Phoenix’s Fire (The Ruins Of Men #2)

Chapter 8

Eight

Callah

I pushed the drab food around my plate, trying to convince myself I should eat it. I'd never realized it before, but it had been easier when talking to someone. A bite between words and before I knew it, the meal was gone. Now, all I had to think about was the paltry amount of food on my plate and how my stomach would barely notice it when I was done.

The last two hunts had been hard. More women than ever were wearing black. The widows had taken to dining together, flashing half-smiles at each other while keeping their voices low and their heads down. The men didn't notice them, thankfully.

Granted, that was the purpose of the black cloth. A woman in mourning was supposed to be invisible. Her grief, movements, and adjustment to life as a widow were often ugly, and men didn't care to see those things. Their lives may have shifted from their marriage suites to the widow's hall, but we all shared the same dining space.

I glanced over, trying to count how many women were at that table when a plate clattered down across from me. I jumped, my eyes jerking to the one who'd dropped it - and froze. Tobias stood there, waiting to be noticed.

"May I?" he asked, gesturing to the bench before him.

"It's an open table," I assured him.

"But do you mind?" he pressed.

"No, sir," I breathed, ducking my head to hide my confusion.

So he sat, and when someone his size did that, it rattled the entire table. Further down, a man looked over. At first, I thought he was annoyed, but then he saw who was causing the commotion and smiled. Why? That made me think something was going on, but what?

"How has your day been, Miss Atwood?" Tobias asked .

I glanced up at him, my eyes narrowing. "It has been a pleasant day," I replied properly. "And you, Mr. Warren?"

He bent to shove a forkful of vegetables into his mouth. "Good," he mumbled around it. After he swallowed, he glanced down the table, then leaned in some more and lowered his voice. "I asked permission to court you."

"Asked who?" Because children from quarantine weren't allowed to marry - or so I thought.

"The council."

"Why?" I whispered, completely confused.

He looked up and smiled at me. The man's eyes were hazel. They weren't blue like I always expected. They were almost golden in the center, shifting to dark grey around the outer edge. The combined effect made them look almost olive from a distance, but this close, I could see the different colors merging. After a pause, his gaze jumped from one of my eyes to the other, then he bent for another bite.

"You turn twenty soon," he finally answered.

"But your mother was in quarantine," I breathed. "We can't..."

"We can if it's approved," he corrected. "It's been approved, Callah. I should be on your list soon." He paused again, his eyes jumping over as the man at the end of the table stood.

For a long moment, we ate in silence. The other guy gathered his plate and headed towards the wash area. When he was finally gone, Tobias sat up a bit and glanced around. Now, we were alone. No one was close enough to listen in.

"If I'm courting you," Tobias said, all hints of his slower and simple speech gone, "then we can walk together. Alone, with no one to listen to us." He lifted a brow.

"Oh."

Slowly, he nodded. "Yeah, and I thought you'd like to know Merienne is not on the tree."

That had my immediate attention. "What?"

"The tree," he said again. "When someone is banished, they're chained and removed from the compound, right?"

"Yes." Because I'd seen that twice now.

"But they aren't just turned loose outside," he explained. "Hunters hang their chain from a hook on a tree. It's up high enough they can't unhook themselves. I've heard most people die like that, then the body is dragged away and the manacles are returned."

"But Ayla got away?"

"Clearly, since she seems to be with the Dragons," he said. "And the gatherers who just went out said the tree is empty. Your friend isn't there."

"What does that mean?" I begged.

"It means she got away without dying there," he assured me. "Callah, this is a good thing."

I felt my shoulders soften, so I bent to take a polite bite of my meal. "Do you think she found Ayla? "

"I don't know, but I'm going to find out," he promised. "See, the trade for me courting you? I am now a hunter."

My body stilled, yet my eyes drifted to the long table filled with women in black. "A lot have died," I whispered.

"Trust me, I know," he said. "But the Phoenix is out there, Callah. She needs to know Merienne is looking for her. If I'm a hunter, I'll have the chance to talk to her."

"How?" I asked. "Have you seen the arrows they use?"

"I kept the tip of that one," he admitted. "Four blades. They carve up the body as they spin. Yeah, that's exactly what I'm worried about, but I have to do something. Don't you see? She got out. That means there's a way for you to get out - and maybe me too."

"Why do you want out?" I shot back. "You're a man. Do you not get everything you want? Even me, evidently."

"Look," he said, glancing around again to make sure no eyes were on us, "women have one set of issues. Men have another. If we live long enough - and I'm stressing that 'if' part - we will see everyone we care about die. That's also the least of our problems. Callah, things might be hard for women, but they're a different kind of hard for men."

"Because you're going to give your life for your children, hm?" I asked.

"Probably." Those unique eyes of his held me. "Nearly fifty dead hunters in the last two months. Men who are just as dead as their wives."

"Oh."

I'd never really thought about that before. Then again, most hunters didn't die. Well, they hadn't until recently. Normally, we lost one to five men each hunt. Five would've been considered a lot. Yet since Ayla had been thrown out, the numbers had completely changed.

"She's doing something," I realized.

"She must be," he agreed. "That's why the hunters are talking about the Phoenix now, not the Wyvern."

"But Mr. Cassidy keeps talking about the Wyvern in our classes," I countered. "Well, and how Ayla was blasphemous and forsaken."

