“No. We’re doing this together,” Songbird said between jumps.
“Song, I’d rather die knowing you and Kivy got out than die a complete failure.”
“And I’d rather you not die at all.”
“Get them! Go on. S-s-stop them!” Lupine called.
Movement behind the trees caught his peripheral vision. Something slammed into his side. Cloud toppled over. The snow broke his fall, but the blow itself knocked the air from his chest. His ears rung. The whole world seemed to move in slow motion; even the adrenaline charging up his bloodstream.
“No!” Songbird screeched. “Let go of me! Stop! No! Don’t touch her!”
He looked up. A large agouti tomcat stood over him, glaring with disapproval.
“You leave him alone!” Kivyress snarled. She pounced onto the tom, releasing Cloud, who leaped to his paws.
The tom scruffed Kivyress and pushed her against the snow. Cloud pinned back his ears and looked around. Eight cats surrounded them only a leap away from the border, only a leap away from freedom.
‘No. This can’t, no, this cannot be happening. How could this have failed? I failed. It’s over. It’s done. We can’t fight our way out of this, can we?’
His gaze fell on Songbird—terrified, now helpless, Songbird. Two cats kept her pinned, and the more she struggled against them, the farther she sank into the snow.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I should have listened to you.”
“Cloud, you made a-a promise,” Lupine said. “You’re going to keep it.”
“Fine. But let them go. You only need me, right?” Cloud replied.
“I-I’m no mastermind, Cloud, but even I can see how that would go. No, your family has to stay too. Come on, let’s get the rebels back to the Glade.”
The two cats holding Songbird let her go, but Kivyress remained trapped.
Songbird charged at the cat holding her daughter. “Let her go!”
A light sable molly jumped between them. “He won’t hurt her, Songbird. It’s just to keep you three from trying to escape again. I’m sorry it has to be this way, but it’s what has to be done. For the good of the colony. You know we can’t afford deserters right now.”
Songbird curled back her lips, revealing her fangs but not acting on the threat. She growled. “He’d better not hurt her.”
Two other cats helped the tom carry Kivyress, now exhausted and defeated, back up the mountainside. Cloud walked in a daze. Everything felt shimmery, like a dream—no, a nightmare.
‘I failed. I failed them again.’ His slow, shaky breaths came out in puffs of steam. They swirled around through the air before realizing what a terrible place they were in and scattering. ‘That was our last chance. He’ll make sure it was. I won’t even be able to tell her why we didn’t come. Fox it! I’ll never even see her again. Farlight is gone. Ember and Hyrees are gone. They’re gone, and they won’t come back. Why is this happening? Why can’t I do anything right? Why can’t I protect them? Because you’re a failure, Cloud. A big, incompetent, stupid, fluffhead of a failure, and you’ve broken all of your promises.’
A shiver rippled up his spine as his thoughts turned back to Ember, the kitten he loved so much that he’d risked his entire career and reputation twice to keep her alive. The kitten everyone thought—everyone knew—should have died. His heart sank in his chest.
‘How different would things be right now if I had just killed that kitten back when Aspen first suggested it? It would’ve been an act of mercy, and I didn’t even consider it. Now she’s going to starve to death, and Hyrees is going to go down with her. Cats are dead and dying because of my incompetence, and now we’re stuck here. If they hadn’t expected us trying to escape, we would have escaped. I could have stopped it. I could have changed all of this if I hadn’t been so soft. I even got a second chance and didn’t take it. I . . .’
His eyes moistened. He blinked back the tears before they could fully form. ‘Enough. What’s done is done. There’s no turning back now. I can’t protect them here, but we’ll just have to take whatever comes our way. It’s one day at a time from now on.’
When they entered the Glade, the cats carrying Kivyress didn’t let go. Instead, they dragged her onto the meeting rocks beneath the History Tree and set her down, but they didn’t release her scruff.
“Uh, Mom? Dad? What’s going on?” Kivyress asked. “W-why isn’t he letting go? Let go of me. Please!”
Cloud’s throat tightened. “What are you doing? We’re here. We can’t leave. There’s no reason to hold onto her. Let her go.”
“Everyone i-in the Glade, get out of your dens,” Lupine called.
