Caressing the book that had started all of this, I moved to a corner of the couch and set it on the table beside me. After folding my hands in my lap, I began to slowly rotate my mother's ring back and forth anxiously. I'd made a horrible mistake. Unfortunately, I had no clue what I'd done! Kanik had allowed me to read.
Maybe the other Dragon simply didn't know that? Maybe the flowers I'd been looking at were valuable? Or what if they weren't Zasen's, Kanik's, or Rymar's? What if they belonged to someone else and the man had assumed I'd mess them up?
I just didn't know, and I had no clue how to fix any of this. For all I knew, they might throw me out for this, but that was okay. I'd learned a lot since I'd been here. I would find a way to survive, and my feet were almost healed. I'd hide in the forest if I had to. I'd make a place where I could grow plants to eat, send Callah a yellow flower, and then we could live to be old without any men around.
But the thought made the stinging in my eyes worse. The first tear slipped down my face, and I didn't even bother to wipe it away. I knew my plan to get Callah out of the compound wouldn't work. I didn't even know how to open the door, and I hadn't seen any of our hunters since I'd come here. Without them, there was no way I'd get anything yellow back.
But outside, the chaos was still going on, and Zasen's voice was getting louder and louder, which made it easier to understand his language. "Of course I know she's here! I brought her!"
"Then I'll kill her!" the unknown man roared back.
"If anyone's killing her, it's me!" Zasen snapped. "I need what's in her head. We've been feeding her, putting up with her, and figuring out how to talk to her for two weeks! Not once has she been out of my sight."
"And she wasn't this time either," Kanik added, but he wasn't yelling as angrily. "I was watching her through the fucking window!"
"She's never allowed out of our sight for a reason!" Zasen went on. "And if you kill her, then how will I learn how to defeat them, huh? That woman is a gold mine. She's also fucking harmless! She can't even defend herself from a child!"
"He said she's not a Mole!" the woman screeched. "But I saw her. She's as orin as the rest of them."
"Mama!"
"Hush."
"She's a Mole," Zasen said. "She's a Mole we're using to keep Lorsa safe. If that means smiling at her and giving her books? Then yeah, we'll do that, because she's the first one we've been able to talk to." He paused for a moment. "And she is talking."
"Which is the only reason she wasn't killed when we found her," Kanik said.
"But that can still change," Zasen added. "If that girl doesn't help, I'll get rid of her myself rather than let her screw us over."
I just looked down at the story of Peter and caressed the cover. "I knew it couldn't really be this good," I mumbled to myself. "I did, but I hoped it was. But that's okay. Maybe if I tell them all my memories, they'll let me stay? It's much better than making babies."
Thirty-FiveKanik
Somehow, we got Adoet calmed down and headed on his way. Saveah wasn't as easy. Her boy had been talking about his new friend for a few days now, and since she was at Zasen's, Saveah hadn't worried at all. Now that she'd seen Ayla, she was livid.
"You allowed my child to talk to her!" she snapped.
Zasen sighed, scrubbing a hand over his face. "Saveah..."
"No!" she snapped. "His father hasn't even been dead a month, and I'm barely holding it together. I thought I could trust you, Zasen!"
"It's not like that," I said, speaking up. "Saveah, she's been abused. The Mole men are cruel to their women. She's not here to hurt anyone. She's here to escape."
Saveah slowly turned her attention back to Zasen. "Oh? And how can you be so sure of that?"
Zasen just licked his lips, but the lashing of his tail behind him proved how annoyed he was with all of this. "She's malnourished, barely has the muscles to walk across the house, let alone Lorsa, and wants nothing more than to read." Then he bobbed his head. "And it could be an act."
"An act?" She flailed her hands. "And you let her near Tamin?!"
"She's my friend, Mama," Tamin whined.
"She's dangerous, baby," Saveah explained. "She's the reason you have to come inside before the sun sets." Then Saveah looked up. "And speaking of that..."
Because the sky had darkened from gold to pink while we'd been talking. Now the purples and blues were starting to come out, and dusk wasn't far away.
"Don't you ever," Saveah growled, "put my son at risk for your stupid ideas, Zasen. He is not a weapon for you to wield in your foolish crusade."
"No, he's not," Zasen agreed. "He's my friend's son. One I swore to protect with my life, and I will never forget that."
"Good!" Saveah snapped before catching Tamin's hand, shifting her infant daughter on her chest, and heading back for her house.
I just pushed out a heavy sigh. "So, that went well."
Zasen huffed once, the sound almost a laugh. "What was she doing by the street anyway?"
"Looking at the flowers," I explained. "I was watching her, Zasen. I was just looking towards town, not outside the walls."
"I know." He slapped my shoulder and the pair of us turned for the house. "What are the chances someone would return right when she's not only outside, but also unsupervised?"
"No shit," I agreed.
Then we headed inside. With the sun now well below the horizon, the house was dark, but Ayla was sitting in it. Her hands were in her lap, her back was straight, and she was looking down at her book, yet it was closed. I barely got the door closed behind us before she started to speak up.
"The compound has electricity," she said, speaking slowly and in Vestrian. "That's how the lights work, and they come on in the morning and go out when we should all be sleeping. We have a single lamp in our room that we can control if we need to be up once it's night. All rooms are lit like this, but I don't know how the electricity works."
"Okay?" Zasen asked.
I was making my way around the room, lighting the lanterns along the wall in their glass cases. As the room filled with the golden glow, I glanced back to check on Ayla, hoping she hadn't been hurt too badly. Instead, I saw tears streaming down her face.
