“I can’t remember.”
His eyes narrowed. “I-I-I find that unlikely.”
Cloud gave up on fighting his emotions. He stood. “I’m sorry, Lupine, I can’t do this right now.”
“Oh. Wren?” Lupine asked.
He nodded softly. “And Ember.”
“Tahg, I-I’m really sorry, Cloud. You can go. I’ll try my best to settle this without you or, uh, Songbird.”
Cloud lowered his head in thanks, then padded back toward the forest. He cried silently as he walked. Each tear left a patch of ice in his fur. When he pushed through the last blades of dried grass, he stopped. The woods loomed ahead, cold and unforgiving. And empty—too empty. When he reached the Glade, Aspen wouldn’t be there, at least not alive. Ember wouldn’t be there either, and Wren certainly wouldn’t be there, but forty-odd questioning faces would be; faces who would sob, mourn, ask questions, and make an emotional racket. Songbird would be there too. How could he tell her the daughter they’d fought so hard to keep was gone?
‘What would she think if I had killed Ember? Would she say it was the right thing to do? Or is this way better for everyone? Who am I trying to fool? She’s with the humans. She’d be better off dead. I failed her. I failed Aspen. I failed Wren. I failed them all.’
Instead of going to the Glade, he wandered west along the mountain slope. Moonlight reappeared from behind the clouds and illuminated the patch of white-speckled green in front of him: the cliffs. He jumped onto a rock that smelled like Ember, then sat facing the sunken mountainside and Wolf Trail far below.
Another mechanical pod zipped past, its whirring distant and haunting. He shuddered and sighed. ‘I didn’t even get to tell her. I should have. I should have let her know the truth about Dark, and Aspen, and me. Maybe if I had, she’d still be here. She wouldn’t have ran or fought, that’s for sure. And Aspen wouldn’t be able to follow through with his threats.’ He wrapped his paws over his muzzle. ‘What are we going to do now? What am I going to do? I can advise during peace, but if there’s going to be a war I don’t know what to do. I’m just as lost as everyone else. Everyone is depending on me, but I don’t know if I can keep doing this. I’m not a leader. After Farlight becomes commander, I have to leave. For too long, I’ve given this colony everything, only to get hurt by it over and over again. I’m not putting up with this anymore. I can’t.’
He got to his paws. ‘Enough hesitating. Time to tell them. The sooner they know, the sooner . . . How am I even supposed to finish that thought? The sooner the pain will go away? The sooner things will go back to normal? The sooner we can all forget they even existed? I don’t know, but I do need to tell them. They deserve to know the truth. Even if they don’t deserve what the truth is. This time I will tell them.’
Cloud jumped off the rock. When he did, the ledge it sat on crumbled. Both boulder and ground tumbled down the cliff with a series of crashes. He stared back at the now empty patch of air.
‘Huh.’
For once, he couldn’t think of anything else to think. He walked back to the Glade. When he got there, cats ran to him. Several voices at once asked about the fight, or about loved ones who may or may not have survived it. The voices became a muffled blur. He pushed past them. Songbird, Kivyress, and Farlight sat outside the healer’s den, where Fern and Fledge were helping an exhausted Hyrees regain his strength. Songbird’s eyes lit up when she saw him, but only for a moment; she knew something was wrong, and he was about to confirm it.
She approached him slowly, cautiously, as if he might attack her but might also give her a big nuzzle and say everything would be okay. Cloud trembled. Tears were already forming in her eyes.
“Cloud,” she said, “is she . . .”
He pressed his forehead against hers. “She’s gone, Song. I’m . . . I’m sorry. The humans have her now. She was on the Wolf Trail, and they took her. Even if they were trying to help, she was . . . she was in pretty bad shape.”
“Ember,” Kivyress whispered, shivering.
Songbird sat down and cried into his fur. She didn’t say anything, because nothing else needed to be said; loss was a given, and no amount of yowling, or even whimpering, would ever change it. So she spoke nothing and sobbed against his shoulder.
“What did you say?” Hyrees asked. He appeared in the den’s entrance, eyes wide and shaking all over. “What did you say, Cloud? Tell me, please.”
