Her eyes land on the loquisonus machine again.
‘I know it’s not,’ I say quietly. ‘I know it can do things that other languages can’t. It can heal, and it can make dragonlings grow …’
‘Which dragon gave you this knowledge?’ Chumana says.
‘No one. I figured it out for myself. I know the Koinamens isn’t a code, and it’s not a weapon. You were born with it. It’s part of you. And different dragons speak different versions of it, like … dialects,’ I say slowly.
Chumana lets out a deep growl.
‘I’m right, aren’t I?’ I say. And Mama was right, too.
‘You are dealing with something that is beyond your comprehension,’ Chumana says. ‘You give our calls names, just like you attempt to categorise the differences in our outward appearances, yet you do not understand how each one fits together to make a whole.’
‘But Iwantto understand, to know the ways dragons converse—’
‘The Koinamens is notmeantfor conversation – we have tongues for that. Yet you continue to probe it in the hope that it is subject to some grammatical rule, because then you might bend it to your will! What you do not see is that while the Koinamens says less than other languages, itmeansmore. It is deeper than intellect, faster than light. It is a mother’s whisper inside her dragonling’s mind, to bring him comfort while he awaits her return to the nest. Tell me, human girl: can the meaning of a handshake be translated? A child’s laugh? A dying breath?’
I stare at a blade of trampled grass. How can a language be faster than light?
‘Do you know why the Coalition opposes the Peace Agreement?’ Chumana says.
‘They think it’s corrupt,’ I say. ‘They think it ostracises dragons and oppresses the Third Class.’
‘And do you believe that?’
I think of the children on Canna, of the ban on dragon tongues, of the dead Third Class girl.
‘I think the Peace Agreement was intended for good,’ I say feebly.
‘Many a nation exists without a Peace Agreement, human girl,’ Chumana says. ‘But ours? It has reduced dragons to tolerated subcitizens and enabled a class system that suppresses some of the worthiest of your kind simply because of their economic situation. It is a facade, one that allows Prime Minister Wyvernmire to grant favours to her friends and keep the power within her own circle.’
‘And Queen Ignacia?’ I say. ‘Didn’t she sign the Peace Agreement herself?’
‘She is just as corrupt,’ Chumana hisses.
‘But what do the rebels suggest?’ I say. ‘Without a Peace Agreement, dragons and humans will fight for land, for resources, and there’ll be another war—’
‘A different Peace Agreement,’ Chumana says. ‘One written by the public, with no hidden clauses or inbuilt class systems.’
I shake my head. ‘I have no interest in political debates—’
‘Only because you are privileged enough not to be concerned by them.’
‘The sole reason I’m here is to save my parents and—’
‘Your parents are truer than you are—’
‘My parents are as good as dead!’ I shout at the dragon. ‘Unless I tell Wyvernmire that the dragon code is not a code, but a language with dialects, familial dialects—’
Chumana lets out a deafening roar.
‘You play with dragon secrets hidden from humans since the beginning of time! What do you think your Prime Minister will do once she has the ability to imitate the dragons’ Koinamens? Will she use it to lure and entrap our family members? Will she kidnap eggs and raise her own army of enslaved dragons? Or will she murder a generation of dragonlings before they are hatched, using the calls that only a desperate mother would send to her own egg?’
I stutter and Chumana laughs a low, dangerous laugh.
‘Of course you didn’t know that the Koinamens can kill, just as it can heal and grow. You know nothing of its intricacies, nothing of its ancestral power, nothing of the danger it poses in the wrong hands.’
‘I’m sorry, Chumana,’ I say. I walk over to the loquisonus machine and pick it up. ‘But if I don’t give Wyvernmire what she wants my family will die.’
