Cindra snaps at him, catching the side of his snout in her teeth, and the two dragons spit and scream in a stand-off than makes my blood run cold. Abelio glares at her, his eyes rabid, but she doesn’t back down. He turns, his head swinging sideto side, a performance meant to ward off a threat. Then he lets out a low hiss and lurches from the room. Cindra’s eyes flash at me again before she follows.
‘What did you do that for?’ Marquis spits at Atlas.
‘He was going to kill one of us!’ Atlas retorts. ‘And we can’t leave here with nothing.’ He looks at me and the hardness in his eyes is unsettling. ‘Weneedthe wyverns.’
I crouch down on the tweed blankets as the water from the stream trickles into the silence. In front of me are the broken loquisonus, Cindra’s writings and Clawtail’s journal. Each are an attempt to understand the Hebridean Wyverns and yet I’m no closer to achieving the mission Hollingsworth set me than when I arrived on the island. All this time, I’ve been trying to learn Cannair to find out how the wyverns can help the rebels win the war, only for it to be untranslatable.
It’s the glasshouse and the Koinamens all over again.
‘Hollingsworth was counting on the success of this mission,’ I whisper. ‘But Cindra will hardly agree to fight with us now. What if we’ve just lost the war?’
‘She can’t have based her entire victory plan on the off chance we find a lost group of wyverns,’ Serena says.
‘But what if she did?’ I reply. ‘Wyvernmire hasBulgarian dragonson her side. Hollingsworth must have realised she needed more than just the average teeth and claws.’ I look to Atlas. ‘I think you’re right. The wyvern echolocation must be the answer.’
He nods, his eyes shining.
‘It is truly theSmuainswelthat interests you?’ Aodahnsays. ‘Well, then. Your dishonesty is poor repayment for ourfasgadhindeed.’
His eyes flick from me to Gideon, shining with sorrow, before he scurries from the room.
‘Great,’ Gideon seethes. ‘The only dragon I ever actually liked hates us.’
We undress for bed in silence. I lie back on the blankets beneath the muted moonlight that shines in through the ceiling. Atlas’s hand finds mine and he turns towards me.
‘We haven’t failed yet, Viv,’ he whispers.
He’s still full of hope, despite everything. But he and the others have achieved their mission, to find the wyverns.
Only mine remains unfulfilled. I’m supposed to be Vivien Featherswallow, Draconic Translator. Except I still haven’t succeeded in translating Cannair. If Cindra makes us leave tomorrow, our deal will be off. What use will I be to the rebels then? Who am I, if I’m just Viv?
My eyes fly open in the shadows.
I don’t even know whoVivis.
A newspaper sketch of my own face dances before my eyes, turning into Hollingsworth’s before transforming into Abelio’s. He breathes out a foul-smelling flame that chokes the air I breathe.
An acidic scent burns the rims of my nostrils, pulling me from sleep. I sense Atlas stir next to me and as I gaze across the murky room, I see Marquis sitting up. He starts to cough and at the same time, something seizes my throat. Atlas jumps to his feet. He lights a lantern and it fizzesto life, bathing the cave in light. Smoke coats everything around us in a green haze that clings to the walls.
‘Poisonous gas,’ Marquis croaks, his arm over his face. ‘Humans.’
I STUMBLE TO MY FEET, COUGHING, as my head begins to spin. Serena seizes a second lantern from the wall and we run out into the tunnels. Screeches sound from the other caves as wyverns burst from their chambers.
‘That way,’ Atlas gasps, grasping my arm and pushing me in the direction of the fleeing wyverns.
‘Wait!’ I choke. ‘Whoever sent in the gas will be waiting by the exits. We have to use the waterfall one.’ I gasp for air. ‘It’s invisible.’
Atlas nods, his eyes streaming with tears. We turn and run back through a crowd of wyverns surging against us. ‘Turn around!’ Marquis screams at them, but the gas distorts his voice.
He collapses without warning and I stop myself from crying out, from breathing in more of the poisoned air. I take short, sharp breaths as I drop down next to him and hook my arm under his. His eyes roll as more of the green smokeskims his face, but someone appears at his other shoulder and lifts him. It’s Gideon, a handkerchief tied over his mouth. He heaves Marquis forward and I stumble with them as Atlas and Serena drive a path for us. Some of the wyverns have had the same realisation and as they begin to change direction, others follow. I see several carrying heavy rolls of tweed, scrolls of paper dropping to the ground to be trampled underfoot. The memory tapestries.
‘Leave them!’ I try to shout, but the inhalation of air burns my throat.
A group of wyvernlings fly by us and I watch them race ahead down the tunnel. Then, several drop from the air with a thud. And suddenly they’re at my feet, dead wyvernlings with green liquid oozing from the corners of their mouths. My head aches, a deep pulsing that threatens to implode my brain as hands push me into freezing water and I swim, with nothing to follow but the blue-white sheen of wyvern scale. I flail, my eyes scrunched tight as the pain in my head and the burning in my lungs paralyse me, until I feel a long, slick body beneath mine.
I emerge from the pool gasping for breath and suck in the cold, fresh air. Aberdine slips out from beneath me, her egg in her mouth, but the thank-you on my lips gets stuck in my hot, raw throat. I stare at the trees around me as my vision clears, the pain receding with each breath of pure air. Wyverns are still bursting from the water and on the banks of the pool I see Marquis, lying on his back in the sunrise and taking long steady breaths as Gideon and Serena lean over him. Atlas emerges on the back of another wyvern, his eyesred and burning. I wade towards him and when we reach each other he clings to me.
‘I can’t see,’ he mutters.