Cloud swallowed hard. ‘Only one more. This is almost over. Just a few more words and it’ll be over.’
He sucked in a deep breath. “Hyrees, Farlight; your father is dead, and Ember may be as well. They’re both gone.”
Hyrees staggered forward. He laid down to keep himself from falling. “Oh my . . . my, they,” he stammered.
Farlight and Kivyress looked at each other, both searching for comfort. They walked closer to where Songbird and Cloud sat. Songbird’s gaze landed on Hyrees. She sniffed a few times, then extended a paw. He limped to her, welcoming her embrace. They remained in silence until Fern urged them to get some sleep. He suspected she just wanted the chance to grieve her traitor of a daughter alone. Yet she was still his sister-in-law, and she’d just lost her only kitten. She deserved a chance to grieve, so they gave it to her.
———
“Last night, five courageous cats gave their lives after the assassination of Commander Aspen, my beloved brother, and the unwarranted ambush that took place following it,” Lupine said. He was shaking all over and speaking through tears, but his voice was strong and more clear than usual. “Whitehaze spent all night carving a memorial into the-the History Tree for them. Those f-five brave souls will be remembered for generations, thanks to him. They have left us in body and soul, but may their courage and strength live on forever; especially i-i-in the hearts of those closest to them, whom they’ve left behind. May their spirits heal and strengthen us through these difficult times as we prepare for war, and for the battles yet to come.”
A few hours earlier, before they’d all gone out to the fields to burn away what bodies they could, Lupine had officially announced that the post-fight meeting was a failure. Jade had refused to take credit for Aspen’s death, or the ambush. Any attempts he’d made to apologize or amend their relationship were met with hostility and bitterness. Finally, Jade agreed to camp elsewhere, and Lupine agreed to let her leave, but not before a state of war was declared.
Peace was over.
Cloud glanced over at Fern, who had her head buried in Fledge’s chest. As much as he tried to avoid them and their less-than-presentable ways, another pang of sympathy stirred in his head. Tainu would not get a memorial; she wouldn’t be allowed to get mentioned in speeches. Yet that was the fate of a traitor: to be remembered as nothing more.
“D-Dad?” Kivyress whispered in his ear. Her jaw trembled. “You don’t think she’s alive, do you?”
He hesitated. He didn’t want to run through all the worst-case scenarios again, but his mind acted without instruction, showing him visions of pain and suffering he couldn’t even imagine feeling. “I . . . I don’t know. If not, I hope she went quickly.”
“Will you be saying something for her?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Probably not. I’m going to be honest with you, Kivyress; part of me still thinks she’s alive. I don’t know if she really is, or if it’s just me being hopeful. I guess I’m afraid that, if I say something for her, she’ll really be gone, and we’ll never get to see her again. It’s illogical, and fluffheaded, and stupid, and any other word you can think of, but . . . I don’t want to lose her yet.”
She’d already been given a memorial stone. It rested beside the ash-covered stones of all the others they’d lost. Since her body had been taken, others’ ashes had been scattered around her marker. She would never get a proper send-off. Part of him hated the ambiguity, but the more imaginative side of him preferred it
“I think it makes sense,” Kivyress said through tears. “You don’t want to say anything because
. . . once you do, that’ll be it. She’ll be gone, and everything will be over.”
He pulled her closer. “I guess so.”
Songbird leaned closer to them, engulfing Kivyress in warmth. On the other side of them, Hyrees cried softly beside his brother.
“I never did tell Dad about my eyes,” Hyrees whispered. “Why didn’t I tell him? Why didn’t I ever talk to him about anything? He wanted me to talk to him. He just wanted a decent conversation, and I never gave him one. I-I spent every day with him. How could I have never told him?”
‘He needs to know.’
Cloud edged closer. Kivyress and Farlight moved out of the way. He rested his head against his son-in-law’s neck, trying to offer any emotional support he could. “He already knew. He didn’t want to make you uncomfortable by bringing it up at the wrong time, so he never brought it up at all.”
Hyrees opened his eyes, but they didn’t focus on anything. His breathing became louder and more panicked.
