Chapter 43
Forty-Three
Ayla
D ouble-checking that everyone was fine, I gathered the medical supplies the doctor had given me. Saveah offered a bag, telling Zasen where to find it. Once everything was packed, Zasen dropped a hand on my shoulder and guided me out of the house.
Behind us, Saveah called out her thanks, then Tamin did the same, but Zasen didn't let me stop. Granted, he was right. We'd already taken too much time, and there were more people who needed help. From the cries in the street, a lot of them.
Still, my head was spinning, and if I stopped for too long, I would probably never start again. The Moles came to hunt here ? Why here when there were animals in the forest? And how could they honestly believe Dragons were just lizards?
Worse, I hadn't known.
How many times had Zasen called something by its name? In the compound, it had just been meat. Always pale, disgusting meat. But the meals up here were made from birds and deer. They were called things like venison and pork! It wasn't just meat - which meant the Righteous had been intentionally hiding it.
I didn't want to think about that, and yet I couldn't stop. None of this was right. My pulse was still hammering inside my body, moving much too quickly. I'd been scared - mostly for Tamin - and it had all happened so fast.
Yet as we made our way off Saveah's porch, Zasen clasped my shoulder gently. "You need to know that you're amazing," he said. "I'm so sorry you had to hurt people you knew."
"I'm not." I gestured back towards the door. "They were going to kill that little boy. He's just a kid!" Then I used both hands to shove back my hair. "Never mind all the other horrible things I just found out they've been doing. All of that is awful, but wanting to kill a child?"
"They take the children too." His voice was flat.
Mine wasn't. "Then I will kill every last one of them! I won't even complain about cleaning the floors in your house! They deserved to die! What kind of monster would attack a child? He's just a little boy! "
"A boy who stung a man to death, Ayla. What if it had been you?"
"Why would he sting me?"
"By accident," he clarified. "He still could, and how safe do you feel around that child now, knowing he has the power to take your life?"
Setting my jaw, I looked up into his face. "He's still a child, and if he killed me, then I would've died for a good reason. Zasen, I stabbed my husband so they'd let me die. I didn't expect to live through the day. I came here to die, and instead I found people worth living for. I made friends! No, I am not going to let them keep killing us."
"Us," he breathed, nodding as he took that in.
I grabbed his arm. "Zasen, I know you saved my life tonight. I've been eating Dragons all my life, and yet you attacked Phineas for me? Why? Why did you keep me from running into the coyote, show me how to see through the cloth, and teach me how to speak to Dragons? I don't understand why you've done so much to help me when this is what Moles have been doing to you."
"Because I wanted to use you," he admitted. "I thought I could manipulate you into giving me information, and then I'd simply kill you. I never expected you to help, Ayla. I thought you'd be like them, and then we realized you weren't."
I nodded, accepting that. "So I will make sure I can help." And I turned for the closest group of people I could see.
But Zasen caught my arm, stopping me again. "Ayla..."
"Moles did this," I snapped. "I'm a Mole, you said. That means I have to fix this, because this is wrong! This all happened because of me. Because of us! All those people who live in the compound! If that's why you brought me here, then I will make sure I can do what you need - whatever that might be."
Ducking his head, he groaned. "I was wrong, okay? I thought I'd convince you to hate your own people - "
"I do!"
"That's not what I meant." He tilted his head to the carnage behind him. "You killed people you knew to protect a tailed child, Ayla. You heard what I said in anger and used that knowledge in the middle of that mess. You tricked that man into telling you what you wanted." He pushed out a laugh. "I did think you were crazy for a bit there, though."
I just shrugged, feeling embarrassed at the compliments. "You said they were hunting. I know they go out on a regular schedule, and we were out on the porch!"
"Because we can't figure out when they come back," he admitted. "It's always at sunset, but we never know which sunset."
My mouth went slack. "That's why Tamin's not allowed outside that late?"
"Yeah," he muttered, dropping his head. "Look, I should've told you - "
"Zasen," I breathed as all the half-said pieces began to make sense, "I know when they're coming back."
"What?" he said, the words more breath than sound.
"The Moles like routines," I explained. "They love order." I sucked in a breath. "It's the fourth."
