Chapter 12—Join Me
When they started up again, it was a surprisingly short journey. The lake must've been a sign for what was to come, because before they knew it, they'd reached the end of the woods, opening out to a hill in which at the top stood a small fortress-like structure with a tower. How long it was hidden there and if anyone had ever known about it before or not was a mystery. It was just another one of those hidden undiscovered places in the world such as the lake Eona had taken Kat to. She had never truly realized how big the world was, despite knowing how many mysteries lay ominously in its bounds.
There were a few figures walking up the hill toward the fortress, exiting from other parts of the woods. The five of them hid among the bushes, squeezing together so closely they practically became invisible. The figures came in pairs; it would always be a person with their arms tied behind their back, and a soldier right behind them, holding their arms tightly, marching up the hill toward the black front double doors into the building.
All of them glanced at each other, seeming to mentally reach an agreement—they had to get in somehow and see what was going on. Maybe they'd finally find their allies.
"Okay, so how are we going to do this?" Kenzo whispered. They were huddled together, forming a plan. There didn't appear to be anyone around, but they wouldn't chance it.
"I think the only way to do this is if we blend in with them. Maybe if two of us could disguise ourselves as soldier and prisoner, we could get through unnoticed," said Shun. "Ryko, I think you should be the one to lead someone up, not all of them are dressed in any particular way, but they're all relatively big. And for the prisoner…" They glanced around uncomfortably at each other, until all eyes laid on Eona.
"No," Kenzo said firmly, looking around at the three of them. "No! We are not using Lady Eona for bait."
"Kenzo," Eona said calmly, "I'll be fine." He gave her an incredulous look. "Ryko and I will be together. Nothing will happen. We all have to trust one another."
"But shouldn't we stick together?"
"This is the only way to do it. We can't all go in at once, it will look entirely suspicious. The only thing is, how are we going to hide ourselves in case someone inside or outside sees us and recognizes us?"
"Put your cloak back on and pull the hood up," Ryko said.
"But what about you? If Ido's here, he will easily recognize you."
Ryko bit his lip, thinking for a moment. "Fine. I'll put the cloak on, and you just take down your hair and try to keep your head down. No one should easily recognize you that way."
Eona nodded, and glanced at the others. They all gave a reluctant nod, even Kenzo, and soon Ryko and Eona were in position, his hands holding her wrists firmly behind her back, her hair hiding her face. They emerged from the trees and started walking up the steep hill. At the time there was no one else around them, but they couldn't be sure if someone was looking out the few rows of windows toward the top of the tower.
Hearing a shuffling sound to her left, Eona inconspicuously glanced over and saw a girl getting marched up the hill not far away from her. She had a tight bright braid tied at the back of her head—
Instantly Eona realized she wasn't Kat. The person had a lanky wiry built, but was taller than Kat and had sharper planes on her face. She was wearing a long black dress where the bodice clung to the body and the dress itself seemed to flow out freely. The hemline ended at about the girl's toes. The sleeves clung to her arms but seemed to widen towards the ends as well, ending just above her fingertips. They were made of a see-through mesh-like material that made the arms and the very outline of them completely visible even though they were technically covered. The bodice and rest of the dress were made of a deep black soft satin-like material that looked like it could get damaged very easily with just one wrong move.
Upon closer inspection, Eona could see that she was wearing small pearl earrings and a large necklace encrusted with several diamonds that caused a blinding light from the sun reflecting off of them. She was barefoot.
They were close to the door now. The soldier steered the miserable-looking girl up ahead of them and through the double doors. Ryko yanked her gently. "Head down," he hissed in her ear. Eona faced down. They hadn't taken a step before he grabbed her and pulled them down behind a bush right by the door. "Someone's in there, and I think it's Ido," Ryko whispered.
Just as he was saying this, fast heavy footsteps came toward them and a grinning triumphant face appeared, making Eona's stomach dropped.
"Well if it isn't my old friends," Ido said quietly.
Ryko hissed, and suddenly three to four men were on them. They separated them, one of them seizing Eona's arms and practically dragging her across the ground, while it took the other three to hold down Ryko and then haul him up after her. He tried to reach for her, but was unsuccessful. They ripped the cloak from him and dragged both of them around the bush and in through the doors, all the while with Ido standing their watching as though he were watching a leaf fall from a tree.
