She offered what she hoped was a tiny smile. “Okay. And I shouldn’t keep pushing you. Sorry about that.”
He nuzzled her cheek. “Apology accepted.”
Her stomach growled again. ‘Oh, right, I’m hungry.’
Hyrees’s ears perked up. “Heh, I feel you, Emmy. Let’s go get some food.”
He started off for the storage cave.
Her smile faded as the oily shimmer reappeared. ‘Why do you keep calling me that? Do you think it’s cute to have a nickname for me that I don’t like? It’s not like I haven’t asked you to stop using it.’
She sighed and followed behind him. Her gaze wandered the Glade. Songbird and Cloud sat in front of their den, talking. They never once looked in her direction. Kivyress was already deep in conversation with another trainee. Wren had wandered into the bustle and disappeared. Aspen was nowhere to be seen. They were alone in the crowd.
They stopped at the storage den, where a group of hunters were dividing up a deer they’d taken. Its leg still dripped with blood from where one cat had landed the killing strike, severing the creature’s iliac artery. Ember tilted her head, wondering who’d felled it. Only highly skilled hunters aimed for leg bites.
Cats crowded around the doe and its hunters, all waiting to get their evening rations. Ember bit her tongue as their voices hit her hears.
‘This is too many cats. Too many cats.’
A tall black and white molly got up from slicing a slab of rib meat. Blood covered her mouth and paws. She spat out the sharpened stone she’d been cutting with and raised her tail in greeting. “Hungry again, Hyrees?” she asked.
She clawed out the slice of rib meat, then set it down in front of him.
“Yes. Yes, I am. Thanks, Tainu,” Hyrees replied.
He tore into his meal with the etiquette of a rabid coyote. Several cats glared at him in disgust.
“As if he needs more food,” one cat growled.
“Oh, leave him alone,” Tainu said.
“You guard your mouth, outsider,” the cat replied.
Tainu showed her teeth but said nothing. She’d been born in the Lowlands, but her parents had left her in Western territory when she was only a mooncycle old. Fern, Songbird’s sister, had taken her in, and, with help from Fledge, raised her as their only daughter. Ember only ever saw her as a cousin, a friend, and a guiding figure, yet most colony cats considered her outsider blood to be inferior in some way.
Tainu snorted and shook her head, then cut out another piece. “And for you, my weird little cousin.”
‘Okay, we’re adults now; you can stop calling me that. Even if I am strange, smaller than you, and your adopted cousin, there’s really no need to keep bringing these things up. Everyone knows.’
Tainu placed the meat at Ember’s paws. “I’m taking a break,” she called over her shoulder. “Be back in a moment.”
“You’d better hurry up, young’un. We’ve still got mouths to feed,” the hunter beside her said.
“Yeah, sure. I will, old tom.”
Ember pinned back her ears. ‘Should I eat? Or does she expect me to talk to her first? Well, she’s still sitting there, so try talking?’
“So,” she said, “a deer. You must’ve had quite a day.”
“Oh, it was a day,” Tainu replied. “We caught more than this, of course, but they’re flaming it for tomorrow. How was your day?”
“Long and mostly boring,” Ember said.
“Really?” She examined her injured shoulder. “’Cause this doesn’t look all that boring to me, and I know it wasn’t there this morning.”
“You do?”
Tainu hesitated a moment, then twitched her tail and chuffed. “Yes. Because it’s too fresh to have happened yesterday. Em, this is completely unrelated, but I’ve been meaning to ask if you wanted some more hunting lessons. After we go catch more food for the meeting, I should be free tomorrow. Y’know, if you’re interested. Aaand even if you’re not.”
‘What? No. No, no, no.’ Ember shuddered slightly. ‘Definitely no hunting lessons. You know that’s not my thing.’
“Ember, hey, you listening?”
‘Oh, right, you can’t read my mind.’
“Ah!” Ember squeaked. She groaned internally. “Uh, I mean no. Maybe?” Her fur bristled as the stares of her colonymates shifted onto her. “I don’t know. Could we talk about it tomorrow? I don’t want to back myself into a corner. A metaphorical corner, of course. No real corner-backing, please.”
