“You k—?” Michelle stopped petting her.
Ember winced. Sadness and guilt colored her thoughts with dreary oranges. ‘I shouldn’t have said that. Why did I mention Tainu?’
Michelle sighed and stretched out her arms, inviting her to come closer. Ember obliged, and she scooped her up against her chest. The warmth of her jacket invited her. The pressure of her arms against her sides calmed her shaking body.
“It’s okay. It’s okay. I don’t know the exact circumstances you and your family are dealing with right now, but I promise, if they’re really your family, they’ll be happy to see you, no matter what you look like, or what you can do for them,” Michelle said.
Ember mewed quiet nonsense to herself. She wanted to stay in Michelle’s arms forever. Or at least a little longer. Long enough to fall asleep. “Promise, promise?”
“Promise, promise.” Michelle smiled, lower lip quivering. Another tear rolled down her cheek, causing Ember to wonder if she was thinking about Thai. “Are you ready now?”
“No.”
“Too bad.” She set Ember back down. “It’s time for you to go home. If I waited until you were ready, we’d be here all day. The sooner you get back, the sooner you’ll get it over with. Also, I really should go to work. I’m already late.”
Ember stepped back and tried for a second time to control her breathing. ‘One, two, three, four, five. I can do this. Everything’s going to be okay. And if not, I’ll make it okay. And if I can’t do that, maybe Michelle can take me back.’
She sighed. “You’re right. Thank you. Thanks for everything. I don’t know what else to say to show how much I appreciate all this. Can’t seem to think of anything better than ‘thank you.’ I’m really gonna miss you, Chell.”
“You’re very welcome, Em. We’ll keep in contact; don’t worry. I might try calling you, or having Matt call you when we get back from work today. Would that be good?”
“I don’t know if I’ll feel like talking. Maybe I can call you. Or thought message you. Or something.”
“That’ll work. Goodbye, Ember.”
Ember ran over to her and pressed her head against her jacket one last time. Her heart pounded against her chest. “Bye.”
Michelle wrapped her arms around her again. She pulled back a moment later, then stood up. “Go on, sweetie. You can do this.”
Ember took one last look at her unlikely friend, then crawled under the metal barrier dividing the road from the upper field. Behind her, Michelle’s old pickup truck revved back to life. Stones crackled beneath its huge wheels. The grumble faded, so she kept moving toward the forest. She didn’t have to look back to know Michelle was gone.
Chapter 16
Ember
The grass stopped. She stopped. Ember sucked in a sharp, frigid breath of air. A shiver crept up her spine. Five stones sat in a row at the forest edge near the remnants of a large fire. All five were smeared over with unreadable char clawmarks.
‘Oh. Oh no. These are memorial stones, aren’t they? At least five of—wait, is that my clayvine?’
She padded over to the last stone. Faded clawmarks spelled out her name in beautiful, artistic strokes. On top of the stone, perfectly framing the barely readable identifier, rested the bijou Hyrees had bought her. The vine holding it had snapped, and a small fracture ran down the tiny maple leaf attached to it.
She stepped back. ‘Wait, this is my memorial stone. I’m dead, and those are my ashes. Or at least the ashes of four other cats from a fire that was meant to include me. This is really weird.’
She shivered again and sniffed it. Hyrees’s scent filled her nose, along with a hint of Cloud. Adrenaline flooded into her bloodstream, making her feel more awake and alive than she’d ever felt before.
‘They’re okay! They’re okay, and they’ve been here today. And they think I’m dead.’ She glanced down at the four other stones. ‘But who actually died? I don’t think they would carry Aspen’s ashes and coals all the way out here. These other ones must have died in the fight.’
Excitement, anxiety, unease and alarm created an explosion of colors in her head. She tried to imagine what it would be like to be a conscience without a body, and what it would be like to watch her former body get burnt into nothing. For a few hours, she would become her namesake. Then the fire would die, and they would take her char and ashes to decorate her stone. She would watch as they cried, and she wouldn’t be able to tell them not to. Then she’d probably fade into nothingness, like falling into an eternal sleep.