Tobias leaned in, propping his elbow on the table so his fist could support his cheek. "Think about it," he said, flashing me a smile. "And Mr. Myers is looking at us. At least try to act as if you don't hate me?"

So I ducked my head. "I don't hate you, Tobias. I just don't want to be a wife. I'm not ready."

"Not really ready to be a husband either," he assured me. "This was simply the only way I could think of for us to talk."

"Why do you want to talk?"

He smiled again, this time glancing away. It looked flirtatious. Even knowing his words didn't match, I felt my guts clenching with worry. Did he really want to court me? Would he break it off before my birthday?

"Because two women have figured out how to escape the compound," he said, "and both of them were your roommates. I want to know what you know."

"Nothing!" I insisted, keeping my voice to little more than a whisper. "Meri was wed in January. She was closer to Ayla than I was, so maybe they shared something? I don't know, Tobias."

"And yet you suddenly began focusing on healing?"

"Because too many of our brave hunters have died," I replied, reciting the words from countless school sermons.

"Okay. You don't trust me. I get it."

And those words made me look up again. Yes, those eyes of his were still waiting. I'd always heard Tobias was a dumb man. He'd grown too big for his brain, he was a lummox, and all the other cruel things said about anyone who was different.

But he'd been dumb! How many times had he reacted like he could barely put two thoughts together? He'd also never gotten offended when Ayla ordered him around in the infirmary. And yet, he kept showing me more. When Jamison had come back with those yellow arrows in him, Tobias had cracked his mask and told me my friend was alive. He'd explained that Ayla was the Phoenix, confirming the rambling of a fevered man.

Then he'd given me the fletching from one of those arrows.

Tobias knew. I kept denying it, but he spoke to me as if we shared a secret. I just wasn't sure what would happen if I stopped trying to play the proper young woman and admitted what I'd done. Would I be thrown out next? If so, then where was the risk?

Or maybe I'd be locked in quarantine? Punished? Maybe Ayla could take being beaten over and over, but I couldn't. I'd learned how to be a gentle and pious woman. I knew all the words to keep me from being accused. I'd perfected this game, but I only had a couple months left. Mere months before I had to make the same choice Ayla had: death at the hands of a man, or banishment.

I quickly took another bite. "I saw Meri before she was banished," I breathed.

"So you knew what she'd been doing?"

I had to swallow hard to force that last bite of food down. "She didn't do it."

"What?"

My fingers were trembling. This was the dumbest thing I'd ever done, but who else could I talk to? Time and time again, Tobias had trusted me. He'd told me enough that he would get in trouble if I reported him. He'd taken a risk - and I no longer had any friends left.

"I told her what to say," I breathed.

"And Ayla?" he asked. "Did you tell her too?"

I lifted a shoulder in something almost like a shrug. "Going to the surface was her idea. She wanted to control her own death. I just told her it might be possible to live. I..." I couldn't look at him. "I thought that if she was so adamant about it, then maybe God was trying to give her a sign."

"And when it's your turn?" he asked. "Will you impale your husband with a fork? "

"I am actually hoping for a knife."

He chuckled, then reached over to lightly touch the base of my thumb, right by the wrist. "I'll take it, as long as you try to avoid the vital stuff?"

My breath stalled, and I looked up one more time. The man was smiling. He wasn't joking, and he wasn't laughing at me because he thought I was a fool. He was smiling like he was relieved.

"But it's a sin," I reminded him.

"Yep," he agreed. "So is lying to the women, Callah. What happens outside the compound is not to be talked about inside. That's why I want to walk with you. I was hoping we could talk about it, because you've helped your friends get out - and I want out."

"Then just don't come back," I countered.

He shook his head. "It doesn't work that way. If we run, we get gunned down. Why do you think you sometimes treat bullet wounds?"

"Because men are careless and rarely focus on what is on the other side of their target?"

"No, they aim for those who run. It's why gatherers have guns too. It's why we work in pairs. If someone runs, the other will shoot them, and we are not partnered with our friends."

"What about the wild men?" I asked.

Tobias shook his head. "They leave the vegetables for us in bags."

"And the Dragons?"

"Live in a town," he said softly. "I've never been there, but I've heard about it. I've seen one of them too," he said. "He was at the place we get the bags. The creature was shaped like a man with a tail, about as tall as me, with green-and-brown skin. He laughed with two of the wild men as they stacked the bags we were going to take once the sunlight faded."

"What?" Because my brain was stalled out. None of that sounded like what we'd been taught in our classes.

"Dragons are people," Tobias said. "And I think the Wyvern saved Ayla and made her into the Phoenix. Every man in the last expedition says the same thing. The Phoenix tore them down, but the Wyvern protected her. The beasts answered to her. "

"To..." I tilted my head, unsure I believed him. "Ayla?"

"Yeah," he breathed. "And you're friends with her. I'm not. That means I need your help. What do you say?"

I felt my teeth close on my lower lip, then I nodded. "Okay, Tobias. You can court me, but I do not promise to accept your proposal."

He chuckled. "I didn't promise to propose." Then he stood, raising his voice a bit and slowing his words. "Thank you, Miss Atwood. I never thought a pretty girl like you would give me a chance."

I quickly ducked my head, but it was too late. My cheeks were burning - and everyone in the room was now looking at me. Clearly, Tobias was not a stupid man. No, not at all .