‘Nope. Bad idea. Very bad idea. Do not go hunting tomorrow, Ember. Tahg, why can’t you ever just say ‘no’? Maybe it’s because she’s right.’
Tainu stared at her for a few moments. She smiled again. “I’ll make sure to track you down tomorrow then. Back you into a corner myself, if I have to.” She chuckled and bent down to nudge Ember’s cheek. “You’re going hunting with me one of these days. I know you don’t like it, but you have to be able to take care of yourself. And I’m not just saying that because I want you to say I was right, and that hunting is fun and easy. I’m also saying it because I love you, and don’t want you to starve. You know, if things ever get bad.”
‘If things get bad? Why would things get bad? What are you trying to say?’
“You need practice,” Tainu continued. “No telling when you’ll need to catch yourself a rabbit. That rabbit could save your life.”
“I said ‘maybe,’ ” Ember replied. “If you push me too hard, you’ll only make it a definite ‘no.’ It’ll probably still be ‘no,’ but at least give me time to think, okay?”
‘Oh, wait, that sounds an awful lot like what Hyrees said. Sorry again, Hyrees.’
“I will, I will.” Tainu pawed the top of Ember’s head, ruffling her fur. “Stay safe, you two. Oh, and Ember, get that shoulder taken care of. Now I have work to do, so if you’ll excuse me.”
She trotted back to her place beside the ever-diminishing doe carcass. The ambience of the Glade grew louder. Ember sighed. Her stomach twisted into a knot. “Let’s go somewhere else to eat. It’s too loud and cat-dense here.”
Hyrees stood up. “Anywhere you had in mind?”
“Nowhere in particular, so long as it’s comfortable and relatively quiet. You can choose the specifics.”
“Alright. I’ll find us a place.”
He picked up what remained of his meal, and Ember did the same with hers. Her stomach felt like two arguing kittens; one kitten wanted food, and the other hated the sight of it. She couldn’t decide whose side she was on, so she tried to shake the imagery away. They loped over to the far edge of the Glade, away from most of the colony.
Hyrees dropped the meat and smiled. “How’s this?”
‘Thank you.’ She sighed. “Good enough.”
Ember lay down and licked her piece. Her stomach growled again, but she wasn’t hungry. ‘You really should eat, Ember. You need food. But you also don’t need to hack up your ration, eating when you can’t. Why is this, of all things, difficult?’
“Are you okay?” Hyrees asked. “Be honest.”
“Not really.”
His ears flicked back against his head. He sat down beside her and wrapped his tail around her haunches. “What’s wrong?”
‘What? What is the problem?’ Ember looked away, trying to find something that might give her the answer. ‘What’s wrong with my life? Why am I not okay right now? Why am I not okay?’ Her thought voice grew louder. ‘There is absolutely nothing—’
Ember sprang to her paws. “That’s just it. I don’t know what’s wrong.” She closed her eyes and let her head droop. “I don’t understand. I’ve got the best family in forest, the future job I want; all my basic needs are taken care of, and yet, I’m not happy. All logic and reason says I should be, but I get scared for no reason, I can’t focus, I don’t ever sleep well, and I . . . never mind.”
Bright pink mixed with the duller shades of hunger. She sat down and wrapped her tail around her paws. “What is wrong with me? I�
��m missing something. Part of me is missing. Hyrees, tell me what I’m doing wrong. How do I make myself better than this? How do I find the rest of me?”
He sighed. “I don’t know. Hey, maybe it’s already there somewhere.”
She shook her head. “No, it’s more than that. I feel . . . empty. Like I’m missing something important that everyone but me has.”
“Food?”
She growled. “Food is not—know what? It doesn’t matter. We should eat.”
Throughout the meal, her mind drifted, trying to find the reasons behind her problems and fears. Yet each fault had a root cause that was entirely different from the complications it created. The more she thought, the more vividly she imagined herself as a wingless fly, caught in an abandoned spider’s web and suspended over a void. Some of the silk strands ensnaring her also supported her. Without them, she risked falling into the silvery nothingness lurking below.
Ember pushed her half-eaten food away. “I’m done. I can’t eat anymore. You can have it.”