Her eyes dampened but no tears came. Instead, her chest decided to feel tight and achy. She shook herself off and told herself to focus on the excitement instead of the unease. She sniffed the air, trying to figure out which way Hyrees and Cloud had gone after leaving her tattered accessory. Once she pinpointed the direction, she moved past the stones toward her family.
‘Up the mountain; they’re going up the mountain. Toward the creek too. That’s where the falls are. They’re probably going there. I know I would.’
After a few minutes of walking, voices rose over the ever-blowing breeze. Voices she knew. Ember scaled a nearby tree, then peered out from behind the trunk. ‘One little climb shouldn’t hurt.’ Her heart pounded with excitement. Bursts of orange and red sparkled in the back of her mind. ‘Oh tahg, this is it. This is going to be fun. I’m going to see them again, and they’re going to be so surprised to see me.’
The owners of the voices appeared, just as she imagined them. Hyrees on the left, fur still a clay-colored mess, and Cloud on the right, silver pelt shimmering with gold in the morning sunlight.
‘Okay, Ember, stick to the plan. This has to be perfe—’
Her heart lurched. Her throat went dry. Cloud’s fur was almost as messy as Hyrees’s, and Hyrees himself was skinny enough to make out some of his ribs, even from her perch. She leaped out of the tree and charged toward them.
“Hyrees, what happened to you?” she yowled.
Both toms’ eyes widened. Their ears shot up like those of startled hares.
“Ember?” Cloud asked.
“Ember!” Hyrees yowled. He bounded forward to meet her halfway.
Before they could collide, Ember darted to the right and went in circles around him, examining his emaciated frame and wounded muzzle. “What did you do to yourself? You’re all scrawny and—”
“Ember!” he said again. Hyrees tackled her, laughing. She hit the ground hard enough to knock the air from her chest.
“You’re alive! You’re alive and—oh!” He jumped back. “Okay, that’s different. What . . . what happened to your legs? And what’s that around your neck? And where’s the rest of your ear? And tail, part of your tail is gone. But your legs are, are, uhm . . . Ember . . . what happened to you?”
Ember rolled back to her paws, chest tense with anxiety. “It’s, uhm, a long story, but I’ve learned a lot over the past few days. You know about humans. Well, turns out not all of them are bad. Also, the History Tree is wrong about a lot of things, but not everything. And—Dad? Hey, Dad, are you okay?”
She lowered her head and licked her lips. If the wind weren’t blowing his fur around, she might have mistaken him for a rock formation. He stared at her in silence, not so much as twitching his tail.
Ember rubbed one paw on top of the other. “I know I look different, but I promise you I’m still Ember. That’s . . . okay, right? That I look different? I don’t look the same, but I am me. Oh. Uhm, I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you that night. I really am. But I’ve learned some things since I left, and I think I might be a better help to the colony because of all this. I can be better now.”
The wind died down, cloaking the forest in silence.
Fear tugged at her insides. “Dad?”
He coughed a few times, then ran to her. He pressed his nose against hers. “Ember, you’re alive! My kitten is alive! Oh, Ember . . .”
“Hey, let me in too,” Hyrees said. He nuzzled his way under her chin.
>
Orange—oh so familiar orange—the color of the broken maple leaf, filled Ember’s head. After what had felt like an eternity of waiting, she was finally back where she belonged. ‘Home. Home! I’m home. Finally. And I smell Mom and Kivy and Farlight on them. They’re okay too. Oh tahg, everyone’s okay! Maybe things can go back to normal after all.’
“I thought I’d never see you again,” Hyrees mewed, taking her back into the moment. “Cloud said you were dead.”
“Oh, you’re going to bring that up now?” Cloud asked.
He stepped back. Hyrees pushed himself closer to Ember’s chest. “Yeah, why not?”
Cloud sighed.
“What?” she asked, breaking free from Hyrees’s affection.
Cloud chuffed, but stopped suddenly and narrowed his eyes. “Ember, you’re . . . glowing.”
“Well, yeah, but that’s kind of important. It’s a heating system that keeps me from getting something called ‘hypothermia,’ which is what happens when you get too cold, have weird daydreams, then fall asleep.”
