A War of Wyverns (A Language of Dragons #2)

Chapter 1

THE SKY IS DARK AND FULL OF DRAGONS.

I hurry through the streets of London, my umbrella tilted at an angle not to shield my face from the rain but to hide it.

There are almost as many Guardians of Peace on the ground as there are Bulgarian Bolgoriths in the sky.

A small mound of rubble blocks my path, left over from one of last week’s attacks.

It could have been caused by rebel bombs or by the army of Queen Ignacia, Britannia’s dragon queen.

Both groups are locked in their own individual battles with the Prime Minister.

But judging by a stone pillar knocked clean off its base by what could only be the swipe of a tail, I’d guess the latter.

As I reach the Tube station, the first rays of sunlight stretch up over the grey buildings, bringing the capital’s night curfew to an end.

Rebellion happens in the shadows, after all.

I climb on to the Underground train, my fake class pass hanging around my neck.

I sit opposite an elderly man in a singed coat.

He peers at me from beneath bright posters plastered above the carriage seats.

Two women in military dress link arms in front of two buildings – I recognise the white stone of 10 Downing Street and the red brick of the Academy for Draconic Linguistics.

They are encircled by a string of words in a looping, feminine font.

Wyvernmire and Hollingsworth United In The Fight Against Rebels

I bury my face in yesterday’s copy of the Pimlico Bulletin – a non-partisan newspaper – and am met with another slogan.

‘The Truth for Every Class,’ I mutter under my breath as I scan the headlines.

PM Allies Britannia to Bulgarians

Where is Queen Ignacia? Possible Sightings on Page 3

Western Drake Gutted on Kent Farm: Human Remains Retrieved From Its Second Stomach

I open to the first page and see a black-and-white photo of a familiar manor house.

BLETCHLEY PARK: A NATION’S SECRET?

A lump rises in my throat as I toss the paper to the ground.

Memories surge: a gunshot, blood beneath my fingernails, a face crowned with dead leaves.

My hand reaches for the wooden swallow around my neck.

If Atlas were here now, he’d mock the Prime Minister for thinking she can manipulate Europe’s fiercest dragons to extend her empire.

For thinking that Britannia would bow to dragons who had massacred their own human population.

If Atlas were here, he’d be slipping into the public houses and coming out with new recruits to the rebel cause, using nothing but his courage and his crooked smile. But he’s not here.

Because he’s dead.

All I can do now is continue what he started at Bletchley Park and help win the war for the Human-Dragon Coalition. Only a skilled linguist can obtain the secret weapon the rebels need.

And if languages can honour Atlas’s memory, then I’ll learn a hundred tongues and more.

The sun has risen as I reach Claridge House, the home of Rita Hollingsworth.

She lives in Mayfair, only a few streets away from the Academy for Draconic Linguistics, which she founded at the age of thirty-five.

I insert my key in the lock of the servants’ door.

A thick, spiked tail trails down the wall above me.

It belongs to Clementius, the Western Drake on the roof, one of the few British dragons who hasn’t fled the encroaching Bulgarian presence in London and who is secretly Hollingsworth’s rebel guard.

I head straight for the stairs, counting the yellow diamonds on the patterned carpet as I climb several floors.

Hollingsworth insists I travel between my home and hers before the morning rush hour.

If anyone were to recognise me, my cover as her visiting niece could be blown.

The walls feature portraits of her extended family – pretty cousins and ancient uncles stare out into the quiet house.

I hear a scullery maid lighting the fires and a creak from the top floor.

I imagine the Chancellor of the Academy for Draconic Linguistics rising from bed, her hair still in rollers.

The image is so ridiculous it makes me snort with laughter.

I open and close the office door softly.

The room is vast, with high windows that overlook the street below.

A large desk stands beneath a painting of a pair of Sand Dragons basking on a beach, the pearly moonlight captured in delicate brushstrokes.

Beside it is an ornate mirror and for a moment I stare at my reflection.

My thick hair is cut so short that it only just grazes my collarbone and dark shadows lurk beneath my eyes, making my skin even paler than usual.

I tread across the maroon rugs towards the door in the corner, past the desk littered with empty cigarette boxes and books about Bulgarian dragons, one opened to an index page with the words blood, blue diamond, Bolgorith.

Something catches my eye. A sketch in black pen, half-hidden beneath the Remington typewriter.