“He was always proud of you, you know,” Cloud said.
Hyrees pulled away, breath rate stabilizing. “He was?”
“I was talking to him yesterday, before the meeting. He was bragging about you. He was bragging. Bragging and going on about how much he’d miss you when you became a clayworker. But he knew it would make you happier. He wanted you to be happy.”
Hyrees’s eyes lost focus again.
‘I hope that was the right thing to say.’
“You know what? You should give Ember a speech,” Hyrees whispered. He stood up, then slunk away from the gathering.
“Cloud,” Lupine said. “Would you like to s-say anything?”
He realized he’d missed the rest of Lupine’s homage.
Cloud stood. “Yes, sir.”
As he walked over to the commander’s hill, on which Lupine waited, he rehearsed the eulogies he’d prepared for Aspen and Wren during the burning. As he’d gathered wood, he’d also composed his thoughts and stomped out the last of his tears. He’d never been one for crying, or for displaying his emotions at all. Emotions made him vulnerable, easier to take advantage of, so he suppressed them whenever he could—even at his best friend’s memorial gathering. If it meant he was the only one not crying, so be it. For now, this was his colony. They needed someone to be strong for them, and being strong for others was part of his job.
“I am proud to have called Wren my friend. He was one of the best cats I’ve ever met, and probably ever will meet. When I found him at the border back on my first day of apprenticeship, I couldn’t understand why Commander Aspen would let an Easterner join our colony. But he let him in. He let him stay because he saw something in him no one else could.”
Cloud swallowed. “He saw his heart. His spirit. His courage and bravery. Someone who deserved a chance. Someone who would prove himself over and over, through his work as a border guard, and last night, in his death, when he laid down his life for us.”
His paws still stung from scraping up ashes to pour over the memorial stones, so he sat down. “For a cat who’d lost so much, he never managed to lose that spirit. He had the heart of a cougar and the gentleness of a fawn. He was one of the strongest cats I’ve ever known. He will be missed.”
‘I just wish I could’ve saved him. He didn’t deserve to die. It should’ve been me.’
He moved on to his next speech. “Commander Aspen was one of the best leaders the West has ever seen. It was an honor to serve under him.”
He’d intentionally composed the two speeches to open with similar statements of gratitude. He loved them equally, Wren like a brother, and Aspen like a father. They’d been more his family than the cats he was born to.
“Yes, he had his misgivings, but he never stopped moving forward. Not even when the forest seemed to be against him. Not even when his own colony hated him. He used those times of heartache, those times of sorrow and pain, to improve himself and the West. He took his old thoughts, his old beliefs, and he threw them over the cliff. He changed rules that have existed since the time of Dark. It is because of his generosity that my daughter, Ember, was able to grow up. It’s because of him that I met Wren.”
Cloud paused for a moment to lick the feeling back into one of his forepaws. “Without Aspen’s guidance, we would’ve never held the first meeting. We would’ve never made all those wonderful memories, or had those celebrations, those feasts, and those games. He gave us an era of prosperity like no other. This era was short-lived, but this is the way of all beautiful things. As we ready ourselves for the less beautiful side of life, for this time of war, may his strength be with us.”
For a moment, he considered making something up on the spot for Ember, but he couldn’t bring himself to even begin thinking about it.
“The pain of loss, it will never fully go away, but it can heal. It can teach us. Though there will be scars, we have been made better because of the lives of these cats, who sacrificed themselves so we could continue onward. We must continue our fight without them. We must continue to be strong. May their sacrifices not be in vain.”
He stepped down from the rock. “Thank you.”
“Cloud, wait,” Lupine said. “What about Ember? I-I know what you said, but I think it’s safe to say she’s probably—”
“I’m not giving a speech for Ember.”
“A-a-are you sure?”
Cloud glared at him and growled. “Yes.”
He padded back to where the remnants of his family sat. A few others gave speeches, but he didn’t hear them. He sat in numb silence, trying to force his mind to be silent too.