When they entered Eona was underwhelmed. All that made up of it was a hallway leading to a door-less opening to the outside that Eona could easily see from the entrance, and a spiraling staircase leading up to who knew where. The hand railings were adorned with wooden snakes that curved around and around all the way up the stairs. All down the hallway were small mirrors and paintings that lined the walls. There was a room to the right where she was swiftly turned toward, and she could hear Ryko and the other soldiers shuffling behind them. They came across a single door that looked sealed shut, and the soldier banged on it a couple times. There was a grating sound from the other side, as though the door was jammed and couldn't be opened, until it finally burst open from the other side by more soldiers. When Eona and Ryko were marched in, their mouths dropped at what awaited them.
Many of their fellow villagers were locked in a cage, imprisoned together in the small dirty space. There were three cages, but all of them were crammed into one, nobody able to not touch someone else. Behind her she heard a scuffling sound; she turned, the soldier's grip still fastened to her, and saw Shun, Felix, and Kenzo being whisked in. Shun and Felix were looking down. Kenzo gave her a regrettable look. "My Lady, I am sorry. We have failed."
"You haven't failed," she said quietly. Ido just succeeded.
She glanced back across the room and saw something that made her breath catch in her throat. There were her beloved swords hanging on the dirty gray brick wall, as if for display. As if obtaining them was a personal victory for Ido.
The soldiers threw the five of them into the cell, causing them to slam into people. The other prisoners were just as shocked to see them. Dela caught Eona and squeaked, "Ryko!" Eona felt the cold steel of the bar door shut behind her, pressing into her back. It was much too crowded in here.
There was a lone figure crouched in the corner, head lifting up slowly, hands around her knees. Eona could see the tightness of her muscles, her clenches white fists. It was as if she were willing herself to disappear into thin air.
"By…the gods," Eona said, glancing wide-eyed at Kat up and down. What happened? But she knew what happened. As she walked over slowly to Kat, she reached out gently, thinking any kind of touch would shatter her. Half of her fiery red hair had been ripped out of her head, leaving some dried red blood on her scalp in its wake. Kat had three of her fingers chopped off, a mess of bruises all over her face, ranging from blue to yellow to black, and her left arm was burned severely, from her shoulder where part of her shirt was ripped off all the way down to her wrist. Eona stopped in front of her, knelt down, and gently took her maimed hand in hers. A thick layer of bandages and gauze covered it, stained with dried blood. Kat continued to look at her wide-eyed and Eona took her in her arms and held her, massaging the back of her head. She closed her eyes, silently assuring Kat that she would never let her out of her sight again.
"She won't let anyone touch her except her brother and…you," said Dela.
Eona lifted her head. "Her brother?"
"Hello Eona," came a familiar voice. Dimitri stepped forward. His voice was as she remembered it, but it didn't match how he looked now. He was the person she'd thought looked like Kat—the person she'd thought was a girl the soldiers were marching in earlier before they'd been captured.
"Dimitri," she whispered in shock, taking in his whole appearance. He really looked very feminine, no matter how he spoke.
"My name used to be Dimitria," he said, yanking the braid out of his hair, shaking his head about, and ruffling it until it was a mess of curls. He ran a hand through his hair and pulled it up into a loose bun at the back of his head. Then he took the earrings off, grimacing in pain as they pulled on the sensitive skin, and threw them to the ground in disgust. He reached back to unclasp the necklace, having trouble. Dela came over and started unclasping it for him. "Thank you," he murmured.
"So you're a…" Eona began.
"A contraire, as your people call it," he said, "which is better than nothing at all. My people don't have a name because they like to prefer it just doesn't exist at all." He shook his head. Dela finally got the necklace off and instead of tossing it to the ground like Dimitri probably would have, she carefully balled it up and put it in one of the pockets of her robes.
"What is going on here?" Chart asked. "How did Ido recruit such a large army? How did they find us all? And how did he break out in the first place—"
"Oh trust me," came that all-too-familiar, crawling, serpentine voice. She saw his shadow emerge through the door. When he stepped in, every guard in the room bowed in a kowtow as if Ido were there savior. "You will not be able to do the same."
"Boy do I have a story to tell you all.
"I came back a long time ago, quite possibly right after I left you in the first place. The land cannot survive without the dragons. Mine was the first and it took several months for the rest to follow its lead. Yours was the last," he said, looking straight at Eona. "The land has never been without a dragon before. You made a vicious mistake by giving the Pearl back to the dragons. You could've joined me. You should have joined me. You, ultimately, are the reason for the disasters. Yet again." He paused. "And when I returned, I knew I'd have to take care of the other Dragoneyes as soon as they came back. And take care of them I did. And I knew I didn't stand a rat's ass—no pun intended—of exacting my rightful power and revenge over the empire, with everything just falling into place again, and your happy ever after." He let out a low laugh, showing what a joke he precisely thought the whole thing was. "You couldn't have seen it coming. I couldn't have planned it better. Instead of returning to my rightful empire, I took off for the West, displaying my skills as much as needed…oh, you should've seen their faces. All of them from that point forward hailed me like a god. They'd never seen anything like it. You'd have thought I resurrected the dead." He walked over to the cage and stopped when he was close enough to touch the bars, to reach through them. He looked at Eona, seemed to stare right through her so long that it was as though he'd turned into a statue.