Cloud’s heart thumped against his chest. His jaw dropped open. ‘Oh no.’
“Lupine, no,” Songbird said. Her eyes were wide, and her pupils were so dilated both eyes looked black. “No, whatever you’re doing, stop. Don’t hurt her. It was us. It was all us. Hurt us, hurt me, but don’t touch her. Please. Please, let her go!”
Cloud growled. “If anyone hurts her, I swear I’m going to kill you. This was my idea. If anyone should be punished, it’s me. Leave my daughter out of this.”
Kivyress flattened her ears and tucked her tail. “Momma, w-what’s happening? Don’t let them hurt me. Don’t let them hurt me!”
Lupine sucked in a deep breath as cats gathered around them. “A-as some of you may already know, Cloud and his family tried to abandon us this morning—and now, at the time we need him the most. W-we are the Western Colony. We have to stay together if we want to survive these trying times, so there will be no tolerance for deserters. It pains me to-to do this, but there must be consequences for this k-kind of crime. If, for nothing else, than to p-prevent things like this from happening again.”
He sighed, then nodded once to the cat standing beside him. “Do it.”
Songbird lunged forward. “No! No! You will not lay a claw or fang on my daughter! And I will personally—”
The molly tackled her. “You brought this on her. There’s no point in fighting,” she growled.
But Songbird fought anyway. While everyone was distracted, Cloud charged at the cat holding Kivyress. The tom lifted his claws to her neck, threatening to pierce her carotid artery. Kivyress tucked her tail even harder and looked up at him, trembling with terror. Cloud slid to a stop. “Don’t do this,” he growled. “Not to her. This is a mistake, Lupine.”
“I agree. T-take him away, but make him watch,” Lupine said.
His voice was quiet, subdued and regretful, but it didn’t change the impact of his orders. They came to push him away. He bit, scratched and fought as hard as he could, not caring how injured he got in the process. Claws and fangs pierced his sides, but every wound gave fuel to his fire.
“Mommy! Daddy! Please help me! Help!” Kivyress shouted over the yowls and snarls. “Stop! Stop attacking everyone. No! No, don’t let them hurt me, Daddy! They want to hurt me. They want to—No-no-no!”
“Don’t touch her!” Songbird screamed. “Let go of me!”
The cats pinned Cloud to the ground. One of them sank her teeth into his scruff. He clenched his jaw and ignored the pain. The cat holding Kivyress forced her to stand up, exposing her hind legs to the cat behind her. A single well-placed bite, and she would be lame for the rest of her life, trapping her in the Glade, and them all in the Western Colony.
Songbird let out a howl of pain, then fell silent.
“Mom! No!” Kivyress mewed.
With one last burst of adrenaline, Cloud tore free from his captors. He ran at the cat threatening his daughter. Someone caught his ankle. Pain flared in his hind paw. He fell hard on his chest. The air left his lungs with a painful huff. His paw burned as another cat’s saliva and his own steaming blood rolled down it. He kicked, but before his paw even reached its target, they pinned him in place once again.
“No!” he yowled.
“Daddyyyy!” she shrieked.
The surreal feeling of detached dreaminess cam
e back as the cat sank his fangs into Kivyress’s lower leg. With a sickening, muffled snap, the tendon broke. A moment before Kivyress screamed, his hearing cut out. The painful ring came back, drowning out noises he knew would be even more painful. He watched the agony on his daughter’s face, helpless to do anything about it, and too frozen to look away or close his eyes.
“No,” he whispered.
The cats got off of him. He ran toward Kivyress, but stopped short. “Songbird?”
Songbird lay motionless in the snow. He turned around and ran to her side. “Song! Song, are you okay? Please be okay. Come on.”
She opened her eyes and spoke. He couldn’t make out what she said, but a small amount of the tension in his chest loosened just knowing she was alive. She staggered to her paws, then stumbled past him.
‘Oh. Kivyress.’
The tension came back. He hesitated, torn between helping Songbird and getting to his daughter as fast as he could. Songbird’s mouth moved. The ringing drowned out her words. She gave up and shoved him forward.
‘I’m going,’ he thought. His stomach churned as he remembered the sound her leg had made. He tried to shake the noise away, but it refused to leave his head.