Confusion claimed his face. "No. It's the sixteenth."
I shook my head. "It's August fourth, I'm sure of it."
He pulled back and looked at me strangely. "It's Arbor sixteenth. Nordi, Arbor sixteenth."
And I realized we had another problem. "Zasen, I think we have different calendars. It's Friday, August fourth."
His eyes narrowed and he canted his head. "Seventy-three weeks in a year. Thirteen months, and a holiday week."
I shook my head. "Fifty-two weeks and just twelve months. Seven days in a week."
"Five." He smiled. "That's why we can't figure it out. The calendars are different, which means we don't know your holidays! No matter how hard we try, we've never been able to figure out the pattern - and people can't hide away forever." He groaned and turned me up the street. "That man told you when they're coming back?"
I nodded. "Yes. Twelve days before the next holiday. He said they travel by night because the daylight hurts their eyes. Depending on the weather, I might be off by a day, but it will be close. Although, August only has two holidays. Other months have more."
He groaned as the pieces started to fall together. "They always attack at sundown. Just as it's starting to get dark, as we're all headed home. Always. It's always right at dark!"
"So they can see, but Dragons aren't inside for the night yet. On the first day, I could barely open my eyes in the glare. Zasen, they live underground. This," I gestured to the night sky, "is bright enough for them to read by."
He nodded, taking all of that in. "Then we have time. Let's see who we can help right now. A lot of people got hurt tonight. I'll hold them, you sew them." Then he took my hand, twining his fingers between mine, and led me towards the worst of the cries.
The feel of his hand in mine surprised me. It also made me smile.
W e spent the rest of the night sewing cuts and removing shallow bullets. Naomi and other doctors seemed to be everywhere. I saw Brielle kneeling beside an injured woman. She jerked her chin at me in greeting but didn't have time to do more. Jeera was probably out somewhere in the crowd, helping the same way.
Rymar and Kanik were carrying people who'd been hurt too seriously to be treated in the street. Zasen explained they were being taken to the hospital, similar to how I'd been that first day. Evidently there were even more doctors to care for them there.
In the compound, the women treated the men. In Lorsa, some people were trained to do nothing else. They fixed colds and broken bones, and - to my surprise - assisted with everything from kidney stones to birth. There was no need to pray for a cure, because medicine would usually provide one. Here, more people died to Moles and predators in the forest than the ailments I'd grown up fearing.
And yet I managed to help a few people. Some had cuts that needed to be sewn closed. The numbing agent meant it didn't even hurt them. Others had injuries which had happened when fleeing, like tripping or hitting something. The bruises would heal, but I couldn't be sure if some had broken their bones.
That was how I learned Zasen knew quite a bit of first-aid. Evidently, he'd intended to become a doctor like his mother. He'd studied medicine when he was younger - until the Moles had killed his father.
Then he'd learn to kill them first.
But we couldn't save everyone. Wandering the streets, I saw the aftermath up close. Both men and women had run into the fray. Children had been caught in the crossfire. I sewed them all, but the children accepted my help easier than the adults. One woman even threatened to sting me, and only Zasen's presence kept me safe.
Yet it seemed like everyone in town was out, trying to help. Then again, I hadn't seen all of Lorsa, so my version of "the entire town" was a bit skewed. Still, the streets were crowded with the injured and those offering aid. Zasen and I worked late into the night, sometimes running into Rymar and Kanik in the process.
Both of them had paused to make sure I was okay, but there was no time for a long talk. Once the injured were moved, the men had to start hauling out the dead. Both Moles and Dragons.
I'd just finished bandaging a man's arm when a woman began wailing. Looking over, I quickly tied off the gauze on the man's injury, then went to see if I could offer any assistance. Naomi was already there, but the child's wound had been too much. A beautiful little tailless girl lay limp in her mother's arms, her eyes open but no longer seeing the world. Blood stained the girl's stomach from a single bullet wound.
I choked back a sob and turned away, looking for the next person I could help, but the mother saw me. Before I even made it two steps, the woman was on me, screaming words I couldn't understand and lashing out at me. I thought it was just her fists, at first.
