A coyote appeared in Ember’s fern patch. Before the mouse could run away, the coyote snatched it up in its jaws, then swallowed it whole. Ember mewled quietly and opened her eyes. Tears threatened to betray her again.
Silentstream sat down and nudged her into an uncomfortably upright position. “Ember, my little maimed fawn, you must realize your actions have consequences. What you do reflects on your parents’ reputations, just as Cloud’s choices have had an impact on mine.” She placed a paw under Ember’s chin and lifted her head to face her. “When you do anything of importance, you carry your heritage with you. Be strong and confident. Bear yourself with pride, and soar through your next trial. Okay?”
“Why?” Ember asked.
She winced. Alarming yellow lighting flashed through her mind, startling the coyote into taking shelter in the ferns.
Fern nudged Silentstream’s side. “Maybe you should let me handle this. Go take a nap if you need to. I’m sure it will help that headache of yours.”
The mouse reappeared in front of the half-hidden coyote. Both imaginary creatures stared at each other in confusion. Ember sighed, and they vanished together as she wiped her mind’s eye clean.
Silentstream stood. “Don’t touch me, Fern. I can move on my own, thank you. And you know what? I think I will go. You kittens are going to kill me with all this stress one day, I swear.”
She left the healer’s den, still muttering to herself. Fern sighed. She bent over to examine Ember’s shoulder. “This isn’t fresh, but it hasn’t been treated. Ember, does she really bother you that much?”
The coyote in Ember’s mind reappeared. It chased its own tail around, snarling as it spun. Ember clenched her teeth, causing it to disappear again with a soft pop.
Ember lowered her head. Habit sent her tongue between her teeth, and pain sent it back. Her throat burned for water. Her tail thrashed. “I don’t know . . . what to say.”
Fern sighed again. “Then you don’t have to say anything. I’m sure—oh, please keep your tail still. You might spill the medicine. This supply has to last all winter. And speaking of medicine, here, let me get something for your tongue.”
She separated out a few well-cleaned root pieces into a tiny clay bowl with a rock at its center. She pawed at them a few times, crushing the cluster of roots into a flat lump with the stone, then dumped the bowl’s contents into Ember’s mouth. Ember fought the urge to gag. The sharp, bitter taste itself numbed her tongue.
“Don’t swallow it, if you can help it,” Fern said. “It’ll give your stomach a bad time.”
The pain dulled, but didn’t disappear completely. She slackened her jaw and let the wet lump fall to the compacted dirt floor.
“Agh, that tasted terrible,” Ember mewed. “Are you sure that was safe to put in my mouth?”
“Well, usually it’s used for cuts in the skin, not the tongue, but it shouldn’t give you any problems. Just make sure you let someone know if you start feeling weird.”
She tried to drool out the flavor. The tension in her head loosened. ‘So I shouldn’t die from it, but I might?’ Ember sighed. “I always feel weird.”
Fern chuffed. “Oh, you and me both. But we’re all a little weird, aren’t we? Even the great Silentstream.”
“Hey, whoa! What happened, Fern?” Fledge, a smoky grey molly, stepped into the healer’s den. She touched noses with Fern. “Not-so-Silentstream just stormed past me, mumbling about ungrateful youngsters, or something like that. Just wanted to make sure everything was still okay down here,” Fledge said.
Fern nuzzled Fledge’s cheek. “We’re fine. Thanks for checking though. Just finishing up, right Ember?”
Ember looked at her paws. ‘I certainly hope we’re done. I’m not sucking on any more roots.’
“Yes, ma’am,” she whispered.
“Alright then,” Fern said. She licked Ember’s forehead. “You’re all fixed up and ready to go. Have fun at the meeting. If Tainu tries to force you to go hunting with her again, you tell her I said not to. She should know better than to keep pushing you like that.”
Ember got to her paws. “I will. Thanks, Fern.”
She trotted out of the den without looking back. Hyrees sat outside, waiting for her.
“So, how did it go?” he asked.
She kept walking. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Oh,” he said. “Did you want to go do something then?”
“Yes. Alone.”
“Oh,” he said again. “Later then?”
