Eona Read Free Page A

eighteen years old and true heir to the throne, had escaped. I had watched him ride away to safety with his Imperial Guard.
    Dela chewed on her lip. “How can you be so sure the Pearl Emperor is still alive?”
    I wasn’t sure, but the possibility that Sethon had found and killed Kygo was too terrible to contemplate. “We would have heard otherwise. Tozay’s spy network is extensive.”
    â€œEven so,” Dela said, “they have not found his whereabouts. And Ryko …” She turned her head as if it was the wind that brought tears to her eyes.
    Only Ryko knew where his fellow Imperial Guards had hidden the Pearl Emperor. Ever cautious, he had not shared the information. Now the blood fever had taken his mind.
    â€œWe could ask him again,” I said. “He may recognize us. I have heard that there is often a brief lucid time before …”
    â€œBefore death?” she ground out.
    I met her grief with my own. “Yes.”
    For a moment she stared at me, savage at my denial of hope, then bowed her head.
    â€œWe should go to him,” she said. “Tozay says it will not be long now.”
    With one last look at the heavy clouds, I gathered up the front of my cumbersome skirt and climbed the path behind Dela, snatching a few moments of muted joy as I stretched into each strong, surefooted step.
    The sturdy, weather-bleached fisher house had been our sanctuary for the past few days, its isolation and high vantage giving a clear view of any approach by sea or land. I paused to catch my breath at the top of the path and focused on the distant village. Small fishing boats were already heading out to sea, every one of them crewed by resistance with eyes sharp for Sethon’s warships.
    â€œPrepare yourself,” Dela said as we reached the house. “His deterioration has been swift.”
    Last night I had sat with Ryko until midnight, and I had thought the islander was holding his own. But everyone knew that the predawn ghost hours were the most dangerous for the sick—the cold, gray loneliness eased the way of demons eager to drain an unguarded life force. Dela had taken the early watch, but it seemed that even her loving vigilance had been unable to ward off the dark ones.
    She hung back as I pushed aside the red luck flags that protected the doorway and entered the room. The village Beseecher still knelt in the far corner, but he was no longer chanting prayers for the ill. He was calling to Shola, Goddess of Death, and had covered his robes with a rough white cloak to honor the Otherworld Queen. A paper lantern swung on a red cord between his clasped hands, sending light seesawing across the drawn faces around Ryko’s pallet: Master Tozay; his eldest daughter, Vida; and faithful, ugly Solly. I coughed, my throat catching with the thick clove incense that overlaid the stench of vomit and loose bowels.
    In the eerie, swinging lamplight, I strained to see the figure lying on the low straw mattress. Not yet , I prayed, not yet . I had to say good-bye.
    I heard Ryko’s panting before I saw the over-quick rise and fall of his chest. He was stripped down to just a loincloth, his dark skin bleached to a gray waxiness, his once muscular frame wasted and frail.
    The tight linen bandaging had been removed, exposing the festering wounds. His hand, resting on his chest, was black and bloated: the result of Ido’s torture. More shocking was the long gash that sliced him from armpit to waist. Swollen sections of flesh had torn free from the rough stitching, showing pale bone and vivid red tissue.
    The herbalist shuffled through the inner doorway. He carried a large bowl that trailed an astringent steam, his deep voice murmuring prayers over the slopping liquid. He had sat with me for some of my vigil last night, a kind, perpetually exhausted man who knew his skill was not up to his patient’s injuries. But he had tried. And he was still trying, although it was