‘Gideon has a point,’ Serena says. ‘We have no idea how the war’s going. I can barely get any radio signal down here. For all we know, the rebels could be—’
‘The egg-choosing ceremony is in a few days,’ Marquis says. ‘Let’s stay until then.’ He looks at me. ‘That will giveyou time to translate enough of Cindra’s Cannair, right? And like you say, you might just find something out in the process.’
I nod gratefully but avoid his gaze. I don’t dare tell them the truth. That part of me has already realised that translating Cannair is a thankless task. Putting it into English makes the language sound stilted and monotone, losing the melodious quality of the words and the meaning of the wyverns’ expression. But I have to let Cindra see me try. Is it possible, I wonder, that there are languages you can have deeper thoughts in? Languages that allow you to think about things differently, because they have more words, more meanings for ideas that don’t exist in others? If so, Cannair is one of those languages.
I don’t go to the Twilight Meal, choosing to stay with my studies instead. I take out the photograph of Ursa and trace the outline of her little face. What will happen to her if the wyverns don’t help us and we lose this war? I jump as Atlas walks into the cave. He sits down next to me, tucking his feet under my tweed blanket.
‘You’re supposed to be at the Twilight Meal,’ I say with a glare. ‘Don’t tell me you suddenly have time for me again? Is that because Abelio put a stop to your classes?’
‘You’re right,’ he says softly. ‘I’ve been distracted. I’m sorry.’
He elbows me playfully, but I don’t smile. ‘It’s my turn to be distracted,’ I mutter. ‘Sorry.’
He picks at the blanket and when I steal a glance at him, his eyes are on the loquisonus machine.
‘The wyverns’ echolocation sounds different to thedragons’, doesn’t it?’
‘Hmm,’ I reply.
‘Could that . . . mean something?’
‘Like what?’ I say. ‘These wyverns are different to dragons in every way imaginable. The only similarity they have is to Bolgoriths, because many only speak one tongue.’ I pause. ‘I thought you knew that Bolgoriths communicate so frequently in echolocation that they organise their fighting groups by family, because their Koinamens bond means that they can literally see into each other’s minds?’
Atlas is nodding. ‘I do. But these wyverns don’t have that. Most of them have never fought another dragon in their lives.’
Everything I learned about echolocation suddenly catches up with me.
‘But what if whatever Hollingsworth knows about them, what she wants with them, has something to do with their echolocation?’
Atlas leans closer. ‘Do you have something in mind?’
My shoulders slump. ‘No. I wish I’d just bloody waited for her to tell me, instead of trying to save that dragonling and getting myself arrested.’
Atlas’s arms encircle me and he kisses my cheek. ‘It wasveryrebellious of you,’ he whispers in my ear.
I lean back into him and he kisses me again, on the mouth this time, and my mind drifts between the delicious softness of his lips and echolocation, the sweet smell of his hair and the wyvern tongue . . .
‘Wait,’ I say, pulling away. ‘What if the reason I’m struggling to translate the wyvern tongue is because I’m trying to be toofaithful to the source text?’
Atlas raises an eyebrow, his hands still on my waist.
‘At university, I learned about language subordination and domination,’ I say. ‘The Academy considers a good translation to be one that is subordinate to the target language, meaning the translation of the dragon tongue into English is so fluid, so natural that it’s like it was never even translated at all. It conforms to its target language and the translator becomes invisible, but the original style, the peculiarities of the dragon tongue, get lost.’
Atlas’s fingers find the bare skin of my hip beneath my jumper. ‘And language domination?’
I think of the lines and lines of Cannair written by Cindra.
‘Language domination is when the translation dominates the target language, preserving the source language’s original rhythm, its word order, its idiosyncrasies, so that when we read it we remember that we’re reading a translation.’
‘But doesn’t that make the English translation hard to understand?’ Atlas asks.
‘Yes, which is why the Academy won’t accept it,’ I say. ‘But some Draconic translators argue that subordination gives us a purely instrumental view of language. They say that when we focus on the outward beauty of the translation, we neglect to imitate its true form.’
‘And that’s what you’re doing with the wyvern tongue?’
I nod. ‘I’ve been so focused on making Cannair sound perfect in English, but perhaps that’s impossible. Perhaps it doesn’t matter if the translation sounds bad, as long as I’m not betraying the original meaning.’
‘But how will the original meaning be conveyed if the English makes no sense? How will anyone ever be able to learn the tongue if they don’t understand what they’re saying?’I bite my lip. I don’t know the answer to that question. And yet, I know the Academy won’t ever accept my translation of Cannair unless it makes sense in English.
