Wyvern’s Gold (The Ruins Of Men Book 1)

Chapter 32

Thirty-Two

Ayla

T hat day Kanik did nothing but explain the alphabet of his language to me. While the letters looked the same, the pronunciation of things had become much different. An English F sounded like TH in Vestrian. Ws were pronounced as Vs. Never mind the vowels! E sounded like A. A sounded like it had an H before it sometimes, but not always. The hard click of a T had been softened to be more like a D.

Then, on the next day, he showed me how their written words had adapted to incorporate all of that. The pronoun I knew as "she" had become "sa." The wolf that had allowed him to identify my language as English was something he called a valth in Vestrian. And not only was it now pronounced differently, it was also spelled that way in Vestrian!

But the words were still the same. That was why the men could use English so easily. They didn't have to think of the new word, only how to say it. To me, that meant the same would be true the other way. Even better, Kanik handed me a pair of books to practice with. One was in English. The other was in Vestrian. They were the same story, one he called a "classic."

The covers of them were vastly different, but the words inside meant the same things. It was a tale of a young girl who got lost in a rabbit hole and entered a world called Wonderland. Her name was Alice, and I loved it. Granted, it was much easier to read the English version first.

But just when I was starting to get used to the pattern of my new life, things began to change. While the guys weren't always at the house, for the first few days, they never left for long. That all changed on the fifth day.

While Kanik was asking me about the words in the Vestrian version of my book, Rymar sauntered into what I now knew was called the "living room." His reddish-orange hair was wet and slicked back over his head. His pants were a light blue that complemented his turquoise markings. He was also wearing a white shirt with a necklace dangling down the middle. A strange, almost hourglass-shaped pendant hung from the leather cord.

"Work?" Kanik asked as if this was typical.

"Mhm," Rymar agreed, understanding the English even if his accent was only marginally better now. " Week auff. Now ah gaw back do da kafay ."

"He's had a week off after getting back from our trip to negotiate trade deals with the Reapers," Kanik clarified for me. "Now he has to go check on his bar."

"Bar?" Because to me, that word meant a pole. "Like a rod?"

"No!" Kanik laughed, lifting his hand in a wave to Rymar before saying something in Vestrian.

I caught fun, day, and late in all of that. At least, I was pretty sure if I changed the letters and squished the sounds their way, that would be what those words meant. But before I could ask, Rymar headed for the door so I smiled politely at him. He paused with his hand on the handle to smile back.

" Yu lern lots ," he told me.

Then he was gone, but Kanik acted like this was normal. "Rymar owns a place called a bar," he explained. "Well, technically, it's a cafe, but we all call it a bar. It is a building where people come to get simple food and many options of drinks. Some are alcoholic."

I gasped. "But alcohol is the Devil's tool!"

"It's also pretty good, which is why Zasen and I go there for drinks," Kanik assured me. Then he leaned back and a lazy smile took over his brown-freckled face. "And so you know, Zasen's been out since before dawn."

"Oh." I hadn't even missed him!

Kanik just nodded. "This is how Dragons help their communities. We have jobs. We call it working."

"Like cleaning?" I asked.

He murmured at that. "Yes and no. You see, a job is doing something others want and need. Not just you and your own household, but those outside it. Rymar sells food and drinks. Zasen hunts for meat. He sells the hides when he can, but mostly he supplies meat to people who can't hunt on their own, because they either don't have the time or the skill."

"So what do you do to work?" I asked.

"I teach science to children, usually those around eleven or twelve years old. It's called middle school, and my job is called a teacher."

"So, you give sermons?"

"No." He shook his head to make the point. "I teach them the same way I'm teaching you. We introduce new things, discuss them, and learn about them."

Okay, that made sense, but there was one thing I felt I was missing. "So when do you do your work?"

"Mm..." He thought about that for a moment. "It's summer, Ayla. The children are given time off to enjoy the summer and be with their families. In a few more weeks, however, the next school year will start. I'll go to the building we call a school at that time. Well, just before the children return, but around then."