When he reached her side, she was curled up on the ground, crying. She kept her front paws wrapped around her ruined leg. Cloud darted around her, trying, frantically, to figure what he needed to do.
“Kivyress. Kivy, I’m so sorry I let this happen. I should have listened. This is all my fault.”
She closed her eyes and gritted her teeth together. Part of him hoped she would get up, shake it off, and be okay. The logical side of him, however, knew even the colony itself would never be the same after this. Lupine hadn’t only trapped them when he ordered Kivyress mutilated, he’d trapped the entire West. Trying to escape now meant risking the well-being of loved ones.
Whatever was stuffing up his ears vanished with a click. Noise came at him from everywhere. Cats murmured. Wind howled. His own heartbeat pounded in his head. Kivyress cried out in pain and purred between breaths. As hard as he tried, he couldn’t tune any of it out. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he wondered if it was what Ember experienced on a daily basis.
Songbird dragged herself to them, then collapsed by Kivyress’s side. Instead of speaking, she placed a paw against Kivyress’s shoulder, purred and groomed her neck. A large gash on her head made the side of her face slick with blood. Cloud glanced back at his own injuries. Bone showed in the wound on his paw, and the back of his neck stung.
With Songbird’s closeness, he once again shut out the background noise and regained focus. “Fern,” he said. “Where’s Fern? We need a healer out here, and we need one now.”
Fern pushed her way through the crowd. Silentstream followed. They examined their wounds, expressions getting tighter with each one.
“You all need to come to the den,” Fern said. “I can’t treat any of these out here. Can someone help me carry Kivyress? Silentstream, Songbird may need some help too.”
The cat who had scruffed Kivyress bent over to pick her up.
Songbird jumped up. “Get away from her!”
She raked her claws across his face, slicing his eye in the process. He howled in pain and staggered backward as his blood dripped into the snow. The meeting rocks looked like a battle ground: flecks and splotches of red showcasing every wound and scuffle.
“I’m gonna hurt you for that,” the cat growled.
Songbird put herself into a fighting stance. “You helped hurt my daughter. I should kill you for that.”
“Stop! Everyone stop fighting. Get the w-wounded to the healer’s den, now,” Lupine said.
Cloud placed a paw on top of hers and rested his head against her side. “The fight is over, Song. We’ve lost.”
She looked up at him. Her expression changed from that of a fearless warrior to a helpless prisoner. Tears formed in her eyes, but she tried her best to hide them.
Silentstream approached them, for once not chiding or even opening her mouth. She remained true to her namesake and let Songbird lean on her as she walked.
Cats came and lifted Kivyress to take her to the den. Cloud and Songbird followed behind them, keeping their heads up and fighting with their tears. They wouldn’t be ashamed of their attempt to leave this place of war, death, and shattered dreams. Cloud grimaced in defiance. They had failed, yes, but they’d also succeeded in one small way: the air had changed, and the West was given a wake-up call. The scent mixture of fear, anger and disgust filled the colony. They’d had enough, and Cloud decided he could use that.
———
“That wasn’t very nice of you, you know,” Rowan said. “You didn’t have to trick me or leave me alone on the border like that. You could’ve just taken me with you, or told me what was actually happening. I wouldn’t have told. In fact, I might’ve even been able to help. I could’ve distracted them while you and your family escaped, but you don’t trust me, so you lied and left me to patrol alone. Do you have any idea how terrifying it was? Are you even listening to me?”
The sunset cast the world around them into a bluish shadow. The moon loomed behind them, low in the Eastern sky.
Cloud sighed. “Yes. I’m listening.”
Yet his thoughts wandered back his injured daughter. Fern and the other healers had done the best they could; they’d given Kivyress herbs to help her sleep and cleaned everyone’s wounds. Despite Cloud’s mauled paw, Lupine had insisted he finish his patrol with Rowan.
Rowan lowered his ears. “Well, aren’t you going to say sorry? I could’ve died.”
“I’m sorry,” he replied. “There. Are you happy?”
“No. There’s nothing to be happy about right now. My new mentor is a lying rebel, Commander Lupine just ordered a kitten to be permanently disabled, and my parents are still angry at me for no reason other than that I’m apparently a disappointment.”
