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

Epilogue

Callah

T he alert was spread quietly. When the soft tap came at my door, I was ready. Ms. Lawton poked her head in, her silver-and-gold hair pulled back much too tight, and her eyes landed on me.

"Up, Callah. The hunters are back, and they have wounded."

I nodded and threw off my blankets even as she closed the door and headed to the next room. Tying my pink-gold hair back in a tight braid, I then folded it on itself and tied it again. I would need to keep it out of my way so it wouldn't get bloody.

Then I changed out of my nightclothes and into a dress. It didn't take long, and once I looked properly presentable, I left my room and headed up the hall. Around me, other girls were doing the same, all of us walking quickly but refusing to run. Hurrying did not mean making a scene, after all.

Once I reached the next hall, I found a spot against the wall, clasped my hands and bowed my head to pray. But I didn't pray to our God. I prayed for hope, for strength, and maybe even that this time there would be a sign. Something to give me that hope and strength I needed so badly.

Meri still wasn't allowed out of her marital rooms. Gideon had done everything in his power to keep her away from me, making it clear he wanted no more bad influences on his wife's behavior. That was Ayla's fault, though. Not mine. At least in his eyes.

And now Mr. Cassidy used her as an example of the Devil's influence. He sneered about how she'd ignored the love of God. He raged about how she'd been so brazen and selfish as to assault her own husband! And when he talked about her, he yelled at every girl in the room, making it clear such behavior would never be tolerated again!

So I did pray, but not the way I was supposed to. I prayed for the bravery to do what my best friend had done. To end my life in a way I could control. And until then, I spent my days sneaking into the darkness of the forbidden hall and climbing high enough to find the gap that would give me access to the library.

Ms. Lawton hadn't stopped to wonder about why I'd suddenly become so obsessed with sewing better. She'd simply taught me how to manage the thread. Now, I was one of the best. Good enough that when she marched up the hall, stabbing her finger at the girls who would help in the infirmary, I wasn't shocked at all when she pointed at me first.

"Callah Atwood. You. You, you, and you."

She kept going, calling out more girls, but I'd already pushed away from the wall and was walking quickly towards the infirmary. Maybe this time Meri would be in there to help? She'd once been good at this, and our hunters needed all the help they could get.

When I stepped into the room, my feet froze.

There, lying on the bed right in front of me, was Jamison, but that wasn't what made me stop. It was yellow. Bright yellow feathers at the end of a dark arrow impaled in the man's shoulder. There was a matching one in his thigh.

"I got this one," I said, hurrying over to the medical cabinet for supplies.

Ethanol. I would need that to clean the wounds, and it would burn like the fires of Hell as I poured it on this man. Suture, clamps, and bandages. Once I had it all, I rushed back, wanting to make sure I pulled that arrow out, because I had to know. I needed to see it up close!

But Jamison was writhing. "The Phoenix!" he wailed. "It's the Phoenix, and the Wyvern was with her."

Her ?

I tried to push Jamison onto his back, but he kept wanting to curl up on his side against the pain. "You have to lie back and let me help," I chided.

"The Phoenix," he said again. "It's another one, and she killed us. She killed so many of us. The Wyvern came to protect her!"

"Tobias!" I yelled, knowing he had to be in this mess somewhere.

He was the only man big enough and strong enough to hold Jamison down. He was also too stupid to be offended at a woman summoning him. If I was going to get this arrow out so I could see it, I needed Jamison to be still for a blessed moment!

"Callah," he said, making his way over.

"Hold him down," I ordered exactly the way Ayla once had.

"Oh, they're yellow," Tobias breathed. "We haven't seen yellow before, but there are a lot of gunshots."

That made me pause. "What?"

But it was Jamison who answered. "She took my gun. She turned it on us. She killed with an arrow and then a bullet. Her name is the Phoenix, she told me, and she's showing them how to fight us!"

"He's delirious," I decided, reaching for the shears to cut the leather armor away from the arrows stuck in his flesh.

"He's not," Tobias said softly. "They've all been talking about the Phoenix. They said she's working with the Wyvern. She's deadly, she knows our names, and she can't be stopped."

"A Dragon?" I asked.

