A few lengths away, Ryko pushed Ju-Long and Tiron onward, then turned and drew his swords. The islander’s lone figure blurred in the thick veil of pounding rain as the shapes of Tiron and the gray horse forged past us. I thought I heard the young guard call me though the teeming water, but Dillon pulled my hand again. He was back on his feet. My relief froze into realization; I was no longer holding Dillon. He was holding me.
Even as I tried to wrench free, he caught my other hand and with brutal strength swung me around in a splashing circle, as though we were children again, playing Dragon Spin.
“What are you doing?” I yelled. “Stop it!”
“Dragon day, dragon night, dragon spirit with the right,” he sang. “Call your name, bring your light — show us who will have the sight!”
The wet hem of my gown wrapped around my legs. I tripped, collapsing onto one knee in the pooling water. The wind was gone, the rain now falling in a seamless gray curtain as if the gods were emptying a pitcher over our heads.
“Dillon, the soldiers are coming!” I blinked, trying to clear my stinging eyes of water. It ran in rivulets down my face and the front of my gown, soaking the rough cloth into a dead weight. “We have to run.”
“Which dragon? Which dragon? Choose!” he singsonged. “Choose!”
He yanked at my hands, grinding the thin bones together as he hauled me upright. Such strength was not natural. I threw my weight backward in a bid to jerk free, but he held me locked in his game.
Just above our wrists, the rope of white pearls loosened its stranglehold. The last two perfect gems lifted again, this time like a snake tasting the sodden air. With clattering purpose they uncoiled, leaving only one loop binding the folio to Dillon’s arm. The rest of the rope slithered around the edges of the book and settled a protective rank of pearls along each groove of exposed paper. Then, with a snap and lunge, the lead length wrapped around my right wrist, strapping my hand to Dillon’s as if it was a wedding bind.
I strained against the shackle. Heat engulfed my arm and rolled through my body on a wave of thick nausea. Bitter power rose behind my eyes, whispering words that struck at my mind with acid. Ancient words. The book was calling me, folding me into its secrets. It was a book of blood, of death, of chaos. It was the book of Gan Hua.
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 spine-snapping 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 plum, but something else lay within the bitterness. A familiar, sweet tang of cinnamon — the taste of the red dragon’s power. Was he calling my dragon? Impossible, yet there were also the faint notes of vanilla and orange. Lord Ido’s beast. Dillon’s ravings sharpened into one clear moment of fury: I want him to die.
Merciful gods, he was using me to kill Ido.
“Dillon, no!” I slammed my body back, yanking at his hands, but I was still held fast.
“Eight.”
From nearby came the clash of steel meeting steel. Swords! My heart contracted into a hard ball, then burst back into drumming fear. Had the soldiers attacked Kygo? A dark knot of struggling men flickered past. Ryko, beating back three soldiers.
“Nine.”
There was nothing I could do to stop Dillon in the earthly plane; he was too strong. Focusing on his ecstatic face, I tried to shift into mind-sight. It was like forcing my way through a briar made of pelting water and panting terror. As he spun me around, I managed three deep breaths. On the fourth, the gray-green earthly plane yielded to the iridescence of the energy world.