Page 174 of Phoenix's Fire

"I wish I didn't."

Her eyes narrowed. "Meri, do you want that baby?"

My blood froze in my veins. My lungs completely forgot how to work, but my eyes jumped up to hang on her golden ones. I felt my head shaking from side to side in a silent denial, but I couldn't even findany words.

"I..."

Lessa's shoulders slumped. "That's it, isn't it?"

"I laid with a man. It's my burden to carry, and now that I'm a mother, that's all I'll ever be."

"No, that isnottrue," she insisted. "Mothers can do anything they want. Naomi's a mother and a doctor! Saveah - "

"Is a mother," I shot back. "Ayla's sister does nothing but care for her kids."

Lessa groaned. "Okay, yeah, but that's what she always wanted. She planned to have a lot more kids, but her husband was killed. Meri, there are dozens of women who have kids that their husbands raise, and - "

"And I don't have a husband!" I yelled. "I don't want him. He hit me, and he would punish me if he knew I was still alive!"

"Shh..." she breathed again. "It's okay. It's all going to be okay."

"But Ayla gets to have it all. She broke all the rules, and now she gets a second chance," I said. "I did everything right and lost it all. I'm never going to be able to be anything! I have to raise Gideon's child. I'm now theirs. I am still a servant, even though I got out. I can't be me, Lessa. And I don't even know who I am, because I was never allowed to even think that was possible, but Gideon took that from me. This baby is taking it still!"

She bent to look right in my eyes. "And those rules no longer apply," she told me. "Meri, you have options."

"I do?"

She nodded. "You can give the baby away. You can keep the baby and pay someone to watch it while you work or play."

"But I don't have a job!"

"Be my assistant?" she offered. "I'll pay you twenty-five percent of every piece you make. That leaves us enough for the cost of the supplies, and it's a good wage. You can afford your own place with that, or save it up, or do whatever you want."

"But the baby!" I reminded her.

"Work for me?" she almost begged. "Let's start there, okay? And then you can decide what comes next. Once you have the first step, the rest tend to be easier to figure out. Work for me so you can afford to figure out your dreams. And if you want to keep that baby, we'll find someone to watch it during the day. I have a feeling Saveah will be more than willing to do that, so you aren't tied to the child. And if you really don't want it? Meri, Dragons have a thing called adoption."

"What's that?" I asked.

She smiled at me softly. "It's where one woman has a child for someone else. She gives birth to it, but she doesn't raise it. She's not the mother, just the 'birth mother,' but that means it would no longer be your child. Someone else would raise it their way. They would give it a name. They would decide what it studied and pay for its games and such."

"Like the nursery?" I asked.

She gave me a confused look. "I don't know what that is, but I'm going to guess no. See, in Lorsa, a lot of us can't have kids. We need women like you to have the babies for us. Some do it as a favor. Some do it in their family, then everyone helpsraise the child. Others get pregnant by mistake and let a different family raise it. Some of those want to know the child later. Others don't."

"And if I keep it?" I asked.

"Then your friends will help you," she promised. "And Meri? We areyourfriends, not just Ayla's. I happen to like you much more than her."

Which made me bite my lip and glance away. In the pit of my stomach, something was fluttering, and I was pretty sure that wasn't the baby kicking.

Fifty-Four

Callah

Tobias couldn't walk with me every day. We'd lost so many hunters that changes had been made. The men were now training daily, learning new tactics. The teams were being reassigned due to all the losses, and the groups who hadn't gone out were mixed together to make one giant force.

So when someone rapped at my door, I jumped up excitedly, only to find a trio of women standing on the other side. One was Mrs. Hinton, who I'd first met in the washroom. The other was a rather healed-up Mrs. Porter. In front of them was Ms. Lawton, the matron for this hall.

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