After the gathering, he climbed the History Tree to look at the memorials Whitehaze had carved into a young branch. In terms of words, it was simple, but the carving itself was a masterpiece. No one name got more attention or detail than the other. They were all equally beautiful, and each name had leaves carved into either side of it; aspen leaves for Aspen, maple for Ember, and creeping ivy, complete with flowers, for Wren. He smiled softly. Wren loved ivy. It had been Light’s favorite plant, which he’d adopted as his own favorite after she’d passed. Now he would be immortalized with it.
He glanced over the rest of the names. The list was small when compared to the Stone Ridge memorial carving a few branches away, but there hadn’t been nearly as many involved in the fight. Five was a tremendous loss when the ratios of participants to deaths were compared. It meant over half of the first few cats to chase Tainu had perished.
‘What does this mean for the future? If we keep this ratio up for a few more battles, we’ll kill ourselves off. Granted, the attack was an ambush, and an ambush will typically have a higher death rate than a more standard battle, but all things considered, it won’t be giving anyone here a confidence boost.’
“Cloud?” Songbird asked.
“What is it, Song?” He jumped out of the tree to greet her, then butted his head against hers.
She pulled away. “Stop, please.” Her voice wavered. “It’s Hyrees. He hasn’t come back yet, and he skipped his morning rations. Farlight is afraid he might try to do it again. And fox it, Cloud, I think he might be right. If that’s the case, you know I can’t go after him, and Farlight is busy with Commander Lupine.”
Cloud growled. “Why do I—”
“Cloud!” she snapped. “Not everything is about you. This is not about you. This is about Hyrees, a heartbroken, scared, kitten. Your best friend’s son. You know he can’t think rationally right now. Go, save him before he does something we’ll all regret.” Songbird coughed, and broke down into another round of tears. “Please. We can’t afford to lose anyone else. I can’t lose anyone else. Not now.”
‘What have I done? What am I doing? What’s wrong with me? Come on, Cloud, get your priorities straight. Hyrees, I hope you’re still there, tomcat.’
Cloud pinned back his ears. He licked her cheek. “Sorry, that . . . came out wrong. I’ll find him, okay?”
Songbird tucked her head under his chin. “Be careful.
”
“I will. I’ll be easy on him. You get some rest. We’ll be back soon.”
She nodded once, then they parted ways. As he loped out of the Glade, Cloud examined the tracks in the thin layer of snow. They fanned out in different directions. He sniffed the ground, then the air, but couldn’t make his nose pick up the correct scent.
‘I guess I’ll have to use logic then. Those go in the general direction of the cliffs, and I know for a fact that they aren’t mine, so I suppose I should start there. I hope I’m not too late. That’d be the fourth death to rest on my conscience in the span of less than a day, and I don’t want to deal with that level of guilt.’
Moss replaced compacted dirt and dead grass as he neared the cliffs. He lifted his snout into the breeze. It still refused to work properly. “Hyrees, are you here?”
“W-what are you doing here?” a voice asked. It sounded panicked.
‘So he is considering it. He really is unstable. And impulsive. And none of these thoughts are going to help him.’ Cloud quickened his pace. “Making sure you’re okay. What are you doing?”
Hyrees stood near where the boulder had been, tail tucked between his legs. He backed away from the cliff edge and sat down. He was shaking. He was scared. “E-enjoying the view.”
Cloud sat beside him. “It’s a good one, but not such a good last view.”
His eyes widened. “Sir, p-please don’t tell anyone. I wasn’t actually considering it. N-not really. It was just a-a stupid thought. I’m-I’m too much of a hareheart t-t-to pull it off anyway.”
“I won’t tell a soul as long as you stay alive. But the moment you die, well, the meows get meowed. What would Ember think if she came back to find out you threw yourself over the cliffs? She may still be out there, you know.”
“I’m sorry,” Hyrees choked out. “I-I don’t know what-what came over me, I just . . . I wanted the pain to be over. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t think about a-anything but how much, how much less dying would hurt, but-but like I said: I’m a coward.”
“Songbird was the one who sent me. Her and Farlight. They’re worried about you, you know. Especially Farlight. You’ve gotta pull through this for him. Your brother, he needs you, just like you need him.”
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