He shrugged. "I wasn't there. I get vegetables. I just know that almost the whole team died and the ones who lived keep saying it was caused by the Phoenix."

"Because she knows!" Jamison wailed as he tried to thrash again.

I began cutting away the leather, not surprised at all to see the wound around the arrow was bright red. The skin was inflamed. This man likely had a fever, which was why he was nearly incoherent. And yet, the arrow was yellow.

Bright yellow.

Obviously yellow.

It wasn't cream or tan or pastel. This was a color that could be described as nothing else.

And then Jamison said something that made my blood run cold. "We sent her up there to die. The Dragons were supposed to destroy her. They didn't. They made her a Phoenix."

Tobias's head snapped up to look at me. It took everything in my power to keep my hands moving, pulling the leather away from the wound so I could get to it. I still heard those words.

It had to be Ayla. There was no other way this made sense! She'd said she'd send back a sign, and was this not the most obvious thing she could've used? We all knew about the Wyvern's blue-fletched arrows, and I could see plenty of those sticking out of men all across the room. Black ones too.

But these two were yellow. They were Ayla's color. But what if that was just by chance? And why was Jamison calling her the Phoenix?

"He's got one in his leg too," Tobias said. "Cut that away before you start pulling or I'll have to fight to hold him down."

I glanced at him quickly. I'd been planning on it, but for a stupid man, that was a rather astute thing to say. But the arrow was on the other side. I had to make my way around the bed to reach it, which put my back to the rest of the room.

Then Tobias asked Jamison, "How did you learn her name? How do you know she's the Phoenix?"

"Because she told me," Jamison muttered while I cut. "She said it's not Ross anymore. She's Ayla the Phoenix, and then she shot me. Her! A woman! She killed Herod and then shot me !"

Tobias actually chuckled. "So she's still alive."

"Just hold him!" I snapped.

"Didn't you share a room with her?"

I tried to ignore him, making a large enough hole around the arrow in Jamison's leg so I could treat it without removing his pants. We weren't supposed to see what was under men's clothing unless there was no other option.

Once I got a circle cut away, I tossed the bloody leather to the floor and moved for the ethanol. This was my favorite part, but Tobias was still looking at me.

"Hold him," I repeated.

The giant of a man leaned forward, putting all of his weight on Jamison's body. First I pulled the arrow from his thigh, yanking it out quickly, yet feeling flesh tear more than I'd expected. Once the arrow was free, I paused to glance at it, and nearly froze again.

The tip was like the blue-fletched arrows. It had four sides, and all of them were sharp. These tore up the body, killing easier than so many of the others we saw. At the head of the bed, Tobias exhaled in surprise.

"The same arrows."

"Which means getting the one out of his shoulder won't be easy," I pointed out. "Tobias, he can't move."

"Or what?" Tobias asked.

"Or he'll never use that shoulder again."

The man's lips tensed, one side moving up a bit, but his hazel eyes were cold. "You sure you want me to hold him that well, then?"

"I am a healer," I insisted, even as I reached for the shaft of the last arrow.

Which was when Jamison began to mutter again. "They took her in. They must've. I just don't know how she's still alive. The Dragons kill us. They should've killed her too. They should've left her chained to the tree, but they didn't. They took her in and made her a monster, just like them!"

I pulled before he could say more. I'd heard enough. I was sure of this now. This was my sign. Ayla had found a way to let me know she was alive, and Jamison was lying here confirming it!

But I didn't pull straight. I didn't try to do it kindly. The tip of this terrifying thing was buried deep in his joint, and I felt the capsule pop as it came free. Tendons, ligaments, and other parts of the body I wouldn't know about if I hadn't read about them in those banned books all tore, bled, and hurt like hell as the sharpened arrow came out.

Jamison screamed. Tobias held him down. I struggled not to smile, because I was not the kind and Godly woman I was supposed to be. I did this because it was my own revenge. It was the one way I could take out my anger on the men who treated me like little more than an object to make their lives easier.

Well, this was the sort of "easy" they'd get from me.

Yet when the arrow came free, I couldn't pause to gloat. I wanted to, but there were too many eyes in this room. Grabbing the bottle of ethanol, I poured it on his wounds again, watching as the man arched his back, trying to escape the pain.