“Maybe.” She turned toward the western entrance and almost ran into Cloud. Ember jumped backward to avoid colliding with his chest. “Ah! S-sorry, Dad.”
He smiled weakly. “No, no, it’s okay. How’s your tongue doing?”
“It hates me, and probably Fern too. Me for biting it and talking, and Fern for putting lobelia roots on it.”
Cloud stared at her in silence. Ember examined his tight expression, trying to figure out what it meant. She gave up and lowered her head. “I meant sorry for ruining everything.”
“You didn’t ruin anything. Everything’s . . . going to be okay.”
She glanced up at her father. Her mind tore itself away from him, and Hyrees, and everyone else. ‘You’re keeping secrets again. Why can’t you just tell me when I’m causing a problem? I’m not a dead leaf. I’m not going to crumble and fall apart if you put a little extra weight on me.’
She stepped back and bit down on the other side of her tongue. Her ears flicked against her neck. ‘Then again, isn’t that exactly what just happened? Tahg, I need to think. Your presence is preventing me from thinking. I need to be alone.’
He sighed. “I’m going to have to leave with the welcoming group in a little while. After the meeting, though, I’d like to talk to you about some things. Okay? There are some things I need to tell you that I really should have told you a long time ago, and—”
“Cloud! We’re going now, with or without you,” Aspen called from across the Glade.
Cloud stretched his neck to look at his commander. “Coming!” he shouted, hurting Ember’s ears. “Sorry, I have to leave. I’ll see you later, I guess.”
Ember rubbed her brown paw. “I’m going to the falls,” she said. “You can get me when the meeting is over.”
Without waiting for a reply, she strode past him, left the Glade, and made her way toward Fernburrow Falls.
Chapter 4
Cloud
‘I hope this meeting goes well,’ Cloud thought. ‘Ever since that outsider showed up, Aspen’s been more tense than usual. It’s one thing when he won’t tell me why he makes the decisions he makes. It’s another thing entirely when there’s something obviously important going on, and he won’t tell anyone about it. If it’s bothering him, as the commander, maybe it should bother the rest of us. Or at least me. Doesn’t he trust me?’
He sighed as he walked, dead leaves rustling beneath the paws of the high-ranks and border guards around him. The welcoming group reached the eastern border and came to a halt. Trees, tall and ancient hardwoods, surrounded them, providing shade from the morning sun. Storm clouds gathered overhead, possible precursors of the winter’s first snow. He drew a long, slow breath, and wondered how an early snowfall might affect the meeting.
Cloud sat down beside Aspen. He’d spent most of the morning in the fields, helping prepare the camp for the East. The simple fire pit was cleaned, the dead grass around it was pulled and set aside for kindling, and the firewood was kept dry from possible rains beneath the protective snout of Coyote Rock. With a few generous rations of meat, their guests would want for nothing that night.
‘It’s a good thing Jade doesn’t take these things personally. If what I’ve heard about the Battle of Stone Ridge is true, she could use anything we do as a declaration of war and make it justified. I wouldn’t even blame her if I weren’t stuck in the middle of it all.’
The wind picked up, sending a lone leaf fluttering down. It smacked against his
muzzle, then landed to rest at his feet. ‘Then again,’ he lifted the leaf to his face with a forepaw, ‘I still don’t understand why it happened the way it did. We were clearly in the wrong. He was clearly in the wrong.’
He curled his toes, causing the leaf to crumble apart.
“Cloud,” Aspen whispered, “when the East has left, I’d like to speak with you about Ember.”
Cloud flinched. He’d tried to forget about Ember’s trial the moment they left the Glade. It hadn’t worked during the tedious trip to the edge of the Lowlands, but another reminder didn’t help. “Yes, of course, sir,” he replied under his breath. “What about her, if you don’t mind me asking? I know what happened earlier, but I can almost guarantee it won’t happen again.”
“Can you?”
A sinking feeling caught him in the chest. He lowered his head and shook it. “No, sir.”