Beside her, Hyrees was grooming himself. He stopped and looked at her. “But Em, you need more than that. I don’t want you starving on me. Besides, look at me, I don’t need any more.”
“If I eat any more, I’ll make myself sick. If you don’t want it, I’ll give it to someone else.”
He shook his head. “No, you should eat it. You already feel a little too thin. You need to eat more.”
“I’d eat better if they would split the meals up more. I can’t eat a lot when I’m nervous, even when I’m nervous for no reason.”
“I’ll take it, if you don’t want it,” a new voice said.
A white kitten with patches of ruddy brown walked over to them.
“Hey, Far,” Hyrees mewed.
Farlight butted heads with Hyrees, and they purred gentle greetings to one another. Farlight was younger by several mooncycles but already bigger than his brother.
“Hey, Hyrees,” Farlight said. He turned to look at Ember. “So, you’re sure you don’t want it?”
She pushed the meat to his paws. “Yeah. You can take it.”
He pulled the extra ration closer. “Kivy, wanna split this with me?” he mewed.
Kivyress appeared from behind a tree. “Sure.”
Ember tilted her head. “What were you doing back there?”
“Sneaking up to pounce on you. But then I was told there was food to be had.”
She trotted over to Farlight and they devoured the meal together. When they finished, Farlight lay down. He rolled onto his back and placed a paw against his stomach. “That was good. I’m full now.”
Kivyress curled up near his head to groom his face. Farlight swatted at her. She nipped him and they transitioned into play-fighting. Hyrees chuffed and jumped in. He caught Farlight in his paws. They tumbled to the ground, with Hyrees on top.
“Oh, you think you can beat me, do you?” Farlight said in a mock snarl. “Kivy, now!”
Kivyress leaped into Hyrees’s back, knocking him off of Farlight.
Ember watched in silence. She imagined herself as a spirit, watching her loved ones being happy together after her physical form had left them. She smiled. Some unseen force calmed her racing heart.
‘Maybe this is all I need; just to know they’re still okay, with or without me.’
“You all did well today,” Cloud’s voice said.
She became a mortal again and spun around. Cloud and Songbird walked over to them. Hyrees and the trainees stopped playing.
“Except for you, Kivy,” Cloud said. “Did you really spend half of the day hiding from your mother?”
“Maybe,” she replied.
“Maybe, huh?” he asked.
Songbird stepped closer and nuzzled Ember’s chin. “I’m proud of you for going on that patrol alone.” She pulled back. “But next time you get cut like that, go to the healer’s den first. If you need one of us to go with you, you know we can. Just don’t leave a wound uncleaned like that. Okay?”
Ember dipped her head. “Yes, ma’am.”
‘I wish it were that easy. And I think, at this point, I can face Silentstream alone. I just really don’t want to.’
“Hey, Sparky, I need to tell you something Aspen and I discussed today,” Cloud said.
Ember’s ears perked up. “Okay.”
“Aspen thinks, with how well you’ve been performing, you might be ready to record your first clawmarks on the History Tree. Now, I told him you probably wouldn’t be interested, but you know Aspen. He wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer. He insisted you’d want to do it, so tomorrow morning, Whitehaze is going to give you your historian’s trial. If you pass it, you get to be the historian this meeting.”
Her entire face lit up. Orange; bright, joyous orange, filled her head. ‘I can do it. I can become a historian. Because that’s where I belong; I can feel it.’ Her smile shrunk. ‘Oh tahg, what would Dark think of me? Would he like me putting clawmarks on his tree? Calm down, Ember. If you’d been born in his time, he probably would’ve trained you himself.’
Cloud chuckled. “See? I knew you wouldn’t want a promotion. I don’t know why he didn’t listen to me.”
‘Wait a moment, I’m not ready. I can’t become a historian yet. I’m not good enough. I need more practice.’ The orange faded as her ears drooped She looked at her paws. “So what happens if I fail?”
“Then you try again next time.” He groomed her forehead. “Don’t worry, you’ll do fine.”
‘But what if I don’t?’
“And if not, you’ll at least have more experience and know what to expect next time,” he said.
She laughed and nuzzled her father’s neck. “Thanks, Dad.”