"And you're the one trusted to educate the children?" I pressed, thinking it sounded a lot like what Mr. Cassidy had done.

"I'm one of them," he agreed. "There are many teachers, though. We have a subject, like Vestrian or science or math. Our goal is to make sure everyone here grows up with a basic level of knowledge."

I nodded, pretty sure I was following along. "So it sounds like how things were done in the compound. As children we were assigned duties, like cooking or laundry. It stops when we get married. The duty of wives was to care for their husband."

"Except we get paid for it."

That made my brow crease. "Paid?"

"Money."

Which led to an entire discussion on what money was and how it was used. Oddly, it made sense. If someone did a task for another, then that other owed them for it. That was how it should be. If a woman cooked for her husband, he should owe her for it, since he didn't have to do it. If she cleaned his home, he owed her because he'd been able to sit and entertain himself instead.

But not all things were done for money. Things people did for themselves, of course, weren't paid. That included chores like taking care of the home they lived in - which didn't support my example about caring for a husband. There were also favors, done just to be nice, like how these men were helping me.

I didn't want to be something they had to take care of, though. I wanted to help them just as much. I wanted to prove I - and my friends, although I didn't say that - could be helpful here. When I tried to explain my thinking to Kanik, he told me learning Vestrian helped. It helped more than I could imagine, which was why they wanted me to focus on it first.

We were still talking about that when Zasen returned. He was filthy, happy, and announced he'd gotten a fawn. Kanik seemed pleased, but as Zasen headed for the bathroom to clean himself up, I realized that like Rymar, he was also wearing a necklace with an hourglass-shaped pendant. Kanik, however, wasn't wearing one.

Then again, I hadn't seen Zasen or Rymar wearing them until today either, so maybe it had something to do with work? I filed it away as something to ask, and then got back to my book. Today, I was trying to read the one in Vestrian without checking the English version to see if I was right. Sitting on the couch, Kanik had his own book and had told me I could read it next if I understood Vestrian well enough.

That was a challenge I couldn't refuse, so I focused hard on the words. My lips moved at times as I silently tried to sound them out. That was what I was doing when a man's chuckle pulled my eyes up. The scent of shampoo hit a moment later.

"You mouth the words when you read?" he asked me in English.

So I smiled and did my best to reply in Vestrian. " When the wards are uns fat are new to me ."

"When the - " Kanik tried.

But Zasen's lips were split into a wide grin. "No, I got it. When the words are ones that are new to her." He nodded. "Not bad, Ayla. Not bad at all, but I think you should take a break."

While he was still talking to me in English, I had to try in Vestrian again. " But I'm a tha gud part !"

"Trust me," he said before switching to his own language. "And you can bring your book, but sometimes using words makes it easier. It helped with my English."

I sucked in a little breath because I'd understood all of that! Granted, he'd spoken slowly and had enunciated it well, but it was still progress. So, clutching my Vestrian book to my chest, I hopped up excitedly.

"Okay!"

"Want me to start dinner?" Kanik asked, still using English.

"Please," Zasen replied in the same language. "And you probably need the break. Your brain has to be stumbling over letters by now."

Kanik nodded slowly and emphatically. "It is."

"Well, I already started the fire for the oven," Zasen assured him before waving me towards the front door.

"Outside?" I asked. "Zasen, it's too bright out there."

"It's about to be dark," he promised. "The sun is setting, and I have a feeling this is one of those things we didn't think to show you."

So I followed him, but when he opened the door, I swore it looked like the sky was burning. It was also bright, but not daylight-bright. I paused, trying to let my eyes adjust, but Zasen simply guided me forward, closed the door behind us, and then turned me to a set of chairs placed at the edge of his porch.

"Now," he said in Vestrian, once again talking slowly, "you can only use this language. I will answer any question you want or give you any words you don't know, but you must do it in my words."

I set my book down on the table between us and immediately pointed to the sky. "Why it burning?"