It’s me.

And beneath it, a title.

Vivien Featherswallow, Draconic Translator

My fingers linger over the paper, but I don’t touch it, my mind not quite believing it’s real.

The depiction is different to the government’s Wanted posters of me, the ones Hollingsworth has collected and burned every day before they can be seen.

My face is prettier, my eyes large and doe-like, whereas the Wanted posters depict me with a long, lank braid and a frown.

Neither sketch is quite right, each telling a story that is not quite true.

‘For the Coalition newspapers,’ says a voice.

I spin around. Hollingsworth is standing in the doorway, wearing a blue silk dress and a belt embroidered with silver dragons.

She looks me up and down like she has done every morning for the last three months, taking in my man’s mackintosh and donated leather brogues, as if she expected me to arrive with a limb missing or my hair aflame.

My decision to find my own accommodation rather than live here with her is not one Hollingsworth understands.

‘Morning,’ I say, my face growing hot as I realise she probably thinks I was snooping around her desk. ‘I’m supposed to be undercover. What do you want rebel newspapers printing a sketch of me for?’

She gives me a thin-lipped smile. ‘A rebellion must have a face, must it not? People need to know they’re in good hands.’

I raise my eyebrows in surprise. Me, the face of the rebellion? Has Hollingsworth forgotten that a mere few months ago, I was trying to translate a secret, ultrasonic dragon language called the Koinamens to win the war for Prime Minister Wyvernmire?

‘We won’t publish it until you’re safely out of London,’ she says, her voice as deep as treacle.

Safely out of London.

Does that mean she finally thinks I’m ready?

I stare at the words beneath the sketch again and let out a small sigh.

Draconic Translator. The title is one I’ve waited for my entire life.

It’s oddly satisfying to see who I am printed in black and white, to be given a distinct definition of myself, a neat box to fit in amid the chaos my life has become.

The door in the corner leads to my own workspace, an office within Hollingsworth’s that used to be a cupboard.

I set my satchel down on my small, pokey desk.

The four walls that box me in like a dracovol in a cage are plastered with research papers – maps of various islands, handwritten pronunciation guides and lists of dietary habits.

And tacked on top of them is a rudimentary drawing that Hollingsworth sketched in front of me.

Three Bulgarian Bolgoriths, two black and one red.

General Goranov and his siblings.

Britannia has been in a three-way civil war between the human government, the rebels and Queen Ignacia since last year. And now that the Prime Minister has allied with the Bulgarian Bolgoriths – betraying her promise of peace to Queen Ignacia – barely a day goes by without a rebel attack on London.

I know a Bolgorith, but she was born in Britannia. Chumana, the pink dragon who set fire to 10 Downing Street before following me to Bletchley Park.

‘If we eliminate Goranov and his siblings,’ Hollingsworth told me a few weeks ago, ‘the Bulgarian presence in Britannia will crumble.’

The servants and Hollingsworth’s secretary think I’m here after having jumped at the chance to spend the war working for Britannia’s beloved Chancellor instead of sewing shirts for the soldiers like other First Class girls.

And it’s not exactly a lie. I am working for Hollingsworth.

But my true reason for being here, my mission, isn’t to help Britannia fight the rebels.

It’s to help the rebels fight Prime Minister Wyvernmire and her army of Bolgoriths.

It’s to learn the language of the Hebridean Wyverns.

I’ve met wyverns before, thanks to my parents’ work in dragon anthropology.

But the Hebridean species is different. They’re small, two-legged dragons with a cultural heritage that rivals that of any human community.

They can supposedly be found on the Isle of Canna in Scotland, although they haven’t been sighted in years.

It’s my job to learn everything about them, from their traditions to their tongue, so that when the rebels find them – and Hollingsworth seems adamant that they will – then I will somehow be able to communicate with them.

And convince them to help the rebels win the war.

Of course, the minor detail of how these wyverns can make the Human-Dragon Coalition the victor in a three-way civil war has not yet been disclosed to me.

I sit down as London’s traffic screeches outside and reach for a scrap of paper on my desk. It’s a note from Hyacinth, Hollingsworth’s secretary and another debutante working for the war effort to escape the dutiful drudgery of First Class girlhood.

Dearest Pen,

Party? Tuesday at 8 o’clock, 36 Churton Street in Pimlico.

Pretty please.

H