“Don’t be upset. You’ve done your best, and surpassed every expectation I had. You both have. However, I’m undecided on what the best course of action will be, going from here. We already aren’t performing by the rules, so what comes next will need a lot of forethought if we try to follow through with this experiment.”
Cloud sighed with relief and straightened up to face Aspen. “Sir, let her have a say in what comes next. She deserves to know the truth. I’m going to tell her today, and you are not going to stop me.”
Aspen huffed. “You know it will change the way she sees you, and almost everything else. The truth may well break her.”
“I’m willing to take that risk. She’s not a kitten anymore. She can deal with it,” Cloud replied. A growl edged into his voice.
“No. She’s not ready for it. As long as I’m commander, no one is to tell her Dark’s final decree. If you so much as mention the commander’s tablet, I’ll have you removed from the council, and put an end to your experiment myself.”
His heart lurched. “Sir, no, you’re not—”
“Look sharp, everyone,” Aspen shouted, cutting him off. “The East will be here soon. We’d better be ready for them.”
“Sorry to jump in, but I smell cats approachin’, sir,” Wren said.
Cloud grimaced and silently willed for his heart rate to return to normal. ‘Fine. We’ll discuss this later.’ His nostrils flared as he scanned the forest for new scents. He couldn’t find any, but his sense of smell had never been good.
Wren growled and stood up. “They aren’t Eastern, though. I’d know outsider stench from next valley over.”
“Stand together and hold your ground,” Aspen commanded. The cats obeyed, forming a semi-circle with Aspen in the middle. “Wren, about how many are there?”
Wren lifted his nose to the breeze. “I’d say five. Not more than six.”
“We can take them. Be ready,” Aspen replied.
In the ensuing silence, the never-ending wind howled. It whipped their fur and bent their whiskers. The stench of decay churned and mixed with sweet water, dead flowers, and sun-dried blackberries.
A few birds fluttered around the trees above them, chirping too loudly to ignore. A plump, bluish-brown bird landed in a bush a leap away. Cloud curled back his lips and stepped closer. The bird fluttered away, trilling as it went. He watched it flap up to a nearby tree. When it landed, it stared down at him with emotionless black eyes. He growled quietly.
Near-worthless as food or not, birds weren’t just annoying; they were vermin. They caused so many problems, he occasionally killed them as pests and left them for ants and flies to eat. The noises and messes they made were only surface issues. Large, unafraid flocks attracted more predators into the territory. Eagles would fly in looking for a blackbird, then fly out with a beloved kitten. A beloved kitten whose parents mistakenly thought the Glade was safe, and decided to look away for a moment. In addition to eagles, outsiders and other Lowland creatures would risk their lives to sneak in for an easy hunt. Occasionally, they would take his fellow border guards’ lives in their desperation for a quick meal. Birds got good cats killed.
A breaking twig snapped him to attention. ‘Right. Outsiders.’
Flashes of white fur moved toward them through the underbrush. He lowered himself as a cat emerged from the bramble. Four others followed. All five outsiders were tabby with white patches, or white with tabby patches, and all of them had strange, fur-lined objects strapped to their necks or sides: containers of some kind. The outsiders stopped and watched the band of Westerners with wary eyes.
Cloud stared at the containers. ‘What are those things?’
The first cat stepped forward. He boasted impressive patches of ginger, a shade typically found in the occasional Easterner, or outsiders descended from Easterners. Half of his tail was missing. Aspen closed his eyes for a moment, seeming almost relieved.
“Ah. So you do send your guards to greet the East. Perfect,” the ginger tom said.
Aspen curled back his lips, bearing his fangs. “Go back to the Lowlands. You don’t belong here.”
“What if we want to talk to you?” the tom asked.
“Then you’re out of luck. Our guests will be coming soon. We need to be ready,” Aspen said.
“Wait, hear us out. We would like to come to the meeting. We represent the—”
“Listen, cat,” Cloud said, “we don’t have time for this. Get out of here before I hurt you.”
Aspen pawed his side. Cloud spun to face his commander. Aspen jerked his head toward the empty space beside him. He sighed, backed into place, and sat down.