Then, without moving his eyes from her, he snapped his fingers.
Two heavyset, pale guards marched up to the cage and unlocked it. They promptly went inside and grabbed the first two people they saw—Eona and Lillia. There was a ruckus among the prisoners who tried to keep the guards from pulling them out by their arms, but the fact of the matter was that the guards had weapons and they didn't. There were also other guards awaiting to step forward should they be needed to stop the commotion.
One guard held Eona with both her arms pinned behind her back in one beefy hand. She went up to about his chest. She was almost hyperventilating during the quickness of it all, knowing full well that something terrible was about to happen. The other held a screaming Lillia across the room and threw her over to Ido.
Swash! The blade of Ido's sword slashed across Lillia's stomach, a river of blood pouring out immediately and oozing through her fingers when her hands flew up to try to staunch it.
Eona flew out of the guards grasp and over to her and wrapped one arm around her shoulders securely, while placing her other hand near Lillia's abdomen. She closed her eyes and called upon the power of her dragon, ridding Lillia of both the wound and the pain, healing her insantly. Lillia's face went back to its normal color and she was no longer panting or holding her stomach. She stood up slowly, a little sweat still left on her face, but seemingly unharmed.
Eona looked grim and turned away from her mother. As she stood up, seeing nothing but red in the edges of her vision, she heard Ido cackling. "I just love a woman in power."
In a swift motion that was perhaps a combination of her anger and her dragon power, Eona strode across the room and delivered a punch right in Ido's mouth, nearly knocking out a couple teeth in the process. She thought he might've stumbled back, but she never got a chance to get a real look. The two guards jumped her, gripping the fabric of her robe harder than before, so hard she could feel their fingers pressing into her skin. Before she knew what was happening, she was being thrown back into the cell and almost toppled into Dela and Ryko. Both of them awkwardly tried to both move out of the way and put their hands out to stop her at the same time. She just went with the flow, catching her balance and walking past them without a word. She walked all the way to the far corner of the cell, stopping because she could not go any further, so instead settled for folding her arms and staring at the wall. She felt like a little kid having a tantrum, but she could not bear to look at anyone right now, especially her mother.
She'd healed her. She'd healed her mother. Now she had her will in her hands.
Kat place a tentative hand on her shoulder. She was right beside Eona and spoke in her own language. "Eona?" she whispered. She moved her hand down from her shoulder to Eona's hand, taking it in her own. Dimitri tried to pull Kat away, but Kat swatted at him and he just folded his arms, shaking his head at her stubbornness.
"What…what have I done?" Eona whispered, her lip almost quivering. Kat could see the stark clear pain in her eyes as she refused to look at anyone or anything but the wall.
Eona felt another hand on her shoulder. It was Lillia. "Eona?" she said in such a quiet voice she almost wondered if she imagined it. Eona turned slowly to face her mother, her back still mostly to everyone else. She pretended they weren't there even though she knew they were all staring at her. At this point she was used to the unwanted attention, but that didn't make it any more pleasant.
"Eona," Lillia said again, holding the sides of Eona's head and face in both hands.
"Mother." Her voice cracked. She blinked several times. "Mother," she said again, trying but failing to keep her voice even. "Do you…hate me?" Eona whispered.
"No…I love you." She leaned forward and kissed Eona softly on the top of her head. "You didn't have to do it, but you did it because you love me. How can I fault you for that?"
Eona felt hot tears slowly rise to her eyes. She tried as hard as she could, summoning all of the strength she had left in her and the willpower she'd had when she lived her life as a boy, to not cry. But Kat, who was the only other person in her line of sight, could see her face crumble as her mother took her in her arms. She never thought she'd see Eona like this.
"You did what you had to do, Eona," Rilla said quietly. "You didn't have a choice."
"Eona," Dimitri said. "Kat has told me that you've been conditioned to think that healing the people you love is a curse. It is not a curse. It is a gift. That you can save people from certain death…I've never seen anything like it," he breathed.
