Eona - Alison Goodman [80]
“This one,” Dela said, pointing to the faded characters. “If I am correct, it says:
“The She of the dragon will return and ascend
When the cycle of twelve draws to an end. . . .”
I lifted my head. “An end? Does that mean the dragons?”
“There’s more.” Dela’s fingertip traced down the page.
“The She of the Dragoneye will restore and defend
When the dark force is mastered with the Hua of All
Men.”
I stared at the graceful calligraphy, trying to glean its meaning, although I did not know each character’s sense. “Say the first verse again.”
Dela repeated it.
“The ‘She of the dragon’ means the Mirror Dragon, since there is only one female dragon,” I said slowly. “And she has now returned and ascended.” I met Dela’s eyes, unwilling to voice the meaning of the next line.
“Her return means the dragons’ power is coming to an end,” she supplied softly.
I shook my head, trying to deny the enormity of the portent. If the dragons came to an end, then so did my power—before I had even truly wielded it. There would be no glorious link with the red dragon. No rank. No worth. I would be just a girl again. I would be nothing. Useless.
“It can’t be true,” I whispered.
“The land is in upheaval,” Dela pointed out, “and there are ten dragons without Dragoneyes.”
“But that doesn’t prove that their power is ending,” I said sharply. “The Mirror Dragon returned before Ido killed the Dragoneyes.”
“Then maybe the dragon power was coming to an end even before Ido murdered the Dragon Lords. And you cannot deny that the land is in peril.”
I pressed my hands against my eyes and tried to follow the terrifying pathways of possibility, looking for a reason to deny the truth of Kinra’s warning. But there was no getting past the first line: the Mirror Dragon had returned and ascended, and that meant the dragon power was ending.
“What is the second verse?” I demanded.
Again, Dela read it out.
“The ‘She of the Dragoneye’ has to be me,” I said, my unease deepening. “It says I can restore and defend. Does that mean I can stop the dragons losing their power?”
How could I stop such a thing? The impossibility of the task was like a huge hand squeezing all the hope and courage from me.
“I pray that is what it means,” Dela said. She touched a character on the parchment, its sharp angles in ugly contrast to the rest of the flowing calligraphy. “What is the dark force? Gan Hua?”
“It seems likely.”
“Then what is the ‘Hua of All Men’?”
“I don’t know,” I said bleakly. “But it sounds final.”
I closed the red folio, as if hiding the words would stop the crushing burden of their meaning. “I dread what you will find next, but we need to know more.” I held out the journal. With a short nod, Dela took it back.
“At least we know that Gan Hua must be mastered.” Dela stood up and limped toward the door. “Lord Ido is the only one who can teach you how to control your power. Can he teach you how to master Gan Hua, too?”
“Oh, yes,” I said dryly. “Ido is a master of Gan Hua.”
“Then we must rescue him.”
“But His Majesty is fixed on finding the black folio.”
Dela beckoned me to the door. “His Majesty cannot ignore the red folio, Eona. This is the voice of a Mirror Dragoneye. And she has given us due warning.”
“Who is this Dragoneye ancestress?” demanded Kygo.
I had been expecting the question, but it still tightened my innards. The emperor paced across the strategy chamber and turned for my answer, his eyes ringed with blue fatigue. Although he had dismissed the section leaders from the cavern at my request, I did not take that as a sign of my return to favor. On the contrary. He had not allowed either Dela or me to rise from our knees, and there was a brittleness about him that I recognized: his body and mind had been pushed too far for too long. I glanced at Dela beside me. From the wary hunch of her shoulders, I could tell that she recognized it too; she would have felt the wrath of an overstrained master in her time. Still, I had no way of preparing her for