Page 42 of Phoenix's Fire

"Birth control," Jeera said again. "It's a medicine that prevents women from getting pregnant. Even if they have sex, there won't be a baby. Ayla, you can say no."

But I didn't want to. She'd mentioned it before, and I was very interested. "I'd like that," I told her. "And maybe I can go with Meri so we can both ask questions?"

"I think that's a great idea," Jeera assured me. "Rymar has to go to City Hall, he said, but he'll come back when he's done. Brielle and I want to get Meri a few more things and price out a crib and supplies for the baby. Since you're here..."

"Go," I told her. "And thank you, Jeera."

"Anytime," Jeera assured me, giving Meri a wave, and then she slipped out the door again. I paused, listening to the group of them on the porch, but as their voices started to fade, I turned back to Meri.

"I was going to share my room with you, you know," I said. "I'd been trying to figure out how to get you and Callah out of there, but I don't know how to get in. Zasen said he'd help me, although we didn't get that far."

"It's okay," she promised. "At first, I was scared to death. I don't just mean here, Ayla. I mean from the moment they started pulling off my clothes and put those chains on me. I was so sure I'd just made the biggest mistake."

"But then?" I asked, hoping she'd tell me her story.

Instead, she skipped over that. "But when we left your home last night, Jeera and Brielle - is it really okay to call them that?"

"It really is," I promised.

She nodded and kept going. "They started telling me about Lorsa. They said all Dragons are born from human moms, so there are a lot of tailless women here."

"That's what they call people like you and me," I explained, guessing she'd been too scared yesterday to remember everything.

Which earned me a little smile. One that actually looked relaxed. "Yeah. But once we got home, they changed clothes and put on dresses! I mean, theirs have a tube or sleeve at the back for their tail, and that made them start explaining clothing to me."

"I don't even know that much about it," I admitted. "The guys were there when I was chained on the surface, and they brought me back. I had to walk the whole way, got sunburned, and couldn't speak a word to them."

"But they speak English," she pointed out.

I canted my head, because that wasn't quite true. "TheyreadEnglish, Meri. Until I got here, they didn't know how to pronounce it. I told you about the book and the 'walf,' right?"

"Yeah, but they speak it now," she said.

"Because Zasen has books in English and we all figured it out. Kanik asked me to read things, and then he tried to say words the way I do, but they have an accent."

Meri giggled this time. "They definitely do. I never really knew what that word meant until now, but it's like they say things just a bit differently than I know how to."

"I kinda like it," I admitted. "Their words sound bouncy almost, and the way they raise and lower the pitch isn't the same, but it's nice. It..." I paused, trying to think of how to explain it. Then I figured it out. "It doesn't sound like the men in the compound."

"Is it that much different here?"

"Yes," I breathed. "Good and bad, but very different. Dragons don't have electricity or refrigeration, but they have medicine. They have bows instead of guns. They make new cloth instead of recycling old fabric. So many differences, but they also don't get upset if we make a mistake. At least not the same way people in the compound did. Most of all?" I smiled. "Men aren't allowed to punish women. Not atall, Meri."

"Even when his wife disobeys?" she asked.

I shook my head. "Not even then. It's a crime. A husband does not own his wife. Even better, women aren't required to get married at all. Some couples fall in love. Real love, too! I saw a couple kiss and it was loving. They touched like they both wanted to, and they were in public. No one was angry."

"Really?"

"They were also two men," I admitted. "But women are allowed to be with other women too. Or men. People can love whoever they love, and there's no need to be married by a certain age, or to a certain bloodline, or anything. People become a couple when they find love."

"I thought I had," Meri said softly, touching her belly again, "but it was a lie."

That was the problem. All of it had been a lie, but how was I supposed to tell her that and have her believe me? I still had to. Soon enough, the Moles would return, and if Zasen was right? If Meri might know something that could help us stop them?

"Meri, the people in the compound?" I said gently. "They aren't righteous. The men lie. Over and over they lied to us, but Dragons don't. Sometimes they are loud, or hard, or even terrifying, but they don't lie. They just tell the truth in ways we've never seen before. They say it, even when it's not polite. But here's the most important thing."

"What?" she asked, hanging on every word.