“So you’re with them again, are you?” he snarled.
His voice, she recognized it—a fellow border guard of the East. His mate had been the one to tell Jade not to go. He had kittens. She’d seen them with him. He became Tainu in her jaws, then Whitehaze. ‘No, no, no!’ she thought. ‘I can’t do this. No more killing. Please.’
She released him and jumped up. “Sor—NO!”
Before he could even stand, Cloud sank his fangs into the cat’s throat. Without thinking, Ember shoved her father away. “Let go of him!”
Cloud released the tom, who fell to the earth sputtering and gasping for air. “What are you doing? This is war, Ember. They are trying to kill us. If I hadn’t killed him, he would have killed me. You can’t fight for both sides.”
Ember dropped to the ground beside the cat, unable to look away as his eyes glazed over. ‘Why is this happening? I did this. No, Dad killed him. No. No, no, no, I . . .’ “He h-has a family,” she whispered. Tears dripped into her fur. “Now they’ll never see him again.”
“Ember, look out!”
Cloud tackled her to the ground. A tabby molly flew over them. She landed and spun to face them. Cloud pounced on her.
Ember got up and looked around. Lupine had Jade pinned against a boulder. Songbird wrestled with a tom twice her size. Echo had backed herself against some rocks and was fending off two Westerners at once. All around her, her two colonies were trying to—and succeeding at—killing each other. Cries of agony surrounded her, faint and distant, yet too loud all at once. Fighting, pain, and death—and all for what? She didn’t even know. It seemed no one knew. ‘This is wrong. Something about this is wrong. Everything is. Why is this happening? What is happening? What do I do? What do I do? What do I do?’
“Get him, Sis!” a new voice spat.
She whipped around in time to see a second silver tabby leaping toward her. She ducked, but a moment too late. The tom plowed into her. His paws hit her cheek and muzzle. Ember staggered backward. The impact made her face sting. Her nose burned. Blood dripped from her nostrils into her mouth, making her cough.
He lowered himself, readying for another attack. Ember feigned a dodge to the right. Someone screamed behind her.
“Minnow!” the tom shoved her aside and ran at Cloud, who had the molly by the leg.
Without thinking, she chased after him. She jabbed her claws into his haunches. He whipped around and swiped at her. Ember jerked away. His claws sliced the skin of her neck. She coughed again. Her heart skipped a beat. Halfway across the battlefield, Jade carried a now limp Lupine by the throat. She spat him out. He flopped over, lifeless. Lupine was dead. Just like Cloud wanted.
“W-w-why do we fight?” Ember asked no one.
No one replied. Ember bit the raw area of her tongue. Yet concentrated pain could only distract from so much. The aching wouldn’t stop. The shivering wouldn’t stop. The fighting wouldn’t stop. The screams, agony, and death wouldn’t stop. Her throat was dry. Bitter saliva dripped from her mouth. Blood rolled down her torn face and seeped from her broken nose. It spotted the dust with red. She wanted to run, to hide away and cry. But she didn’t. She couldn’t. She was frozen.
“No! You monster! Wildcat! You killed her!” the tomcat howled.
Ember zoned out again. The already muffled voices faded into more ringing and the sound of her own heartbeat. ‘Why am I here? Why am I? I don’t belong here. Why did I come? What now? What now? A chance—I gave them a chance. They . . . have a chance. Wait a moment!’ Something in the back of her head clicked.
“Ember! Backup!” Cloud called. His voice was barely audible over the loudness of her thoughts and the brightness of their colors. There were so many colors. “I need backup, now!”
She shook her thoughts away, re-entering the hellscape surrounding her. The angry tabby had Cloud on the ground. They wrestled, each trying to reach the other’s weak points.
‘Go, go, go!’ But her legs wouldn’t go. She couldn’t move. Songbird ran to him. She threw herself against the cat and they both tumbled to the ground. Songbird bit into his scruff.
“No! No! Don’t!” he screeched.
Ember sprinted over to them. “Please,” she begged. “We-we have to stop fighting!”
Cloud got up then shook himself off. He ran his claws across the tom’s eye. The cat yowled in pain. Ember pinned back her ears. Cloud spun around to face her. “I agree. Stay here, both of you. Keep each other safe and don’t die.”
“W-what are you doing?” Ember asked.
“Putting and end to this.” He charged into the chaos.
Songbird released the tom’s scruff. He stumbled backward. “Go, now, or someone will kill you,” she ordered. He obeyed, running into the forest. Songbird turned her attention to Ember. “What are you doing here? And oh, your fa—behind you!”
Ember whipped around. It took a moment for her eyes to lock onto the cat charging toward her. Her vision dimmed. Her legs gave out. They hissed as she dropped. The cat landed on top of her. More on instinct than by intention, Ember rolled onto her back and kicked as hard as her prosthetics would allow. The Easterner flew backward. Her head hit the ground. She got to her feet but walked with a stagger. Ember stood up slowly. “We have to stop this. Stop the fighting; something isn’t right!”