“But we are still alive,” Cloud said, “which is significantly more useful than being dead. We may not be able to escape, but I can still bring about some kind of change.”
Rowan huffed. “Maybe. I don’t wanna talk anymore.”
‘You don’t want to talk now, huh? Oh, never mind what I want.’
A branch snapped as they neared the log. Something scampered through the snow. Cloud stopped. “Who’s there? Show yourself.”
A black and white face popped out from behind a tree. “It’s about time you showed up. I was beginning to get bored. Bit late for a patrol, ain’t it?”
“You!” Cloud snarled. He lunged at the rogue. “Oh, I’m glad you showed up. I need someone to kill right about now.”
His paws slammed against Eclan’s side. He pinned him into the snow.
“Wait!” Eclan yowled. “You don’t wanna kill me just yet. Your daughter sent me.”
He hesitated. ‘Ember? Working with a rogue—this rogue—already? That doesn’t seem likely.’
“Sure she did. And Jade sent me.”
Eclan’s eyes narrowed. “No, really. She sent me to get you and the rest of her family and bring you to her, but I’m guessing with your recent developments that’s not gonna be happening. Was there anything you wanted to tell her, since you’re now trapped and can’t get to her yourself? I ain’t doing this again, so make it count. Oh, and she’s safe by the way. Her and that scrawny little tom she likes so much. Hyrees, I think it was. But they’re both being taken care of by an old outsider named Bracken and are doing just fine.”
He got off of Eclan’s side. ‘Bracken? Sounds familiar. I’ve heard that name before, haven’t I? Didn’t Wren mentioned him once? Said he helped him out of a scrap in the Lowlands or something? I don’t know, but if they really are being taken care of, I guess that’s all that matters.’ Some of the achiness in his chest subsided. ‘She’s got someone looking after her. She’s not going to starve. She doesn’t have to patrol borders or fight this war anymore.’
All at once he regretted thinking, even for
a moment, that he should have killed her. Her and Hyrees had been sent not to their deaths but to their lives. They had the freedom he could only dream of, and they already had someone looking after them.
Eclan got to his paws. He shook the snow from his pelt and sniffed. “So, you got anything to say, or am I wasting my time?”
“Who are you? Do you know each other?” Rowan asked.
Eclan grimaced. “Wasn’t talking to you, kitten.”
Rowan flattened his ears and shrunk back. The muffled rushing of water grew louder in the absence of voices. Wind howled between the trees, and a few scattered birds chirped.
“Nothing, huh? Oh well. Guess I am wasting my time,” Eclan said.
“No, wait,” Cloud said. “Tell her to remember what I told her. Tell her I said not to worry about us. We’re alive, but we won’t be joining her. At least not for a while. And let her know I hope she finds her place out there. And that I love her. Don’t forget that last one.”
Eclan smirked. “I don’t forget things, Cloud.”
He pranced over to the log and began the hike across. Cloud padded to the edge of the ravine. “Hey, thanks. Never thought I’d say that to you.”
“Never thought I’d hear you say it,” Eclan replied.
He climbed up the other side of the ravine and vanished in the growing darkness. Cloud watched the forest for a few moments, then went back to walking, Rowan at his side.
‘Well, I guess that’s that.’
Chapter 25
Ember
“You caught it, Ember. Now enjoy it, my friend,” Bracken said.
Ember stared blankly at the scrawny squirrel in front of her. With Bracken’s ever-patient guidance, she’d managed to catch and kill it but couldn’t bring herself to eat it. Her appetite was gone.
On their first hunting trip after the blizzard, Bracken himself had caught a rabbit. With her poor hunting skills and Hyrees’s worsening eyesight, they both went to bed hungry. Bracken had allowed them each a single bite of his meal but no more. After eating the rest in front of them, he had given them a lecture on the importance of being a good hunter. It had reminded her of Tainu, and it had also made her further realize she no longer had the luxury of trying to avoid hunting. Without the West to provide for her, her only options were now kill or die. Even with half of her gone, and her fake paws stained with the blood of her kin, she didn’t want to die quite yet.
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