Chapter 23 #2
Sorrow shadows Gideon’s face but before he can reply, we hear voices.
People are marching down the cliff towards us, a mix of rebels and Guardians carrying gas masks, led by Hollingsworth.
In the aftermath of battle, with her untamed hair and a limp she didn’t have before, the leader of the Human-Dragon Coalition looks almost frail.
I see Cindra beside her, black smoke rising from her mouth.
They come to a stop in front of us and Hollingsworth’s eyes search mine.
‘You convinced the wyverns to use their Koinamens,’ I say stonily.
‘Convinced?’ Cindra snarls. ‘Have you learned nothing of the Hebridean Wyverns, Vivien Featherswallow?’
Hollingsworth nods. ‘Cindra made the decision herself. We owe her our lives.’
‘And how are you going to save hers?’ Atlas asks. ‘Now that the world is about to find out that the wyverns killed the Bolgoriths?’
‘What are you talking about, King?’ Hollingsworth says.
‘It was the foreign aid that killed the Bolgoriths, and just in time. The Regal Goranov was defeated by the great Chumana, who died for her country, and the Regal Krasimir was killed by two of our Swallows – Vivien Featherswallow and Atlas King, using those marvellous guns the late Prime Minister had made in Germany. I saw it with my own eyes.’
So that’s her story. That’s how she’s going to protect the wyverns.
By covering up how they used their Koinamens with a newspaper-worthy story: not one but two Swallows triumphing over the Bolgoriths, witnessed by every rebel present.
The wyverns won’t be in danger, will be able to come out of their concealment without being seen as a threat to the world.
I gaze at Hollingsworth’s wrinkled face and determined smile.
She has done it again. Twisted the truth to ensure that she wins.
‘You should pray that the rest of Britannia never finds out what you tried to do, Chancellor,’ Atlas says scathingly. ‘You would be more hated than Wyvernmire.’
In some ways, I admire her obstinate refusal of Wyvernmire’s government, of a Bulgarian regime, of a war between humans and dragons. But I’ll never trust her again. Like Wyvernmire, the founder of the Academy for Draconic Linguistics is not who I thought she was.
Perhaps, I think to myself, this war has changed us all.
Cindra steps aside, gesturing with her snout.
‘Your tunnel-detecting machine,’ she tells me in Cannair with a glint in her eye.
I pick the loquisonus up off the sand and it’s cold and hard in my arms.
‘Thank you, Cindra. Your tunnels. Are they—’
‘Still inhabitable, according to Abelio,’ she replies. ‘But we have no use for them now.’
She stares across the beach at the wyverns, who are curled up in a blue pile on the beach, sleeping.
There are so few of them now. Their kill call would have only been able to reach one Bulgarian at a time, unless they were part of a bonded group.
Such repeated concentration must have cost the wyverns all their energy and by the time they got to Krasimir, there simply wasn’t enough left.
As Cindra slinks away to join them, I look at Hollingsworth. ‘Did they find your father’s journal, too?’
Hollingsworth nods. ‘Cindra returned it to me, along with her own writings. And I found more of my father’s sketches in Canna House. I was born there, you know.’
I remember the watercolours of the wyverns.
‘It’s all going straight to the Academy to be preserved. The first known study of the language called Cannair. I believe you added some of your own, too, Vivien?’
‘They’re more like trans-estimations,’ I say. ‘I’ve never known a language to have so many layers of meaning. I don’t know if an accurate translation will ever be possible.’
Hollingsworth nods. ‘I was going to offer you a job, in the event that—’
‘In the event that you didn’t have to turn Viv into a blood sacrifice?’ Atlas says coldly.
I lay a hand on his arm as their eyes lock.
‘But,’ Hollingsworth continues, ‘I’m afraid we won’t be going back to our old lives just yet.’
I stand up straighter.
She lowers her voice. ‘We have made a mockery of the Bulgarian Council of Regals. The Bolgoriths that died here today were from Krasimir’s regality, but there are numerous others.’
‘What are you saying, Dr Hollingsworth?’ I ask as fear rises in my stomach.
‘The war isn’t over,’ she replies. ‘How could it be?’
‘But Krasimir’s army is defeated.’
Hollingsworth’s mouth trembles. ‘The Council of Regals didn’t take Krasimir’s invasion of Britannia seriously, Daria tells me.
They knew that he was not of sound mind and so refused to send their own regalities to war.
But now that he is dead, they will be forced to retaliate.
And rumour has it that Krasimir was one of the most . . . accommodating of the regals.’
