Chapter 18
MY BONES SCREAM. ICY COLD BURNS my skin and my mouth fills with saltwater. I take an instinctive breath and the water floods my lungs. My eyes fly open in panic.
Atlas is gone.
The sea is a dark blue-grey. It propels me forward with a gigantic force and I raise my hands in front of my face just as it flings me against a solid shape.
My cheek grazes the side of the rock but I feel no pain.
I choke, the pressure in my head so strong that my eyes feel like they might burst from their sockets.
The swirl gathers me again, the wool of my coat unravelling around me in a pale line, like the trail of a fish.
I shake the heavy material from my shoulders and swim upwards, kicking my aching legs with the last energy I can muster.
My lungs burn, threatening to explode, and my head breaks the surface just as dots begin to dance before my eyes.
I gasp, inhaling cold air, as a wave crashes me back towards the cliff face.
The evening sky is on fire.
I flail, turning my body to face the cliff. It towers above the water, its sprawling smoothness unforgiving, its grey rock polished flat by centuries of waves. There’s nothing to hold on to, no way of pulling myself out of the water.
I’m going to drown.
I stare out at the white current coming towards me.
‘Atlas! Where are you?’ I scream.
I take another breath as the waves hit, sending me spinning, then burst out of the water as they roll over my head. I see a small, dark circle ahead.
The waves pull back, taking Atlas with them, before pushing him towards me and sending us both under the foamy swirl again. When we surface, he grabs me by the arms. I want to cling to him but that could kill us both. The cold is like a blade on my skin.
‘Where—’ I gasp, but I can’t finish my sentence.
I stare out at the churning sea.
‘There,’ Atlas chokes.
He’s pointing to the columns of basalt rock that jut out from the cliff face, forming narrow ledges too high for us to reach.
But the waves push us up against the cliffs, hoisting us higher, and we let them toss us until Atlas is close enough.
As we’re pushed flat against the grey surface he stretches his body out of the water, reaching up to a ledge.
I draw in a breath as the waves steal me away.
They pull me towards the deep but I force myself to stay still, knowing that they’ll bring me back again in a dance of rise and fall.
When they spit me out I set my eyes on Atlas, who has pulled himself up on to the ledge.
I reach him and flail for his hand, my legs treading nothing.
He catches me by my wrists and pulls me upwards.
My shoulders pop in protest, the muscles in my sides pulling painfully as I hang in the void.
Then he grabs the back of my jumper and lifts me, scraping my stomach against the jagged rock.
I don’t dare move, lying still with my face against Atlas’s leg as we both catch our breath, the lower half of my body still hanging over the edge.
The ledge, barely wider than a baby’s cradle, can’t hold us both.
I lift a leg to grip the side and Atlas’s hand comes around the top of my thigh, holding it there.
I stare at the swirling depths below. The air is sharp and smoky, stinging the salty cuts that smart beneath the gashes in my trousers. Atlas’s teeth chatter.
I stare at him, still crouching with his hair plastered to his forehead and the soggy papers stolen from the tent sticking out of his pockets. Watery blood drips from the back of his neck and when he turns his head I spot the wound made by Ralph’s baton, a small, red gash on the back of his skull.
‘Sti – stitches,’ I say with a shiver.
A Speerspitze explodes and a Ddraig Goch drops into the sea with a crash.
Atlas’s hand tightens around my leg as the ripple effect sends water surging up to meet us, spilling over me.
I can only see the far side of Wyvernmire’s camp from here, the closer half hidden by the cliffs that stretch across the sand.
There is no sign of Guardians or the Prime Minister, no human presence at all.
Only the sky, dark but alight with flame, is in battle.
The rebels must be sending the dragons in first. Ash, still glowing orange, floats towards us, extinguishing as soon as it touches our wet skin.
‘I thought it would burn,’ I say hoarsely as my limbs begin to tremble.
‘I wish it would,’ Atlas mutters.
My legs are aching, the rim of the ledge digging into my ribs, my toes turning numb.
But there’s nowhere to climb up or down to and if Atlas tries to move, we could both fall.
He hooks his arm under mine as we wait hopefully, as if a dragon we know might just fly by and spot us.
I think of Marquis, Serena and Gideon, looking for Chumana when all along she was in the tent.
‘I don’t think I can stay like this for much longer,’ I shout over a series of roars.
Atlas nods in agreement. ‘I’m going to have to let go of you so I can sit down. All right?’
I grip the ledge with stiff, bone-white fingers. Atlas lets go of my leg and slowly moves from his crouching position so that he’s sitting down, dangling his legs over the edge. Then one of his hands reaches over me and grabs the back of my belt. He pulls me up and across his lap.
