Dragons are flying in over the bay with people on their backs. There are so many humans that they must have come from all over: Eigg, mainland Scotland, London. We hover over Wyvernmire’s camp. It’s empty except for a few Bolgoriths who are herding Guardians of Peace into the tents. It’s happening just like Ralph said it would. The humans are being imprisoned. If Wyvernmire gassed the wyvern tunnels to get to me and the loquisonus machine, maybe she knew the Bulgarians were about to turn on her. Maybe she was trying to escape. That would explain why there’s no sign of her on the beach.
Chumana roars as she reaches Compass Hill. ‘Rita Hollingsworth! It seems not all rebels are party to the same secrets.’
The Hebridean Wyverns back away as Chumana and Darialand. Cindra stands at the front of the group. It’s smaller than before and I feel a rush of grief for the wyverns lost. Abelio isn’t among them. We stand feet away from Hollingsworth, small but imposing in her green uniform and leather boots, her hair gathered by a black ribbon. Atlas is by her side and when I meet his pleading gaze, I feel both a reluctance to leave the warm shelter of Chumana’s body and a rushing desire to be caught up in his arms. I ignore him as I climb to the ground.
‘I am relieved to see you, Chumana,’ Hollingsworth says.
‘Do you greet me with more lies?’ Chumana snarls.
‘Not lies, Chumana. Just delayed truths.’
‘The Koinamens will be left to the dragons, will not be tampered with, will not even be spoken of. Those were your words, uttered to the dragons that joined the Coalition,’ Chumana says.
‘And why did you join that Coalition?’ Hollingsworth replies. She stands like a soldier at ease, staring up into Chumana’s great, spiked face. ‘To extinguish a corrupt Peace Agreement. To abolish an unjust Class System. To ensure that dragons and humans can live together peacefully, without one trying to dominate the other. We are a single battle away from achieving these things, Chumana, with the wyverns’ help. But without it, the Coalition simply doesn’t have the numbers for a victory.’
‘So you begin your so-called peacetime with the exploitation of dragons,’ Chumana hisses. ‘History repeats itself.’
Hollingsworth glances at Cindra. ‘It isn’t exploitation if they agree. Vivien, would you care to introduce me?’
Dread floods my body. Chumana looks like she might beabout to breathe fire, or worse, abandon us altogether.
A flash of blue.
Aodahn has scuttled forward. He casts a nervous look up at Chumana and then his head turns to Atlas.
‘This is about theSmuainswel,is it not, dear one?’
Atlas stares at Aodahn as if he’s seen a ghost.
‘Are you Abelio?’ Hollingsworth asks.
Aodahn shakes his head. ‘I – I am Aodahn,’ he stutters. ‘This is Cindra.’ He gestures with his wing to Cindra, who takes a step forward.
‘Abelio refuses to remain above ground,’ she growls at Hollingsworth. ‘Who are you?’
‘Chancellor of the Academy for Draconic Linguistics and leader of the Human-Dragon Coalition,’ Hollingsworth replies as Aodahn’s eyes widen. ‘You may not remember me. It was such a long time ago.’ She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a silk handkerchief, which she unfolds. I crane my neck to see what’s inside.
A ring.
‘This belonged to June Clawtail. My mother.’
From the private papers of Patrick Clawtail
Marguerite is now seven, tall and grey-eyed and coltish, so different to the soft, supple baby we brought to live with the Hebridean Wyverns. She knows no human children, and does not understand what a strange sight it is, her playing with the wyvernlings. Yesterday, she told her mother and I that she washatched from an egg. ‘Neamroque’ (my own spelling) was the word she used. I believe the Cannair for ‘egg’ translates literally to ‘heavenly rock’, born from the Gaelic ‘neamh’ (Heaven) and the Anglo-Norman ‘roque’ (rock.)
I sometimes amuse myself with these small etymological games, reflecting on how the wyverns might spell certain words if they recorded their own grammar on paper. But what interests me a great deal more these days is the ‘neamroques’ themselves, and, well, the promise they hold. The eggs, with their pearly sheen, that sit in a great nest down on the beach, bathed in the heat of flame and sunlight, are a promise of a future on Canna. A future for Cannair and the Gaelic that cradled its beginnings.
I know how fortunate we are to be here, living secretly among dragons, when so many islanders were torn from their homes. I watch my wife and child, jumping the waves, Canna’s sun settling like gold around the shape of their bodies and catching in the soft spirals of their hair as if to bind them here forever. The Hebridean dusk turns the sea lavender and the abandoned stone houses stark against the horizon. The music of oyster-catchers and crooning dragons mixes with the silence of a tongue that once told of sea and isles. The basalt columns reach up to kiss the heavens.
Neamroque.
Such a heavenly rock is Canna.
I FORGET TO BREATHE.
‘My father wore the other,’ Hollingsworth says, ‘but as his body was never found, I do not have it. It was I who set up the empty grave on Canna, with the memory tweed, as per wyvern tradition.’ She smiles.
My head spins. Rita Hollingsworth is the little girl Clawtail writes about in his journal? She’s his daughter?