"Why's," he corrected. "And it's called a sunset. As the Earth turns, the sun does not, and eventually our side will turn away. This is what it looks like when the sun is at the very edge." He pointed at the brightest area.

"It does this every day?"

He nodded. "It does. And every sunset is different." He leaned back and kicked his strange feet up on the rail before us. "Is it still bright?"

"Yes, but not too bad," I admitted, speaking even slower than he was so I could get my words and sounds right.

That made Zasen smile. "You're doing good."

"I'm doing slow," I told him.

"But good." Then he licked his lips. "Ayla, can I ask you a question?"

"Mhm."

His eyes stayed on the sunset. "Kanik said you healed Moles who had blue arrows in them. Do you know what that means?"

"That you shof them," I replied.

"Shot," he corrected as he looked over. "And yes, I did. How do you feel about that?"

All I could do was shrug, but I didn't look away. I knew I should. To be proper, I should fold my hands in my lap, cross my ankles, and be meek. This time, however, I didn't want to.

"I think that when Gideon had four of your arrows in him, I asked Meri if I should save him first. She was going to marry him, but if he was dead, she wouldn't have to. It's easy to let someone with blue-fletched arrows die, and no one would blame me for a lack of skill in healing."

A million expressions flickered across his face, but in the end, Zasen's brows lifted a bit. It still took him a long time to reply, and when he did, it was in English.

"You would have chosen to let one of your men die because I shot him?" he asked.

"No," I admitted, flipping back to my own language because it was much, much easier. "I would have let him die so he wouldn't breed my friend to death. I would have let him die so she wouldn't become his possession. That he had blue arrows in him meant everyone in the compound already assumed he was dead. No, Zasen, I saved him because he was the best option for a husband Meri had, even if he was a liar about it."

"Liar how?"

"Even though he was wounded, he demanded the consummation!" I hissed. "When she tried to tell him they could postpone so he wouldn't be hurt, he punished her. When it hurt her, he punished her more and then held her in place to finish. When she cried, he told her to stop. And when she snuck out of their family rooms to come tell me and Callah, he punished her for that too." Finally, my eyes dropped to my lap. "And me for trying to help my friend."

"Why is helping your friend a bad thing?" he asked softly.

"Because she married him, so she is his concern now. Because she was twenty and I hadn't turned yet, so as an adult, she had no need of childish things, including me. Because women should give their attention to their husbands, not waste their time with friendship. That only leads to gossip and dawdling. Both are ways for the Devil to take us."

His breath fell out hard. "So if you weren't allowed to have friends, then who were Meri and Callah?"

I licked my lips to keep them from getting dry. "They were my friends," I admitted. "We shared a room, but we were friends too. True friends, Zasen." And I looked up at him again. "And I didn't get to see Meri after that day. Gideon locked her in their rooms. It's been months and months, but I haven't even seen her. I don't know if her bruises healed or she just got more!"

"I'm sorry," he whispered. Then he paused. "Ayla, how old are you?"

"Twenty," I told him. "That's why I had to marry Mr. Saunders, but hopefully if he's married to me, then he won't be available to marry Callah. He's killed so many wives, and I don't want him to do that to her." I turned to look at the sky again. "But when they forced me out, they called me Ayla Ross again, not Mrs. Saunders. Not even Ayla Saunders. They called me Ayla Ross, so he might make Callah marry him anyway."

Before me, the sky was turning darker. The light was dimming enough that my eyes didn't protest, and the colors were even more vivid. Near the horizon, the sky was red, but above us, it was a deep, rich blue. In between were shades of pink and orange. Purple, even!

It was so beautiful. All of this was beautiful, but talking about Meri and Callah made me feel guilty for being able to see it when they couldn't. It made me feel bad for being able to read, not being punished, and all the other amazing things here. Most of all, it made me feel like it made me the one responsible for making a place for them, which was what I hoped I was doing.

"Zasen?" I finally asked. "If they get thrown out, will they come here too?"

"I don't know, Ayla," he said. "I honestly don't know, but I hope they would."

"Yeah," I agreed. "Me too."