He chuckled. “Sounds almost like me a few days ago.” He walked up to her once again and pressed his forehead against hers. “My daughter is alive,” he whispered. He brushed his face against her cheek, then rested his chin on the back of her neck. “Ember . . .”
When he pulled back, his cheek fur was wet. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you. I should’ve been the one to go after Tainu.”
Ember did a little bounce. “What? Dad, no, it’s okay. It isn’t your fault. You told me to stop; I didn’t listen. It’s my fault. And, actually, I think this might be a good thing. Watch this. Thai, show me a snowflake.”
She bit her tongue at the mention of Thai’s name. She’d been a real cat who’d done the voice for her artificial intelligence system, then died. ‘Thanks for making this weird and creepy, Michelle.’
“Here you go,” ETAg Thai said.
A projected image of a giant snowflake appeared on the ground. Hyrees and Cloud jumped back. She pushed aside the silvers of unease and tried to imagine what colors they were feeling.
‘Probably a lot of yellow,’ she thought.
“See?” she said. “And that’s just the beginning. I can ask questions, find out what the weather is going to do tomorrow, and learn how to do anything you can imagine. We can improve medicine, clayworking techniques, anything. It’s all here. More answers than we can ask questions for. Maybe we can even learn how to prevent more fights. And it’s all thanks to this. Thai, you can turn that off now.”
The projection disappeared, and the forest fell silent once again. “So, what do you think?” Ember asked.
Hyrees nuzzled her chin again, smiling and crying like a kitten. “This is amazing. It’s . . . it’s my best dreams come true. You’re alive and you’re here. I can barely even wrap my head around it. I mean the thingy with the snowflake is nice too, but you being here right now, that’s . . . it’s . . . I don’t even have the words.” He licked her cheek. “I love you, Ember. Just wanted to say that. I never said it enough before, but I’m going to try to fix that from now on. Expect at least two ‘I love yous’ every day from now on. Possibly more.”
She buried her nose in his fur and breathed in his familiar scent. A weight lifted from her back, a weight she hadn’t even realized she’d been carrying. ‘He still loves me. He really does. Oh, wait, I haven’t told him yet.’ The weight came back. ‘I hope he doesn’t mind it much. Should I tell him now? Probably. Better to get all the bad stuff over with as soon as you can, Ember.’
She pulled back, throat tightening. Her stomach churned. “So, there are some things I, er, really need to tell you. Things that could change . . . the way you see me. First off, I killed Tainu. I don’t know if either of you knew already, but I did it, and I didn’t mean to. It was an accident, but I killed her, and I’m really, really sorry.”
“We already knew,” Cloud said. “Death is a part of war, Ember. Sometimes it can’t be avoided. No one’s going to hold it to you. Not even Fern. And if she does, she’s a fluffhead. Tainu deserved it. Now come on, let’s go show everyone you’re back. Wait until Song and Kivy see you.”
Her heart beat faster at the mention of their names. She shook herself off, trying to calm it. ‘Okay, that’s one thing down. Wait, did he just say she deserved it? But she didn’t. She wanted me to leave and I didn’t. She said she didn’t want to do it. Someone made her do it. Come on, Ember, stop putting it off. You’ve gotta tell them everything. No keeping secrets. At least none of your own.’
“No, wait, I’m not done. Hyrees, this will affect you more than Dad, but, I, well, I can’t have kittens anymore. The humans, they did something to me, and I can’t have them. If you don’t want to be with me anymore, I understand. I know you wanted a family, and I know how important it is for, you know, being a good colony cat, and now that I can’t give one to you—”
“Wait, hold on, how do you know this? What exactly did they do?” Hyrees asked.
“They, uh, cut stuff out, I think? I know they did it because they told me. I wouldn’t believe it, either, but some of them could actually understand me, and even talk to me. They learned our language. They actually learned Felid. And I’ve learned a tiny bit of their language too, but, uhm . . .”
Hyrees and Cloud exchanged a glance.
‘Do they believe me? Tahg, I wish Kivy was here. She would know.’
“If that really is the case, it’s . . . it’s fine. I don’t really want to raise a family in the middle of a war, anyway,” Hyrees said.
Yellow flashed through her head. “War? So there really is going to be a war? Did Jade really make Tainu kill Commander Aspen?”
