it across five centuries—the swords were proof.
I still had her death plaque in my pocket, although I could not reach for it. Would its presence be enough? I sent out my plea: Kinra, please stop the folio from burning its madness into me. Then I sent another prayer to my ancestors who had brought her Dragoneye power to me: Stop Kinra’s own madness from burning me, too.
As if in answer, a force rose through my blood. An aching cold flowed across the acid words like frost, extinguishing the burn of the book. Then the words and the chill were suddenly gone. But neither the pearls nor Dillon eased their brutal grip.
“Choose,” Dillon cried again.
I shook my head, trying to clear away the aftershock of the searing words.
“Choose.” His fingers tightened into a bone-crunching demand. “Choose!”
“I choose the Ox,” I gasped. The second dragon; two spins in the game. If I could find Kygo, maybe I could drag us in his direction.
“I choose the Rooster,” Dillon called. Ten spins.
I clenched my teeth and swung with him into the twirling count of twelve.
“One,” he yelled. The landscape was a blur of gray and green, Dillon’s pale, grinning face the only fixed point.
“Two.” His weight pulled at the end of my hands, wrenching me into a splashing stagger.
“Three.” His voice changed. No more playful singsong—just flat command. I closed my eyes against the relentless water and the whirling sickness in my head.
“Four.”
Every spin dug us deeper into the mud, closer to the raw force of the earth. At the edge of my reeling senses, I heard him murmuring more words. Although their form and meaning were lost in the deafening tattoo of water, the Dragoneye in me knew they were the same ancient words that had attacked my mind.
Dillon was calling dark energy. It was embedded in the deep resonance of the numbers and in his fevered chant. Four was the number of death, and I could feel it coming with the pounding certainty of my own heartbeat.
“Eona!” Kygo’s voice. I opened my eyes. His tall figure flashed past.
I dropped onto my knees in the watery mud, dragging all of my weight against Dillon’s hold, but his savage strength jerked me back up into stumbling submission. Power prickled along our bound hands.
“Five,” he yelled.
“Dillon, what are you doing?” I yelled.
“With you, I’m strong enough,” he screamed.
Strong enough for what?
Around us the rain slanted, caught in the roaring gusts of a sudden wind from the northwest. Kygo flashed past again, bent into the brutal slam of air, his swords drawn. I tried to call his name, but water filled my eyes and mouth.
“Six.”
I shook my head, fighting for sight and breath. A smear of dark figures coalesced into running soldiers, their battle cries broken into a staccato wail by the buffeting wind and the spinesnapping momentum of our spins.
“Dillon, the soldiers!” I screamed.
“Seven!”
His eyes were closed, head craned back. The drone of his chant rose into a shrill keen that matched the shriek of the wind. I tasted the ancient power within it. It dried my mouth like a sour