The molly lunged at her. Ember leaped back. Claws sliced the air a whisker away from her already stinging throat. The cat sank her teeth into Ember’s side. Ember squeaked and ripped herself free.
Blue flared in her mind alongside the pain in her ribs. Searing, stabbing, disorienting pain. She stumbled backward, prosthetics whining in protest. Her vision lost its focus again. Her spinning head threatened make her pass out. She shook herself off. The cat jumped at her again. She ducked under a clumsy swat. Before the cat could recover her balance, Ember shoved her, claws unsheathed. As she fell, she hooked them in and let the momentum drag them through her skin. The cat hit the ground and moaned with pain. A moment later, she righted himself. They circled each other.
“You’re naive if you think you can stop this, kitten,” the molly said. “Especially if you think you can do it while continuing to fight.”
“But this fight is illogical. I-i-it has to stop! This isn’t—oh! Oh! Oh no!” Her heart thudded in her ears. Cyan—too much cyan. Her vision faded again as she retreated into her mind. “We’ve all been tricked!”
Paws hit her side. She tumbled over and snapped back into reality in time for her attacker to pin her down.
The cat placed a paw against her throat, claws digging pinpricks into her skin. “Okay, I’ll admit I’m curious. How have we been tricked?”
‘Don’t kill me, don’t kill me, don’t kill me!’ Ember swallowed hard. She panted, hyperventilating. “N-n-neither of us a-attacked first. D-don’t you see? It doesn’t make sense.” She paused to gasp for breath. “If Lupine wanted to attack you, he-he would’ve sent more cats. The-the fight was uneven. And if Jade wanted to attack us, she would have p-p-p-placed the ambush s-somewhere else, a-a-and she would have told all of you about it. It-it has to have been a setup by someone else.”
The molly dug her claws into her neck. “Sorry, but I’ll need more proof than that to believe you. If it wasn’t Lupine, who caused all this?”
Ember coughed. Songbird broke free from the cat she was fighting with, bit down on the tail of the molly pinning Ember down, and pulled. The cat released Ember to swat at her. Ember got up and readied herself for whatever attack might come next.
“Jade!” Cloud’s voice rose above the din. It was distant and muffled, but there. “Call your cats off and I’ll call off mine. You’ve killed Lupine. You’ve got your revenge. If you agree to make peace now, as long as I’m commander of the West, you’ll never have to see a Western face in your territory again.”
The two Easterners and Songbird both stopped to look at Cloud. “You think it could have been him?” the Eastern molly asked. “Seems awfully ambitious to me.”
Em
ber felt dizzy. The world around her spun. ‘No. No, it can’t be him. Dad would never . . . But would he?’ She shook her head and closed her eyes. ‘Did your father tell you the truth, or is he a liar too?’ Jade’s question echoed through her head. ‘Oh tahg, what if she’s right?’
Jade glared at Cloud from across Lupine’s corpse. She made no moves toward him or anyone else but did not reply.
“Okay, let me put this in perspective,” Cloud said. “The longer we fight, the more cats will die. How many are you willing to lose for the sake of revenge? How much blood will fix what’s been done?”
Jade lowered her head. “It won’t. It won’t fix anything,” she said. “Everyone, fall back!”
“Western Colony, stop fighting!” Cloud shouted. “The war is over.”
No one seemed to hear. Jade and Cloud dashed across the battlefield, calling for a truce. “Stop fighting!” they cried out, over and over again until the last scream of agony and hatred faded.
The two Easterners Ember and Songbird had fought with ran to comfort injured or dying loved ones. Seven Easterners and five Westerners were dead. Several more lay waiting for death. Every survivor was injured and bleeding.
Ember shook herself off. Then collapsed. She covered her eyes with her forelegs and sobbed. Grey—it was all she could see, think, or feel.
“Ember? Ember, it’s all over,” Songbird whispered.
The ringing faded. Her peripheral vision came back. She got up and buried her face in her mother’s bloodied fur.
Songbird wrapped a paw over her shoulder and pulled her close. “Hush. Calm down. Everything’s going to get better now.”
“But it’s not,” Ember mewed. “I-it isn’t right. Nothing is right.”
“I know it’s hard, but—”
“No! N-n-nothing is right. It’s broken. It’s . . .” She opened her eyes. Color reclaimed her mind. Silver glistened brighter than it had ever shone before as her gaze zeroed in on a tanish-grey tabby approaching the edge of the battlefield. He stopped and stood in silence, looking around at the destruction. A leather pouch was strapped to his side, partially concealing the jagged scar tracing along his flank. “Bracken?”
“What?” Songbird asked.
Ember wriggled free from her mother’s embrace. “W-why is he here?”