‘Now sit up and turn around slowly,’ he says, ‘and wrap your legs around my waist.’
‘Around your what?’ I splutter.
‘Just do it, Viv.’
I pull my knees in and use the rock behind Atlas to twist myself round to face him, then slide my legs on either side of his waist.
‘Careful not to crush my paperwork,’ he murmurs.
‘I don’t think it’s the paperwork I’m crushing,’ I reply.
‘Now put your arms around me.’
‘Why do I get the impression you’re enjoying this?’
Atlas snorts. ‘Do you want to fall back in?’
I wrap my arms around him, my fingertips barely touching as they stretch across his back to meet each other.
‘Atlas?’ I say.
‘Hmm?’
‘If you’re still the praying type, now would be a good time to, you know . . . pull some strings.’
He bursts into laughter, his lips grazing my shoulder. Then his voice changes.
‘If we survive this,’ he says, ‘we have to convince Cindra to help us. We can’t give up, Viv. The alternative is—’
His voice breaks as his fingers press into my skin, clutching me tightly. Tears spring to my eyes at the emotion in his voice.
‘I know,’ I soothe.
This is how we stay, our frozen bodies slowly warming each other, until the fire and the fighting stop.
At some point, the tip of his cold nose on my neck makes me jump and for a second I panic, thinking he’s fallen asleep and we’re about to go over.
But his hand rests on my back, his fingers drumming the rhythm of a tune I can’t hear.
A seagull flies past, settling on the grassy clifftop above, and looks down at us with a beady eye. I feel oddly vulnerable.
‘We’re going to have to get back in the water,’ I say, my voice thick with cold. ‘We can’t climb, so we’ll have to swim. So much for asking God for help. He could have at least sent a—’
‘Boat?’ Atlas says. He nods towards the water. ‘Look.’
I turn slowly to look over my shoulder. A small rowing boat is coming towards us, surrounded by the cool morning mist. I squint in the sombre light and see two figures.
‘Who is that?’
‘I think it’s Ruth,’ Atlas says.
Ruth and the girl rowing behind her angle the boat as close to the cliff as they can and gesture up to us. Atlas helps me turn around and I take a deep breath before jumping into the sea.
The freezing cold makes my body cry out but hands grab me before I can choke on water, pulling me on to the boat. I gasp in shock as I sit on one of the benches and watch the girls pull Atlas on board.
‘Here,’ Ruth says, throwing a sheepskin shawl at me.
I mutter my gratitude and wrap it around my shoulders.
‘Thanks,’ Atlas says as he pulls his own on. ‘Things were starting to look—’
‘Bleak?’ Ruth says with a smirk. A dracovol scurries out of her furs and comes to sit on her shoulder. It lets out a loud screech.
‘Our night watch spotted you, but it wasn’t safe to come out until now.’
She picks up her oars.
‘Did Jasper reach you?’ I ask her.
‘Yes,’ she says, a little indignantly. ‘And Freddie’s group. I almost shot them dead. You weren’t supposed to tell them about the tunnels.’
‘I didn’t mention the tunnels specifically,’ I say. ‘You didn’t turn them away, did you?’
Ruth shakes her head as she begins to row. ‘I ’ent in the business of letting innocent kids die, although I haven’t decided about that Roy yet.’
‘Let Sargo have him,’ I whisper through chattering teeth.
Ruth grins. She looks at Atlas, then points to the dracovol. ‘I found this fellow on the other side of the island. He ’ent one of ours.’
On the other side of the island?
‘But Ruth, aren’t you banished?’
‘He’s been looking for you,’ she tells Atlas.
For a moment I think she must be joking, but then I see Atlas’s face. He freezes, his cheeks red.
‘Me?’ he says, his voice tinny and forced.
Then I see it. The slip of paper clasped in the dracovol’s left talon.
‘He was carrying this,’ Ruth says.
She opens her palm to reveal a small piece of green wool fabric, the same material that Atlas’s Coalition-issued uniform is made from.
I remember the square cut from the inside of his jacket pocket.
The dracovol jostles its leg and slowly Atlas’s eyes come to meet mine.
He takes the folded paper. His surname is scrawled on the front in a looping handwriting I recognise.
My heart sinks.
‘Open it,’ I tell him. ‘And read it to me.’
K.
I know you will do everything it takes to ensure we succeed. By the time you reach me, I am sure minds will have been changed. I am waiting where the sketches are.
H
He looks up, his eyes smarting with shame.
‘H,’ I say coldly. ‘Not . . . the H?’