Then fire seared my side.
"Mole!" she screamed, pulling back what must've been the only weapon she owned: a kitchen knife.
"Fuck!" Zasen snapped, grabbing the woman and trying to pull her off me.
She wasn't about to give up that easily, though. Over and over, she screamed, "Mole," pummeling me with the hand Zasen wasn't holding, and I took it. Wrapping my arms over my face to lessen the abuse, I refused to lift a hand, and tears streamed from my eyes just like they were from the mother's.
A little girl was dead because of Moles. I looked like a Mole. I didn't want to be one anymore, and I hated them, but that wouldn't bring the child back to life. Each breath hurt from the gash the mother had cut in my side, but my heart hurt worse.
All of this was wrong. It was so very wrong! How could anyone do this and then call themselves "Righteous?" How could I not have known? Didn't that somehow make it my fault?
And worse than all of that, how would I ever be able to find a place here? How could these people look at me with my blonde hair, blue eyes, and sun-sheltered skin and not see the enemy? To them, I was a walking nightmare. Everyone seemed to have lost a loved one to my people, and they had to hate me for it.
That was why Zasen said I couldn't be a Dragon.
So as the mother continued to scream, kick, and try to take her rage out on my body, I accepted it. Zasen struggled to stop her, but I wouldn't beg him for help. With each hit she landed, I could feel another piece of my hope starting to crumble.
This place had been perfect. The days spent reading had been too good to be true. When the men hadn't punished me for my insolence and defiance, I should've realized this would never last. Zasen had said it himself. He'd tried to manipulate me into helping. He'd been willing to overlook what I was in order to get what he wanted.
No one else would.
To them, I was the enemy. I would always be the enemy. It also didn't matter. Maybe I would never be welcome here, but that didn't make it okay for the Moles to attack these people. To kill them! Worse, to feed them to us as if they were little more than animals!
No, I would make sure I told Zasen everything he wanted to know about life inside the compound. I would have Kanik teach me to speak Vestrian so well I no longer had an accent. And then, somehow, I would find a way to stop the Moles from ever coming back here, because if I didn't belong in this amazing place, at least the Dragons did, and paradise deserved to be protected.
Finally, Zasen got enough help to pull the woman away from me. Three other men grabbed her, carrying her off as she continued to wail and scream. That was grief. That was the sort of anguish I'd felt when my mother had died, but I hadn't been allowed to show it.
Then Zasen scrambled to my side. "She didn't mean it," he said, lifting me up so he could check me for injuries.
I took a shuddering breath, trying to push back my own sadness. "She did. She did, and she has every right."
Then Naomi was beside me. "Are you hurt?" she asked.
But the moment I was sitting up, they both saw. Right across my side, at the bottom of my ribs, my dress was cut. Blood was staining the fabric and my skin was visible through it. I wanted to press at the injury, but Zasen stopped me.
"You don't want to get dirt in that," he said gently.
"Take her home," Naomi ordered. "You can treat her there."
I shook my head. "No. Please? I'm so sorry, Naomi. I didn't know, but I can still help. They didn't tell us where they hunted or what. I didn't know why people hated Moles until now. I had no idea, but I can still help!"
Naomi just cupped the side of my face. "And now you need to be helped. Go home, Ayla. The easy ones are cared for. The rest may not make it. That mother will not be the only one who wants to hurt you for something you didn't do, and you already need sutures."
"I can take it," I assured her. "They deserve to be angry, and I don't mind. I can still help. I know how to deal with punishment…"
Naomi just shook her head again. "Ayla, you can't. You need to go home, let Zasen treat that gash, and take care of yourself." It was clearly an order.
Then Naomi leaned over and wrapped her arms around her son. Zasen hugged her tightly before pressing a kiss to her brow. He wasn't even ashamed about showing that much affection in public.
Naomi just clasped the back of his head. "Take care of her. She did good tonight."
"More than you know, Mom," Zasen said before slipping an arm under my legs. The other went behind my back, and he lifted. "I got you, Ayla."
I didn't try to fight him, but over his shoulder, I could see all the people still in the street. Too few of them were the bodies of hunters in black. Too many of the others were no longer moving.