He chuffed. “For what?”
“Everything.” Ember moved over to Songbird. Her soft, thick fur engulfed her, like it had many a night before, during the times when, as a kitten, the fear and the uncertainty were too much for one young cat to bear alone. “You too, Mom. I love y’all.”
Songbird groomed her neck. “Love you too, my little furball.”
When Ember pulled away, she noticed Hyrees watching them. He wasn’t smiling. ‘They’re here for you too, you know—not just me.’
Songbird extended a paw toward where he stood alongside Kivyress and Farlight. “I love you all, my big-little family.”
No one moved. Her paw lowered. She shook her head and chuffed awkwardly. “Oh, come on. Hyrees, Farlight, Kivy, come here.”
Farlight and Kivyress exchanged a look, then tackled Songbird to the ground. They rolled around in a ball of laughter until Songbird went quiet.
She craned her neck to look back at where Hyrees still stood. “Hyrees, why don’t you come join the fun. Don’t you want to help them beat me up?”
Hyrees remained in place, tail twitching. “S-sorry, ma’am. I’m . . . I’m not ready for that. You can be a mom to my brother, but with all due respect, I’d like it if you stopped trying to be one to me.”
Their mother, Light, had died during kittenbirth last spring. Songbird, who’d had Kivyress not long before, had taken Farlight in and raised him as her own. She’d tried many times to extend the role to Hyrees, but he always turned her down, and with each attempt to reconcile, they drifted further apart.
Songbird eased the two trainees off of her, then got up. “I understand. I miss her too.”
“Yeah,” Hyrees said.
Ember rubbed her left forepaw, the only brown one. ‘If I could see your colors, or anyone else’s, things would be so much easier, wouldn’t they? What are you not saying, Hyrees?’
Cloud stretched and yawned. “Well, it’s getting late. We’ve got a big day tomorrow. Let’s go get some sleep. Come on, Kivy. Far, you too. You want to stay with us or your dad tonight?”
Farlight looked at Kivyress for a moment. He sighed. “Thanks for the offer, but I really should be with Dad. He gets lonely at night, and with the meeting tomorrow, he’ll definitely want someone with him. I’ll see you al
l in the morning, though.”
“There’s a good tom,” Cloud said. “Go find him. Tell him I said we ought to go do something after the meeting. It’s been a while since we’ve really done anything together.”
“That’s because last time I left you two together alone, you ended up in the healer’s den with a snake bite,” Songbird said.
Cloud shook his head. “Excuses, excuses.”
“I will, sir,” Farlight replied. “Bye, Kivy! See you in the morning.”
“Bye, Far,” Kivyress mewed, a content smile on her face.
They parted ways, Cloud, Songbird, and Kivyress leaving for their den, and Farlight heading toward his.
“He’s the one, Song. What did I tell you?” Cloud mewed as they walked away. “He’s going to make a great commander when the time comes.”
Songbird replied, but it was too quiet to make out over the casual chaos of the Glade. It was probably something about how much an intelligent, half-Eastern commander could do to improve inter-colony relations, which was why Aspen had chosen him in the first place rather than training up any of his closer kin.
Ember sighed. She nuzzled Hyrees before they padded to the History Tree. The two studious trainees, along with Whitehaze, were long gone.
After a moment of hesitation, Hyrees climbed up. He sat down in the cozy cleft made by the massive oak’s diverging branches. Ember went up after him. Words greeted her—so many words. They were words she recognized, words she loved. Words she loved so much, Aspen allowed them to sleep among them. She curled up beside her mate and skimmed over the story of the division. It began with the most intense opening line of any account carved into the tree:
Dark died in the tenth winter.
No matter how many times she tried to read over it, it still managed to jump out at her, and it never failed to send a tiny chill across her neck. Both the words and the elegance with which they were carved were each inspirational enough on their own to motivate her. She wanted to be there—not in the tenth winter, but in her clawmarking ability.
‘I could do that too. One day. Tahg, I don’t think I’m ready. Not yet. One thing’s for sure, I’m not fast enough. That could be a problem.’
“So tomorrow you get to put some on here, don’t you?” Hyrees asked.
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