Hyrees glanced at Cloud, then at Ember again. “Oh, right, you weren’t there,” he said. “She never admitted to it, but from what I heard about the way she acted, she almost definitely did. But get this—she’s one who declared war on us. Apparently they said we attacked them, so it’s cause enough for more fighting.”
Ember bit down on her tongue. ‘So this really is just the beginning. Guess I made it back too late after all.’
“So do you have any other, er, surprises to spring on us, or can we head back to the Glade now?” Cloud asked.
‘Should I tell them about the whole “I don’t think like you” thing? They might not understand. Then again, they might, and—Wait a moment, Hyrees is patrolling with Dad. Why did I not think this is weird before now? If he’s patrolling with Dad, where is Wren?’
She shivered as a picture of the line of stones flashed through her mind. After noticing her own, she hadn’t given herself much time to examine the others. She cursed herself under her breath for not even trying to decipher the smudged clawmarks.
Her tail twitched with anxiety. “Hyrees . . . your dad?”
They exchanged a second glance. This one lasted longer and involved a lot of tail twitching and ear flicks. Kivyress would call it a ‘body conversation.’ Ember again found herself wishing her sister would conveniently materialize from the mist to translate.
Hyrees nodded once, then Cloud stepped closer. “He’s . . . he’s gone, Ember,” Cloud said.
A shiver trickled down her spine. ‘Wait, Wren? Not him. He’s dead? Oh. Oh tahg.’
She tried to imagine Wren’s kind, quiet voice, with its mellow accent and lilting rhythm, or even just his soft, jolly laugh, but found she couldn’t get either of them right—at least not as vividly as she could with Hyrees or Kivyress. Even the imaginary version of him was disappearing. Fog filled her head. She tried to force out tears to show them she cared, but a cold, sinking numbness was all she could muster.
“I’m really sorry, Hyrees,” Ember said. She licked his cheek in an attempt to remedy her lack of external emotion. His tears seemed effortless, and they left a salty bitterness on her tongue. “I don’t know . . . what else to say. I should probably be crying right now, but I’m not for some reason. I promise I really do feel sorry. And sad.”
“Tha
nks, Em,” he whispered. “But you don’t have to be upset. I want to see you happy right now. It makes me forget about my sad, miserable existence.”
Cloud sighed and shook his head. “In addition to Aspen and Wren, three good cats died that night. Five fell in total. Six if we were to count you. The East only lost two. We’ve only fought one battle so far and we’re already losing the war.”
“That’s how war usually is, isn’t it?” Ember asked. “Everyone loses? So who else didn’t, er, make it?”
He sighed again, then listed three names; three cats who’d probably known her better than she’d known them when they were alive. She couldn’t help but feel a tiny burst of relief. It wasn’t that they deserved to die. From what she knew, they were good cats with families who would mourn them. Yet since she didn’t know them personally, their names being among the deceased meant the cats she did know personally weren’t yet ashes scattered on the ground. Or at least most of them weren’t.
‘It’s selfish, isn’t it? Not being sad? I don’t know. Maybe not. But I can’t force myself to feel something, so it must not be. Isn’t selfishness just not being considerate of other living things? If that’s true, this doesn’t count. Whatever it is, it should only be something someone has control over, and shouldn’t have anything to do with emotions. Things like decisions. Decisions can be selfish, but emotions are just emotions. And colors. Though selfish decisions can come from emotions. Hum. So where does that place me?’
Cloud
She was doing it again: freezing up. He hated it when she did that. It was impossible to tell what was running through her head, if he had caused it or not, and, more importantly, how to make her stop.
“Ember? Ember, are you okay?” Cloud asked. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you. You wanted to know, didn’t you?”
He tried to focus on her familiar yet emotionless face, rather than the artificial legs he could only assume the humans had given her. They’d taken her away and had apparently decided to give her back, but only after turning her into something most cats would consider a monster. It’s what they did, after all; they ruined lives and played with forces no one in their right mind would go near. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he wondered if the humans intended to use her to find the rest of the colony. It seemed like something they would do. He tried to shake the thought away before it could fully form. She was home, and that was all that mattered.
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