"Okay!"
"Want me to start dinner?" Kanik asked, still using English.
"Please," Zasen replied in the same language. "And you probably need the break. Your brain has to be stumbling over letters by now."
Kanik nodded slowly and emphatically. "It is."
"Well, I already started the fire for the oven," Zasen assured him before waving me towards the front door.
"Outside?" I asked. "Zasen, it's too bright out there."
"It's about to be dark," he promised. "The sun is setting, and I have a feeling this is one of those things we didn't think to show you."
So I followed him, but when he opened the door, I swore it looked like the sky was burning. It was also bright, but not daylight-bright. I paused, trying to let my eyes adjust, but Zasen simply guided me forward, closed the door behind us, and then turned me to a set of chairs placed at the edge of his porch.
"Now," he said in Vestrian, once again talking slowly, "you can only use this language. I will answer any question you want or give you any words you don't know, but you must do it in my words."
I set my book down on the table between us and immediately pointed to the sky. "Why it burning?"
"Why's," he corrected. "And it's called a sunset. As the Earth turns, the sun does not, and eventually our side will turn away. This is what it looks like when the sun is at the very edge." He pointed at the brightest area.
"It does this every day?"
He nodded. "It does. And every sunset is different." He leaned back and kicked his strange feet up on the rail before us. "Is it still bright?"
"Yes, but not too bad," I admitted, speaking even slower than he was so I could get my words and sounds right.
That made Zasen smile. "You're doing good."
"I'm doing slow," I told him.
"But good." Then he licked his lips. "Ayla, can I ask you a question?"
"Mhm."
His eyes stayed on the sunset. "Kanik said you healed Moles who had blue arrows in them. Do you know what that means?"
"That you shof them," I replied.
"Shot," he corrected as he looked over. "And yes, I did. How do you feel about that?"
All I could do was shrug, but I didn't look away. I knew I should. To be proper, I should fold my hands in my lap, cross my ankles, and be meek. This time, however, I didn't want to.
"I think that when Gideon had four of your arrows in him, I asked Meri if I should save him first. She was going to marry him, but if he was dead, she wouldn't have to. It's easy to let someone with blue-fletched arrows die, and no one would blame me for a lack of skill in healing."
A million expressions flickered across his face, but in the end, Zasen's brows lifted a bit. It still took him a long time to reply, and when he did, it was in English.
"You would have chosen to let one of your men die because I shot him?" he asked.
"No," I admitted, flipping back to my own language because it was much, much easier. "I would have let him die so he wouldn't breed my friend to death. I would have let him die so she wouldn't become his possession. That he had blue arrows in him meant everyone in the compound already assumed he was dead. No, Zasen, I saved him because he was the best option for a husband Meri had, even if he was a liar about it."
"Liar how?"
"Even though he was wounded, he demanded the consummation!" I hissed. "When she tried to tell him they could postpone so he wouldn't be hurt, he punished her. When it hurt her, he punished her more and then held her in place to finish. When she cried, he told her to stop. And when she snuck out of their family rooms to come tell me and Callah, he punished her for that too." Finally, my eyes dropped to my lap. "And me for trying to help my friend."
"Why is helping your friend a bad thing?" he asked softly.
"Because she married him, so she is his concern now. Because she was twenty and I hadn't turned yet, so as an adult, she had no need of childish things, including me. Because women should give their attention to their husbands, not waste their time with friendship. That only leads to gossip and dawdling. Both are ways for the Devil to take us."
His breath fell out hard. "So if you weren't allowed to have friends, then who were Meri and Callah?"
I licked my lips to keep them from getting dry. "They were my friends," I admitted. "We shared a room, but we were friends too. True friends, Zasen." And I looked up at him again. "And I didn't get to see Meri after that day. Gideon locked her in their rooms. It's been months and months, but I haven't even seen her. I don't know if her bruises healed or she just got more!"
"I'm sorry," he whispered. Then he paused. "Ayla, how old are you?"
"Twenty," I told him. "That's why I had to marry Mr. Saunders, but hopefully if he's married to me, then he won't be available to marry Callah. He's killed so many wives, and I don't want him to do that to her." I turned to look at the sky again. "But when they forced me out, they called me Ayla Ross again, not Mrs. Saunders. Not even Ayla Saunders. They called me Ayla Ross, so he might make Callah marry him anyway."
Before me, the sky was turning darker. The light was dimming enough that my eyes didn't protest, and the colors were even more vivid. Near the horizon, the sky was red, but above us, it was a deep, rich blue. In between were shades of pink and orange. Purple, even!
It was so beautiful. All of this was beautiful, but talking about Meri and Callah made me feel guilty for being able to see it when they couldn't. It made me feel bad for being able to read, not being punished, and all the other amazing things here. Most of all, it made me feel like it made me the one responsible for making a place for them, which was what I hoped I was doing.
"Zasen?" I finally asked. "If they get thrown out, will they come here too?"
"I don't know, Ayla," he said. "I honestly don't know, but I hope they would."
"Yeah," I agreed. "Me too."
Thirty-ThreeAyla