"And I trust you," Lillia said. "I know you're not going to hurt me. Isn't that why you healed me in the first place? You do it because of the love you have for others, not because you want to control them."
"One has to ask him or herself…what if it was my own mother?" Dela said this so quietly that for a second Eona didn't think anybody heard her. She looked up at the grim expressions on Ryko and Kygo's faces. Both their mothers met a most gruesome demise, and while Eona didn't know whether or not they themselves would use a healing power given the chance if they were in her shoes, she knew it would at least be extremely tempting.
Exhaustion and fatigue had settled over the prisoners as the day went on. Most had lost track of the time and there were barely any windows or holes or cracks in the wall to show them whether it was day or night out. A lone lantern hung from the ceiling, giving some, but dim, lighting. Everybody was curled up and either leaned against the wall or on somebody else. Kat was with Dimitri. Chart and Rilla were together. Dela and her father and Ryko and Mama Momo had all formed a group tightly in the corner. And Eona and her mother were together in another corner, Lillia lying back against the wall, cradling Eona's head in her arm and letting it rest gently on her chest, which Eona could feel the delicate rise and fall of. She also heard a rumble somewhere beneath her, around her elbow that she was making an effort not to jab into her mother.
"Are you hungry?" she whispered, lifting her head.
"No," her mother answered. "Well. Maybe a little. But only a little. There's no use complaining. Soon enough I'll forget about it completely."
"I'll go ask for some bread," Eona said, getting up. She said it even after seeing across the small space that Ryko, Dela, and Chart seemed to be the ones that had it or were passing it out. But she was willing to swallow her pride and ask them—the very people she'd rarely had any good encounters with lately—for some bread for her mother.
When she tentatively walked over to where the group was sitting and they all looked up in surprise, she awkwardly said, "Um, may I have some bread please? My mother is hungry." It was weird, she thought, how she didn't normally have a problem with speaking to a public crowd, but now all of the sudden in this intimate gathering, she was slightly embarrassed.
Before anyone could respond, Kenzo arrived in front of her and offered an entire roll of bread. "For you, my lady," he said, bowing as he held it out. Eona felt herself flush. She still, after all this time, was not used to being called 'My lady' by anyone or having them bow to her. She supposed she never would be. But then, that was what Kat liked about her, wasn't it? "You never let any of the fame and popularity get to your head like some people would. You're like just another girl, just another citizen. Just another person. People can approach you without being scared of what they're supposed to say, how they're supposed to bow."
"You don't need to give me the whole roll," Eona said, noticing Felix out of her side vision gladly holding up another roll to offer her. "Just a little will be fine."
Kenzo tore a little bit off and handed it to Eona. "Thank you Kenzo," she said. She also gave a nod of acknowledgment to Felix, who smiled in return, and headed back to her mother.
"Thank you," Lillia whispered, taking the bread.
It wasn't long before Ido came back with several guards in tow, two of them flanking him when he stepped forward. Many started standing up as he undid the cage, though much more wary and cautious this time, knowing there was trouble to come. In a whirlwind of chaos and confusion, at least three guards came in and seized both Ryko and Eona by the arms, practically dragging them out by their feet. There may have been more. The guard who had Eona had hands so big they wrapped all the way around her upper arm as though it were a twig.
Once they were out of the cage, the guards held Eona across the room from Ryko. It took three guards to hold him tightly enough to stay still, and they pushed him to his knees on the ground, one of them with their hand on his neck, pushing it forward. He held his head up as best he could, glowering eyes on Ido, who'd made his way to the center of the room between them in the flurry of shouts and struggles and scraping boots on the floor.
"Compel him," Ido said.
"What? No!" Eona's heart was beating against her ribcage and throat, and it seemed to be pumping sweat out of face.
Ido unsheathed the sword strapped across his back and held the blade to Ryko's throat. "Compel him, or I'll—" He cut off, a grin forming on his face, and he slowly lowered the sword. "Compel him," he said again, much quieter this time.
Eona narrowed his eyes. Was he going to hurt Ryko if she didn't?
When she didn't say anything, Ido, who'd moved a few feet away from Ryko now, repeated, "Compel him," in that same calm, nonchalant manner.
"No."
Ido looked at the guard holding her and raised his eyebrows, as though giving him the cue to do something. The guard promptly threw her to the ground and her face hit the floor with a loud bang. Before she could move, he rolled her over onto her back and dug his knees onto her chest. Eona sputtered and gasped, her burning lungs begging for air. Ido was right there now too, grabbing her arms and holding them down on the ground, his face in hers, upside down in her vision. His hair fell into his cold eyes, giving him a more eerie look. "Compel him! Compel him, compel him, compel him!"
