I scoffed. "That's a fantasy."

"I see..." Slowly, he set his nearly empty glass down on the small table beside him. "And you kicked your husband in the stones, so they held you down and made you marry him anyway?"

"Stones?" I asked.

"Um..." He pressed his lips together and his eyes lost focus. "Testicles? Genitals? Penis? I think those are the right words?"

Which was when I realized what he was trying to say. "Oh! No, I kneed Mr. Morgan in the genitals. He was the man the Council assigned me to marry, but that made him refuse. I wanted him to refuse, so I was happy, but then Mr. Saunders said he'd marry me anyway, and since he was on my list, they decided to marry me to him right then."

"Ayla, that's not normal," he insisted.

"Well, most girls pick a man," I agreed. "Meri did. Her husband smiled at her for six months before her birthday, although he almost didn't live. That night, the hunters came back and he was seriously wounded - " I paused, jerking my eyes up.

"From what?" Kanik asked.

Leaning forward, I set both the book and the cold tea on the table. Then I clasped my hands in my lap and looked down at them. The ring on my smallest finger was brighter than before, almost like it had been polished by being worn. The sight of it was the closest thing to encouragement I was going to get. Keeping my voice soft and polite, I answered.

"He had been shot with four of the Wyvern's blue-fletched arrows."

The silence in the room was almost overpowering. I wanted to look at Kanik to see how he took that, but I wasn't quite brave enough. All I could see with my head down like this was the end of his tail where it laid on the floor, and it was twitching. The purple stinger at the end was partially revealed!

But when he finally said something, Kanik's voice was calm and mild. "And you knew those were Zasen's arrows?"

"We all know about the Wyvern and his arrows."

"So how did this man survive?" Kanik asked. "Zasen rarely misses."

My fingers tightened on each other until my knuckles were white. "I removed them. If we use ethanol on the wounds, it's less likely they will get infected. If we clamp the blood vessels, it will prevent bleeding too much. And depending on where the arrow is located, sometimes it's best to pull it out or push it through."

"So you did this?" he asked.

I jiggled my head. "All girls must help in the infirmary once we turn fifteen. For most of us, it's by praying, but if we sew elegantly enough, we're expected to learn how to heal the hunters." I paused, daring to lift my eyes to see how angry this Dragon would be. "But I liked healing. I liked being in the infirmary, because it's the one place where women are allowed to make decisions and give orders. Before I was married, I was the second-best healer in the compound - although most of that was because I found the library."

"What library?"

"The one with the banned books," I explained. "The one with the anatomy and history books. There were also fantasy books, and I liked those, but I wasn't supposed to even know the room existed."

Kanik lifted his hand to pinch the bridge of his nose. "Oh, Ayla."

"I'm sorry," I whimpered.

He lifted a hand, making me pause. "Don't be sorry. There is absolutely nothing to be sorry for. It's just that I had no idea how the Moles live, and it's not the way anyone - especially women - should be treated." Then he dropped his hand and pulled in a breath. "But it's okay. You're now here as a refugee. Once you learn our language, then we can worry about all the other things that will be confusing to you."

"When do I get to start learning Vestrian?" I asked.

"Right now," he assured me.

Thirty-TwoAyla

That day Kanik did nothing but explain the alphabet of his language to me. While the letters looked the same, the pronunciation of things had become much different. An English F sounded like TH in Vestrian. Ws were pronounced as Vs. Never mind the vowels! E sounded like A. A sounded like it had an H before it sometimes, but not always. The hard click of a T had been softened to be more like a D.

Then, on the next day, he showed me how their written words had adapted to incorporate all of that. The pronoun I knew as "she" had become "sa." The wolf that had allowed him to identify my language as English was something he called a valth in Vestrian. And not only was it now pronounced differently, it was also spelled that way in Vestrian!

But the words were still the same. That was why the men could use English so easily. They didn't have to think of the new word, only how to say it. To me, that meant the same would be true the other way. Even better, Kanik handed me a pair of books to practice with. One was in English. The other was in Vestrian. They were the same story, one he called a "classic."

The covers of them were vastly different, but the words inside meant the same things. It was a tale of a young girl who got lost in a rabbit hole and entered a world called Wonderland. Her name was Alice, and I loved it. Granted, it was much easier to read the English version first.

But just when I was starting to get used to the pattern of my new life, things began to change. While the guys weren't always at the house, for the first few days, they never left for long. That all changed on the fifth day.

While Kanik was asking me about the words in the Vestrian version of my book, Rymar sauntered into what I now knew was called the "living room." His reddish-orange hair was wet and slicked back over his head. His pants were a light blue that complemented his turquoise markings. He was also wearing a white shirt with a necklace dangling down the middle. A strange, almost hourglass-shaped pendant hung from the leather cord.

"Work?" Kanik asked as if this was typical.

"Mhm," Rymar agreed, understanding the English even if his accent was only marginally better now. "Week auff. Now ah gaw back do da kafay."

"He's had a week off after getting back from our trip to negotiate trade deals with the Reapers," Kanik clarified for me. "Now he has to go check on his bar."

"Bar?" Because to me, that word meant a pole. "Like a rod?"

"No!" Kanik laughed, lifting his hand in a wave to Rymar before saying something in Vestrian.

I caught fun, day, and late in all of that. At least, I was pretty sure if I changed the letters and squished the sounds their way, that would be what those words meant. But before I could ask, Rymar headed for the door so I smiled politely at him. He paused with his hand on the handle to smile back.

"Yu lern lots," he told me.

Then he was gone, but Kanik acted like this was normal. "Rymar owns a place called a bar," he explained. "Well, technically, it's a cafe, but we all call it a bar. It is a building where people come to get simple food and many options of drinks. Some are alcoholic."

I gasped. "But alcohol is the Devil's tool!"

"It's also pretty good, which is why Zasen and I go there for drinks," Kanik assured me. Then he leaned back and a lazy smile took over his brown-freckled face. "And so you know, Zasen's been out since before dawn."

"Oh." I hadn't even missed him!

Kanik just nodded. "This is how Dragons help their communities. We have jobs. We call it working."

"Like cleaning?" I asked.

He murmured at that. "Yes and no. You see, a job is doing something others want and need. Not just you and your own household, but those outside it. Rymar sells food and drinks. Zasen hunts for meat. He sells the hides when he can, but mostly he supplies meat to people who can't hunt on their own, because they either don't have the time or the skill."

"So what do you do to work?" I asked.

"I teach science to children, usually those around eleven or twelve years old. It's called middle school, and my job is called a teacher."

"So, you give sermons?"

"No." He shook his head to make the point. "I teach them the same way I'm teaching you. We introduce new things, discuss them, and learn about them."

Okay, that made sense, but there was one thing I felt I was missing. "So when do you do your work?"