Aspen had been commanding the West for nearly a year when Cloud was born. Four and a half winters had passed since then, but as much as he’d seen and learned in those four and a half winters, he still felt underprepared. Every now and then he found himself wondering if Aspen felt the same way.
Aspen nudged the nervous, smoke-furred tom sitting at his other side. “Lupine, you may be better suited for this. Go speak with them.”
Lupine turned to look at his brother. “W-what? Me? Why? You-you’re the commander, Aspen. Not me.”
Lupine was only younger by a matter of moments, but he submitted to Aspen like he would to Whitehaze, his mentor, or any other high-ranking elder. Cloud had heard whispers and rumors that Lupine hadn’t always been so skittish or submissive. Some said he’d once been the most outgoing cat the colony. However, that was before Aspen became commander and tried to unite the East and the West by force. It had been the bloodiest battle in recorded history. No survivor returned as the same cat they’d been when they left. Most hadn’t returned at all.
“Yes,” Aspen said, “but if anything happens to me before Farlight is ready, you will be the one to take my place. I’d like to see how you choose to handle this.”
“Well, ideally, I-I won’t be needing to, uh, take your place, but I’ll do my best to-to speak with them.” Lupine walked over to the ginger tom. “Y-you said you wanted to come to the meeting, right? Why?”
The tom raised his half-tail in a polite greeting. “Oh, finally. Yes, we do. My name is Buck, and these are my kin. We aren’t outsiders, sir; we’ve come to represent the recently formed Midbrook Colony. Our leader isn’t present right now, but he trusts us to speak for him. We have our own food, and don’t plan to stay for any festivities. We’d only like to stay long enough to discuss a three-way peace treaty during the meeting itself.”
Lupine swallowed and glanced over his shoulder. Cloud followed his gaze to silver-furred Whitehaze, who offered an encouraging smile.
“I, ah, honestly don’t know what to tell you,” Lupine said. “This is a . . . a little short-notice. Maybe we could set aside a different time and place. Our relationship w-w-with the East isn’t the best right now. I’m not sure how they’d take to us inviting a, uhm, third colony without their consent.”
“We could wait for them to get here, and you can decide together,” Buck replied.
Wren moved to sit at Cloud’s other side. “East’s getting close,” he whispered.
“Chas
e a fox,” Cloud growled under his breath. He leaned over to Aspen. “Wren says the East is almost here. These outsiders have to go.”
Aspen grimaced. “Agreed.”
He nudged Lupine’s flank, and Lupine stepped out of the way. Aspen moved to take his place. “There will be no waiting for you. Take your kin and leave. The Western Mountain is no place for outsiders.”
Buck flattened his ears. His eyes narrowed. “Pardon my correction, sir, but we’re not outsiders. We are from the Midbrook Colony, and our leader—”
“Will be lucky if his band of rogues lasts until spring. Your kind is not welcome here,” Aspen said.
“Our kind? I’m as much a colony cat as you are. Me, and all of my kin, we aren’t bobcats or foxes to be chased away. I promise you we’re just as capable of the kind of trust and teamwork it takes to stand together.”
“Then stand together somewhere else. Go, or we will hurt you.”
Buck scoffed. “Will? You already have. Your kind already has. My mother was sent into exile when Commander Sunflare, your father’s brother, found out she was pregnant with her third litter. With me. You know, I used to not believe all the stories my elders would tell me about you and the East. Now I do. Now I understand why so many of my kin want you dead. In fact, the only reason you’re not yet, sir, is because of Br—”
“That is quite enough,” a sharp, authoritative voice said.
A large, tanish-grey tabby stalked toward them. She carried herself with stoic dignity. Her soft, green eyes retained an icy chill as she glared at the outsiders. The Eastern Council followed behind her, moving with the silent power of well-trained soldiers.
Buck growled. Without another word, he turned and ran off into the Lowlands. The outsiders with him followed suit, and they disappeared in the underbrush.
“Well, that was easy,” Aspen said, raising his tail in greeting. The strain on his face lessened but didn’t disappear. “You’ve always had good timing, Commander Jade, but I think this downs the buck. Hah. Almost literally. Someone was about to get hurt.”
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