Page 124 of Phoenix's Fire

"Similar," I assured her. "But in Lorsa, people are picked. They don't just age into the position."

"And we've had women in charge too," Lessa said. Her accent was thick, but that was definitely English. "The last Mayor was a woman."

I gaped at her in astonishment.

"What?" she asked. "She was!"

"That's English!" I said.

Which made her grin. "I've been practicing." Then she wobbled her head from side to side. "And I make my neighbor talk to me in English so we both know it."

"Drozel?" Zasen asked, sounding surprised.

"He said he wanted to understand the Moles," Lessa admitted, but she refused to meet Zasen's eyes.

So he reached out and touched her arm lightly, doing his best not to jostle Tamin in the process. "Drozel, Less?" he asked again.

"Yeah."

"Good," he told her. "He's a good guy."

Lessa glanced away, but I was pretty sure I'd missed something. Why was Zasen so surprised that Drozel would want to speak English? Even more confusing was why Lessa seemed almost embarrassed about admitting it.

But Meri moved closer to me, distracting me before I could ask. "This is all because of the hunters?" she asked softly.

"It is. Meri, when they come here, it's bad. People die." I caught her hand. "Children too. They say Dragons are beasts. They don't care about anything else, so we have to stop them."

She nodded. "We do."

And that was enough to make me smile. For the first time, Meri had called the people here "we." She'd included herself. She might not even realize she'd done it, but those words sounded beautiful to me.

Thirty-Eight

Rymar

Iheaded up to the stage as the townsfolk began to gather. Sitting on the bench, Jerlis had the tip of his tail in his hands and was wiggling the end. He looked like he was bored with all this waiting - or nervous. Hoping it was the first, I moved to take the spot beside him.

"How long are you waiting before we start?" I asked.

"Until the flow of people stops," he said, looking over at me.

His eyes had no white part to them. Everything inside his lids was black, and while the mutation was heard of, it wasn't exactly common. He said it didn't cause him any problems, but every time I met his eyes, I could see my own yellow, red, orange, and turquoise skin reflected back, just like a mirror.

"What if this doesn't work?" he finally asked, proving it wasn't boredom making him fidget. Jerlis was nervous.

"If it doesn't work, we're no worse off than we were before Ayla told us when they'd be here," I assured him. "Jerlis, we know the day. This time, they won't even make it into Lorsa."

"What if they do?" he asked. "What if they go around our militia and storm into the city gates and we have no one to defend us?"

"Then we're still no worse off than when we didn't know they were coming," I said again. "Half the militia live on the north side of town. Sometimes, they didn't make it to the gates before the Moles were gone."

He nodded, then looked back at the street behind the stage. "Then there's no reason to wait."

Pushing to his feet, the massive red-and-black striped man let out a piercing whistle. Immediately, the volume of conversation in the crowd dimmed. People were still moving, doing their best to find their friends and family in the congestion, but most were turning to face the stage.

And there were a lot of people down there. Normally, only about a third of the population showed up to these. The news was spread by word of mouth, which meant there was no reason to walk across town to hear it. This time? I turned, realizing there were so many people down there the crowd had flowed around to the sides as well. It seemed everyone who could be here was.

"Listen up!" Jerlis bellowed, his deep voice carrying nicely. "According to the Phoenix, we know when the Moles will attack now. That day is tomorrow!"