Page 142 of Phoenix's Fire

"Is she okay?" he asked. "Callah's worried about her pregnancy. Is she going to be okay up here?"

"Dragons have medicine," I assured him. "She's seen a real doctor, not just a woman who can heal. Meri's going to be fine. Tell Callah I'm making sure of it."

He nodded. "And..." This time, he looked at Zasen as he asked, "How did my mother know about Dragons?"

"Because she was one," he replied.

"No, but - "

"Tobias," I said, "every Dragon is born from a woman like me. They call us tailless. Your mother had a brother. He's the mayor of their town!" I paused, rocking my head from side to side. "And big, like you. You have family here, and we think every woman in quarantine does too. The hunterstakewomen from the surface, lock them in quarantine so they can't be seen, and then use them to make children."

"No…" he breathed, rocking back. "But..."

"It's all a lie," I said. "Everything down there is meant to keep some people in power and the rest of us helpless. Tobias, it's a lie, and we have to get Callah out before that lie kills her."

He nodded. "I'm trying. Wyvern, I'll find a way to open the doors. There has to be one. Ayla, I will tell Callah all of this." He paused to grunt and clutched at his wounded arm. "At least this is a good reason for why I'm still alive."

"The animal dragged you away and you lost your gun," Zasen told him. "I killed your partner. You took those feathers from his body, but without a weapon, you tried to find your way back and got lost."

Tobias nodded in agreement. "That will work."

"And she is the only reason you're still alive," Zasen said, pointing at me. "She's also the reason we are destroying you."

"I know," Tobias said. "I figured that out, but they haven't. They can't imagine a woman doing anything but what she's told." He looked at me and smiled. "But I knew better, Ayla. I knew you were strong enough to survive."

"And to get revenge," I told him. "Just tell Callah about quarantine. She needs to know. Find out the name of her mother too. If you can get her out, tell her to wait by the tree. The wild men will find her and bring her to me."

"What if I can't?" he asked.

I reached over to rub Holly's neck. "Then you'd better have the code for us to get in. Come back with something, Tobias, or I'll make sure she does more than bite your arm." Then I tipped my head at his wounds. "And tell her to use ethanol on that. It's going to hurt."

"Still feels worth it," he assured me. "I'll make sure to be on this side of the fight again next time."

"The east," Zasen said, pointing over Tobias's head, into the forest. "And the road is that way. I suggest you wait until it's very, very dark before you move."

Forty-Four

Ayla

By the time we were done talking with Tobias, the gunshots had stopped. So had the screaming. I wasn't sure if that meant all the Moles were dead, or if they'd simply run far enough away the sound didn't reach me. Still, Zasen insisted we had to check on our friends.

I made sure Tobias knew how to take care of his wound. The instructions I gave him were mostly for Callah, since she'd never seen an animal before. Yet as we left the secluded cluster of boulders, I had to look back twice, struggling to believe he was really here - and helping.

"Do you trust him?" Zasen asked when we were far enough away.

I could only shrug. "I want to, but he's a man. One of the better men, but I didn't know him that well."

"Could he have stolen your mother's drawing?"

"No," I promised. "Callah put that in a place Tobias would never fit. I was the only one who knew about it, and I told her the day I left. If anyone else found out about it, she'd be punished, so there's no way she'd tell them." I grunted. "Well, she knew it existed, but not exactly where until the day I left," I clarified.

Zasen nodded as if thinking, and we walked on. A meeting area had been designated before we left. The "hollow," Zasen had called it, but that didn't mean anything to me. I could only assume it was where we were heading now.

Holly kept right at my side. Her head swiveled to check every sound or smell. Half of them I didn't notice myself. Yet when I reached down to pet her, she glanced up with a wag of her tail before checking around us again.

"You know that dog saved our lives?" he asked.

"Yeah," I breathed, rubbing her head again. "I heard him change the magazines. If he'd had bullets..."