‘Then we need to tell everyone to stop celebrating!’ Atlas bursts. ‘We need to warn—’
Hollingsworth holds up a wrinkled hand. ‘Parliament is already calling an emergency session. We need not alarm the people yet. Let them rest a little first. And do not despair, both of you.’ She watches an Austrian Solar-tail soar through the sky. ‘This time, we have allies.’
I sigh and sit down against the cliff, setting the loquisonus in the sand.
Atlas sinks down next to me and we watch Hollingsworth congratulate another group of rebels.
They eye her warily. I’m not the only one who has lost my faith in her.
The oyster-catchers begin their song and out on the sea a ship is sailing towards us.
‘That’s what we’re going home on,’ Atlas says, pointing to it. ‘Seeing as the Bolgoriths took out our planes.’
I cradle my bloody arm, wincing at the thought of stitches. ‘Do you think there’s anything left of London?’
‘If new Bolgoriths are coming, they won’t arrive for several days,’ Atlas says grimly. ‘That will give us time to assess, to set up some new defences.’ He throws an arm around me. ‘The first thing we’ll do is find Ursa. We’ll send a dracovol, to tell Dr Seymour where we are.’
I give him a tiny smile, the anticipation of seeing my sister again rising above my renewed terror.
‘Viv?’
‘Atlas?’
‘I – I once told you the priesthood was how I was called to love. But I was wrong.’
He’s looking at me sheepishly, letting sand trail through his fingers.
‘God wouldn’t ask you to make a vow you don’t want to make, Atlas. The priesthood is—’
‘Is not the vow I’m talking about.’
‘It’s not?’
‘No.’
Atlas reaches to touch the swallow around my neck and I feel heat creep across my skin.
‘I joined the rebellion because my conscience urged me to, and I told myself it was fine to be breaking the law and shooting Guardians as long as I became a priest after,’ he says.
‘Surely, that was what God had led me to Father David for.
But then you came along, Featherswallow.
Every time I tried to clear my mind, to pray, you were there.
Your smile, the smell of your hair, your infuriatingly stubborn personality.
I begged God to let you be his will for me, to change my vocation.
But when I woke up on Eigg after Bletchley Park, you were already gone.
‘And then a letter came from Hollingsworth, detailing the orders for a secret mission and the Plan B that would ensue if I failed.’ He grimaces.
‘It was cruel of her. She knew I wouldn’t tell you the truth about needing the wyvern Koinamens to win the war, because you’d refuse to ask it of them and then Plan B would be enacted.
And she knew I wouldn’t tell Chumana about Plan B, because she would have killed Hollingsworth and the rebel movement would have fallen apart.
’ He closes his eyes. ‘There was no way I was going to tell you about it, either, in case you turned round and bloody volunteered.’
When he opens his eyes, there’s a depth to them I’ve never seen.
‘I realised, as soon as I saw your name in her letter, and then again at the egg-choosing ceremony, that God had heard my prayer. That my calling was to something – someone – else.’
My heart flutters like a dracovol’s wings. ‘You told me mine was languages,’ I say before he can continue. ‘But you were wrong about that, too.’
‘You’re still a translator, Viv. Just because Cannair was—’
I shake my head. ‘It’s okay,’ I tell him. ‘I don’t think I want to be any more. Some things are only meant to form a small part of us and yet we let them become our entire identity.’
Atlas frowns.
‘Don’t you think?’ I say.
‘I think there are big vocations and small vocations,’ he says.
‘The type we’re meant to dedicate our lives to – like the priesthood for Father David, or fatherhood for Aodahn.
’ He hesitates. ‘And the type that is only one piece of a larger puzzle, a job or a state of mind that is the means to a higher end. Maybe you thought translation was the former, when really, it’s the latter. ’
I nod.
‘If we’re about to head into another war, then I don’t want to wait, Featherswallow.‘
I meet his gaze. ‘Wait for what?’
‘I don’t have a ring . . .’
I stop breathing.
‘Atlas—’ I begin.
‘You don’t have to answer me yet,’ he says quickly. ‘But I know what I want. And it’s not this, Viv.’ He gestures to the destruction around us. ‘It’s not the priesthood, either. My vocation is you. It’s been you ever since Bletchley Park.’
I want to say yes, want to fall into his arms and whisper it a hundred times into his ear. But I shake my head, my throat dry as I try to find the words.
‘I’m not ready to get married, Atlas,’ I say softly.
His face falls.
‘For years, I convinced myself that my languages were the most important part of me. And then I thought I was the face of the rebellion, thought I was going to win the war through translation. I was vain and na?ve and selfish.’
Atlas stares at the sand. I take his hand and kiss it.