I drop down beside her, reaching for the knife. She shakes her head at me, her eyes huge, her hair unkempt. I watch her pupils dilate.
‘Help me lift her, quickly,’ I hear Marquis say to Atlas.
Wyvernmire lets out a small gasp, then shudders.
‘Shit,’ Marquis whispers.
Ruth eyes meet mine in a long, hard stare.
‘Told you I’d make her pay.’
She steps back into the shadows.
Rebels crowd the blood-soaked beach, warming cold hands by the dragon-lit fires in the dawn. A chilled mist gathers around them, purging the air of the smoke. The smell of fried pigeon makes my mouth water. I keep walking, Atlas by my side. I can’t bring myself to sit still, to rest. Not until I’ve found what I’m looking for.
A sign that the Bulgarian Bolgoriths are really gone.
We walk hand in hand, past Jasper and Philippa, past Freddie draping a blanket over Serena’s shoulders and Ruth’s girls who are sipping something hot from bowls that Sophieand George are handing out. Edward is being hoisted into a small rowing boat by two medics, and as more reach the shore I see Marquis leap up from the sand and stumble towards them, his arms outstretched. Karim steps out of one of them, looking ten years older, and they fall into each other’s embrace.
‘Reports coming from the Inner Hebrides, home to the Human-Dragon Coalition Headquarters, tell us that the war is over.’ A voice crackles through Serena’s radio. ‘Indeed, as we look out of our window now, we can see the foreign allies landing in London. It took them long enough, didn’t it, Drake?’
‘Look, there are the Bulgarian oafs, rising above the city, fleeing as the mothership calls them home. Britannia has won the war, Sandy! I repeat, the war is officially over.’
‘Is it, do you think?’ I say quietly to Atlas. ‘Is it really over?’
Dragons are dragging dead Bolgoriths towards a great fire between two cliffs, an honour they don’t deserve. As their scales crack and bend I see the grim finality of it, of this war we very nearly lost. So what now? Above us a group of Western Drakes keep watch, as sceptical as I am. Atlas squeezes my hand and we keep walking.
There is a line of bodies, surrounded by flowers and seashells that more of the Sanday girls are quietly arranging. Among them I see Cormac Mackenzie and Roy. Atlas releases a heavy breath. The sea rises up to kiss the body of a Sand Dragon who could merely be sleeping.
‘His sister is over there,’ I hear Gideon saying. ‘Burn them together.’
We watch as a dragon drags Addax towards Soresten,several Guardians holding her tail. My heart wrenches.
‘Viv!’ Gideon shouts when he sees me. ‘Where’s Chumana?’
The mention of her name is like a punch in the stomach.
‘She died,’ Atlas says softly.
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 bytwoof 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.
