Page 159 of Phoenix's Fire

He nodded, holding my eyes. "There are too few men, too many widows, and not enough children. Callah, they're talking about dropping the marriage age."

"What?!"

"And the age for boys to become hunters," he admitted. "Eighteen, but that means you're old enough now."

"No..." I breathed, feeling like my skin was contracting around me.

"So we have to get you out," he insisted. "If they announce this, then you stab me, Callah. I gave you that pocket knife. It has a blade. Make sure you keep it with you, and if we have to say vows, you stick the thing in my arm or leg, okay?"

"No," I said again. "Tobias, I can't."

"You can," he promised. "It's just like cutting meat. I'll yell that you should be banished, and that'll set everyone else off, okay? Then you'll be hung out, and we'll make sure you get to Ayla."

"But - "

"And," he went on, "I'll find you at the next hunt. You can tell Ayla I helped. She'll tell the Wyvern. That's the only way they'll let me live, so I have to get you out first, Callah."

Giving in, I jiggled my head. "When?"

"When what?" he asked.

"When will this happen?"

He pushed out a heavy breath. "I don't know. They said they have to look at it, but it's what they want to do. The men were told to consider the girls as well as the women. Married men were encouraged to send their children to nursery so they can focus on making more." His eyes jumped between mine. "There will be an announcement, and we're not supposed to say anything, but you need to know."

"I'm not ready," I insisted.

"And I will marry you, but only to keep you safe," he swore. "Callah, I'm going to get you out. We are going to escape this place, okay? That's what we need to focus on. This does nothing but speed it up."

"No," I shot back. "What if they send me to quarantine instead of above? This..."

He grumbled under his breath and looked away. "Yeah. About quarantine..."

"What?"

I watched as he licked his lips. Then, almost as if bracing himself - or buying time - he took another bite of his meal. Deciding I needed to eat as well, I matched him, chewing around the overly boiled mix of vegetables.

"The beast that bit me was controlled by Ayla," he said. "Out there, we're paired with a partner. Mine was Malcus. We came over a little hill and the Wyvern wasright there. Malcus went to shoot, the animal slammed into him, the Wyvern followed, and then Ayla helped." He paused to wipe at his mouth. "She sent the animal at me."

"What? But Ayla knows you," I insisted.

"She knows most of the men in this compound," he reminded me. "She doesn't know which ones can be trusted."

Okay, he had a good point, so I simply nodded.

"But I convinced her that you'd sent me. She got the picture, and that was enough." He looked around us again, then lowered his voice even more. "Then she and the Wyvern spoke with me."

"The Wyvern?" I asked. "TheDragon?"

"He's a man with scaled skin, and this time he spoke English," he said. "I told them what I knew, and they told me what they do. But, Callah?" He paused again. "My mother used to tell me stories. She used to say the Dragons would save me - because she once was one. The Wyvern knew my mother's name. Ayla said I had relatives up there. They... I..."

"Wait." I clasped his good wrist, needing to make sure I was keeping up. "How did a Dragon woman get into the compound?"

"She looked like you," he explained. "My mother's hair was dark, but otherwise she looked like you, Callah. Like a woman. Like a normal, human, Righteous woman. Not like the creatures up there we call Dragons. But Ayla and the Wyvern said she was a Dragon, that our hunters had stolen her and other women, and that's why they're in quarantine. My mother, Ayla's mother... And probably yours."

I could only stare at him, replaying his words over and over in my mind. I hadn't been in quarantine as long as many. My mother had been forced to give me up, so I'd been raised in the nursery. I still remembered her and the stories she'd whispered to me. Stories that made no sense. Phrases no one else used. Things that had made Meri laugh at me when we'd been little.

Ayla's childhood had been the same. So had Tobias's, but not because the Devil had taken them. It was because the Righteous had. Women who'd been born into the wild world above had somehow ended up here, and that left me with so many more questions than I could handle right now.

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