Only then did I get the needle and suture. I worked on his shoulder first, carefully clamping any blood vessels that hadn't stopped bleeding and then closing the wound around them. The whole time, Tobias watched me, not Jamison.

"Callah?" he finally asked.

"Mhm?"

"Was your mother in quarantine?"

I paused for a fraction of a second, and then kept sewing. "She was."

"Mine too." He dropped his eyes down to look at Jamison. "And I think he passed out."

"Well, still hold him to make sure," I ordered.

So Tobias's hands stayed on Jamison's body, but his next words were a whisper. "Did your mother tell you stories?"

I tied off the knot and cut the thread so I could move around to the other side. "I barely remember my mother."

"But did she tell you stories?" he pressed.

I tried hard to focus on sewing, but I couldn't help myself. "Some," I admitted.

"The ones about the world above?"

"She was possessed by the Devil," I reminded him.

"Yeah..." Tobias said. "But, you know, I'm just an idiot who doesn't know any better. I certainly can't remember that I'm not supposed to tell you some of the things are real."

It felt like ice washed over my skin. "What?" I breathed.

Those hazel eyes of his were not dull. They sparkled with intelligence. "Yeah. A big dumb guy like me. I say stupid things all the time. You know, like maybe how the outside is a lot like what my mom used to describe. It's not burning, you know. It's the kind of place a Phoenix might actually survive."

"They'll put you in quarantine for saying such things," I warned him.

"I don't remember saying that," he assured me. "I was just confused by Jamison's rambling."

The whole time, his eyes held mine. His words were what was expected. They made it plausible for him to be an idiot, but he wasn't? Did he fake it the same way I did?

"I'm sure it's very confusing, but Jamison probably has a fever because his wounds are infected," I pointed out. Then I licked my lips, got back to sewing, and added softly, "But she said she'd send something yellow as a message."

"Bright yellow," he agreed. "How long until your birthday?"

"A few more months."

"Starting to think I should propose," he mumbled. "I mean, since it would give me a good excuse for talking to you a little more. Dumb guy like me? Might be nice to have a smart girl around to help me out."

"I have no interest in marrying you," I snapped. "You're not even on my list!"

"No, but that can be fixed. And when you reject me, I'll make sure there are forks close to you at your wedding." His words were little more than a breath, much too soft to carry over the screaming of the wounded around us. "And I'll offer to chain you so I can make sure you get free. She's alive, Callah, and I know she was your friend."

"We were assigned the rooms, Tobias. We didn't pick them."

"I didn't have any friends," he told me. "They beat me up when I said women could be strong too, because that's what my mother taught me."

I was having trouble focusing on my stitches. They weren't the best, and if Ms. Lawton asked, I'd say he was moving. Hopefully she'd believe it.

"That's sinful," I mumbled, looking for some proper way to respond that wouldn't get me in more trouble as I tied off the last knot in Jamison's skin.

Tobias reached out and caught my arm, preventing me from moving on to the next. "You are a good healer and a proper woman, Callah. I didn't hear you say anything but orders to help this man as much as possible."

"I haven't!" I insisted. "I'm here to do the Lord's work and care for our brave hunters."

Then he reached over, snapped the feathers off the end of one of the arrows, and pressed them into my hand. "Shame that one broke on the trip back. You should put it in your pocket. Might help you learn how to do things better, or something. I mean, since I don't know what it is you women do."

He pressed the yellow-fletched end into my palm, then curled my fingers around it.

"Tobias..."

"It's real," he told me. "It's also your only chance of escape. If she's the Phoenix, then maybe you can be one too. Maybe there's still hope for us, Callah, but I wouldn't know because no one worries about what an idiot says."

I put the feathers into the pocket of my dress and nodded. "Well, I appreciate you holding him down, Tobias. I have more men to save."

"Not that many," he reminded me. "The Phoenix killed most."

I had to struggle not to smile as I turned away. If he was right… If they were all telling the truth, then Ayla was alive. Not only that, but she was thriving! Maybe we could actually escape this Hell and live aboveground, raising plants.

Maybe we still had a chance. Now I just had to figure out what to do with it.