'So now we find out,' he said softly against my cheek, each word brushing me like a kiss.
'Now we find out what really happens when the last two Dragoneyes become one.'
'We're not the last two,' I croaked.
He pulled his head back slightly 'You mean Dillon?'
I met his eyes. Thin threads of silver slid through the amber. The caress of his charisma stroked my skin.
'Poor Dillon,' he said. 'I've bound his Hua to mine. He no longer has his own link to the Rat Dragon.' He traced his forefinger along my jaw. And what little power he has will soon be drained.' His other hand yanked at the neck of my undertunics. The thin silk gave way, exposing my shoulder and the tight breast-band.
The sound of scuffling snapped his head around but I could not see past him.
Lady Dela's voice screamed, 'She's the Mirror Dragon, she —' I Ier voice was suddenly muffled as if someone had slapped their
hand over her mouth. What was Dela trying to tell me? I already knew she was the Mirror Dragon.
Ido turned back. 'She? The dragon is female too?' He gave a low, wondering laugh. 'Of course, I should have guessed; it is the feminine where your power exists. No wonder the black folio speaks of the Sun and Moon joining.'
His hand skimmed over the tight bindings at my breast and dropped to my waist, pulling at the thin linen of my undershorts. I flinched, but his other hand tightened on my throat again.
The alley closed around me in a haze of grey suffocation. Again he released the pressure, allowing me precious air. His face had hardened into harsh purpose and I knew I could not stop him physically But he was not going to get all of me.
I lifted my chin. 'You cannot make me go into the energy world.'
'Do you think I can only force my way into your body?' His eyes were a wash of silver. I felt his power buffet me like a physical blow. 'Every time you called my dragon's power, you opened your pathways to him,' he whispered against my ear. And to me.'
Sweet vanilla-orange filled my mouth. I felt power pressing into me, searching. Blue power that bent and distorted the alley into roiling colours and shifted Ido's face from flesh and bone to planes of pulsing energy, then back again. He looked up, his fingers ramming my head back; the Rat Dragon was above us, the cloudy blue scales of his underbelly like a summer sky. The beast curled his massive head around to watch us, the pearl at his throat shimmering with power. His huge spirit eyes reached further into me and found a silvered pathway still darkened with the grey welcome of the Sun drug.
Ido was in my mind. Now you are truly mine.
'No,' I gasped.
A shrill voice sliced into the blue storm that was rolling over my senses. 'She's the Mirror Dragon. Do you hear me? Her name is your name! She's the mirror.'
Lady Dela. I struggled to focus on her words, My name? How could that be? Then, like a mined kaleidoscope, the last few weeks shifted into a new pattern of bitter understanding, At the moment of union, the Mirror Dragon had not tried to rip my true name from me, she had tried to give me her name. Oui name. All along at my master's house, in the bathing room, on the roadside I had denied her, blocked her, stifled her with drugs. And all along, the tiny gold kernel of my power had been locked within me, waiting.
'Eona,' I whispered and the truth of the name was like a claw of light ripping through the misunderstanding, shredding the fear and the fading veil of drugs. It reached into the overwhelming blue, forcing a thin sliver of hope.
Ido's fingers dug into my flesh. What are you doing''
'Eona,' I screamed, the name shaking his hold on my mind. I felt his comprehension and his sharp grab of anticipation.
Tou have called her.
A shrieking rise of power rushed into my pathways, rocking me against the wall. Ido's body slammed into mine. He was not going to let go. Not now. The Rat Dragon howled, his heavy blue force driven back by the onslaught of sinuous gold. Raw, rejoicing energy flooded my seven centres of power; opening, pushing, seeking. And behind it all, a presence exulting in the joy of release and reunion. I looked up and finally my mind-sight was clear: I could see the Mirror Dragon. My dragon.
She was rearing on the roof behind me, obscuring the smaller blue dragon, the gold pulsing pearl at her chin bright against the crimson scales on her chest. Her forelegs slammed down onto the roof and two sets of long ruby claws grabbed the edge and sliced into the stone.
Fragments of rock showered down, sending up clouds of dust at either end of the alley Her fragile wings spread for balance as she ducked her head, the moonlight rippling across her arched neck in fiery reflections. Her warm breath was a summer breeze, spicing my mouth with cinnamon; the taste of power. And joy.
I can see her. I felt Ido's awe shift into stark desire. Delicately, she lowered her huge muzzle and offered me the pearl nestled under her chin. The luminescent gold orb was the size of a barrel and thrummed with the song of a thousand years, of old wisdom and new life, of balance and chaos.
I reached up and pressed my palms against the hard velvety surface. Gold flames rose and jumped across my skin in flicks of stinging promise.
Ido's hands closed around my wrists. Bring her to me.
The scream of his dragon shivered in his mind, sending an echo of pain through me. I laughed and felt an answering exultation through the flaming pearl. The blue power was a mere shadow under the glorious incandescence of our connection. The red dragon's fathomless eyes met mine and her question — deeper than words — rode the rush of my Hua.
Would I give her Eon?
I groped for understanding. What did she mean by Eon? The answer rose through me: she was asking for the masculine power within me. She wanted the male energy I had fostered from my core. The only identity I had come to trust.
My mind floundered. Didn't she want Eona? My female energy? Wasn't that the point of it all? Why did she want Eon? I hesitated as I had in the arena, a chasm of doubt ripping through the gold euphoria. I had fought so hard to bring my male energy forwards and subdue the female within me. If I let Eon go now, what would replace him? I had made Eona too small.
Too weak. What if the dragon took Eon and there was nothing left?
I dragged my gaze from the shimmering flames of possibility to Ido's silver eyes. His hands were locked so tightly around my wrists that I could feel my sinews grinding under his hold.
He was waiting for my power. Waiting to take everything. What if he was too strong for the Mirror Dragon? He had overpowered me every time we had met in the energy world. Won every time wc
had clashed through the might of the blue dragon. Would it be different through the red dragon?
It had to be different. She was my dragon, my power.
I thrust my hands against the gold pearl. Let me be enough, 1 prayed. Let us be enough.