She could hear people screaming and shouting things in the background, but couldn't quite make out the words. She heard one voice stand out from the rest, probably because she was physically closer to this person than any of the others. "Eona, just do it. Compel me. I'm telling you that you can. That is my choice."
The man drove a heavy foot into her ribcage that would take more than just a short time to recover from.
"The funny thing is, if she'd done it when you were in danger, you'd be a raging bull about it!" Ido said, and Eona knew he was smiling even though she could no longer see him. She could just hear the delight in his voice. He'd since gotten up to who knew where while the guard still had his knees on her chest, not hard enough to crush her or suffocate her, but enough to leave her gasping for air. Try as she might to push them off, they were like boulders on her, and her hands and arms may as well have been birds. "So Eona," Ido said, his voice like syrup—deceitfully sweet, but one knew it would be harmful in the long run, "are things different when you're the one at cost? When you're the one on the line?" The guard got up off of her now and was pacing around. Both of them went around her in circles like lions or bears toying with their prey before pouncing on it.
Ido slowly walked over to where Eona lay, his footsteps echoing off the hard floor. His calm and peaceful stance drastically contrasted with the other violent men in the room. He knelt down and gently cupped her cheek with his hand. "Why won't you compel him?" he said in an eerily soft voice. It was so quiet that it was barely above a whisper, yet everyone could hear him. "Don't you like having power? Doesn't it feel good?"
"Only…when used…for…the…right reasons," Eona managed to get out breathlessly.
The expression on Ido's face turned to rage, confusion, and disappointment all at once. Like a parent finding out their beloved child had done something to disobey them. Or had spoken back to strict orders. Ido now put his hand around Eona's chin, anger in his grip. "Is this not a good reason?" His voice was almost shrill. "I thought this was what you wanted. Didn't he hurt you?"
"You…hurt me…m-more."
Ido rose up and kicked Eona in the ribs. She contorted, the blow sending piercing pain through body, and she could hear a scream behind her. Dela.
"Shut that bitch up," Ido snarled, glaring at the cell of prisoners. He glanced back down at Eona, grabbed her, and drew her up. He turned her around, the two of them facing a giant mirror on the wall that Eona swore hadn't been there before, his face placed next to hers. He seemed to be able to summon things out of nowhere. Perhaps he summoned a key to unlock himself out of prison. Or maybe he was able to compel the guards into doing it for him. Or maybe he could shroud himself in invisibility from everyone else. What she knew for sure was that he could reject compulsion, and that in and of itself, was a highly dangerous power.
She could see her face in the mirror, full of fatigue, his smile cunning. "Join me," he said in her ear. His voice was rough. "We can do great things together. You'll never have to feel inferior to anybody again. You'll never have to bow to these people again."
"She will never join you!" Kygo shouted.
Ido's attention shifted towards Kygo. He stared at him for a full five seconds, as still as a stone, before snapping his head toward another guard who promptly strode over to the cage. Using a key and yanking the door open, he pulled Kygo out by the hair—by the hair—and threw him to the ground as though he were a rag doll. Eona's gut told her the thing that had been in the edges of her mind for a while but that she'd been denying—that Ido had seized omnipotent power when he'd returned, and that he could even share it with his comrades should he want to. There was no way that gangly guard could possibly manhandle another man like that. Not Kygo.
Kygo immediately attempted to get up, only to have Ido's foot push his head back down to the ground, face first. "Are you really the true reigning emperor you believe yourself to be, and that everybody else believes you to be? Because you sure don't look much like an emperor to me."
Kygo hissed, spitting on Ido's boot. Ido delivered a fearsome kick to Kygo's face, a sharp shattering sound making almost everyone in the vicinity flinch. Kygo's nose was clearly broken, blood dripping down his face, into his mouth, onto his robes. He panted angrily, standing up on his own now, though not without noticeable pain. His face was pale and taught, as if awaiting Ido's next move. But all Ido did was laugh.
"You're no emperor," he said disgustedly. "You're just a looney old dog just like your father was. If anybody should be emperor…but no. There need not be an emperor. Or an empress." He turned back to Eona and smiled, then frowned. "Eona," he hissed, "if you will not give up your power to me, you have to suffer consequences. But you know what I've decided?" He held a finger up and there was a glint in his eye that created a cold dread slowly growing in the pit of Eona's stomach. "I've decided to give you one last chance. I will, once and for all, do the very thing that no one else has been able to do—I will remind of what terrible things these people have done to you."