Bracken looked over his shoulder and nodded. More cats appeared behind him: seven. Among them was an orange molly with sporadic patches of white and a sleek, furless muzzle. It was Vixen.
Ember swallowed hard. “Oh,” she whispered. ‘He doesn’t just know them. He’s their leader.’ Her eyes narrowed to slits. ‘And he’s led them here.’
Cloud
“Hey!” Cloud hissed. “Who are you, and why are you here?”
The tabby signaled for his group to stay, then walked closer to where he and Jade stood. “I am Bracken, leader of the Midbrook Colony. I was told Commander Aspen wanted to speak with me directly. I’d heard news of his passing, but thought I’d try coming anyway. I will admit I’m curious; what happened here? You’ve had a fight, and a big one by the looks of it. Why?”
“It’s of no importance to you,” Jade growled. “Leave. We don’t have time for your outsider foolishness.”
Bracken’s tail twitched. “Oh? Is that so? But am I the fool, or are you? I’ll let your cats judge between us. You see, I come with a proposal. Your colonies are all but ruined. Your way of life is flawed. It brought this on you. Come with me, join my kin, and I promise that, as long as there is life in my body, there will be no war in the valley. I am no commander, as you both seem so content to call yourselves, but I am a leader—a leader who will strive for justice. I can assure that you will all be treated kindly and with fairness, if you’ll leave behind the way that caused all this pain and death.”
‘What kind of game are you playing? Do you really think you’ll be able to come smooth-talk both colonies into following you? These cats are too smart to fall for that.’ Cloud thought. “Get out of here before I hurt you.”
Bracken shook his head. “A commander who will not even consider the desires of his colony. Whoever among you would like to start a new life, come with us. The Lowlands have more than enough food and water for all of you combined. It is a land of plenty: a place where all new ideas are considered, innovation is valued over tradition, and cats are free to come and go as they please.”
“Actually, he makes a point,” one Western tom said. “I’m sick of all this. I mean, Cloud and Dark’s laws were practically leading us before, and all this happened. Who’s to say it’ll get better now that Lupine is gone? It’d be easier to just start over.”
Cloud stiffened. “What? But that’s what I was planning on doing. I’m going to start over. I’ll rewrite every law to be right. Just give me a chance, and I’ll fix all of this.”
“But weren’t you the one who told the guards to kill on sight? Isn’t that what got us into this mess in the first place? My brother is dead now, because of you. So long as what’s left of my family comes with me, I just want to get out of here. At this point, we’d be safer in the Lowlands,” a young molly said.
“Aye,” an Easterner mewed, “an’ to add to that, Jade listened to a murderous exile, then led us into a fight she knew would be a slaughter, rather than waitin’, or even callin’ the whole bloody thing off, just to get revenge for the death ’a one cat. Now seven of my kindred are dead.”
Cloud’s heart raced. ‘No, this can’t be happening. What in the forest is going on? Are they really so fluffheaded as to trust this tom?’ He growled under his breath. “You can’t really be choosing this cat who, might I remind you, just so happened to show up moments after this particular battle. You don’t even know him, or his colony. None of us do. We have to consider what he’s after.”
“But we do know you, and I don’t know what you’re after, but I do know it isn’t right for me. I’d rather take my chances.”
“You can’t trust him. He’s an outsider,” Jade said.
“Maybe not, but after everything that’s happened, how’re we supposed to trust you? He said if we ever want to leave, we can leave. Did we ever have the option to choose to leave the East?”
Jade scoffed with indignation. “When have I ever once prevented someone from leaving?”
“Isn’t that what you’re trying to do right now?” one cat pointed out.
“We certainly didn’t have the option to leave the West,” another said.
“You! Bracken!” Ember shouted. Everyone turned to look at her. She shrunk back and shivered even harder. Her fur was mottled all over with cuts, and her face was a bloody mess. The kitten he’d helped raise from birth, the kitten he’d fought so hard to keep, was barely even recognizable. “Y-y-you did this,” she said. “Didn’t you? W-why would you do this? Killing innocent cats—h-how is that justice?”
Cloud’s eyes narrowed. ‘So this wasn’t my fault.’
Bracken walked closer to her blood-stained form. “Killing innocent c—” He stopped and chuckled. “Oh, you’re talking about Falcon, aren’t you? I didn’t kill him. No one killed him. I’m afraid the commander’s informant was mistaken.”
Cloud gritted his teeth. ‘Well, then.’
“Liar! You’re a liar,” Jade snapped.
“Oh, of course, you want proof. Well then. Falcon, perhaps you would do better explaining?”
Falcon stepped out from behind a boulder, grim-faced and very much alive. “Hello, Love. Sorry I went away. Did you miss me?”
Jade stumbled forward. “Falcon? I . . . don’t understand. Eclan said you’d been killed.”
“You believed him?” He asked. His ears and tail lowered. “Oh, Jade, don’t you know better than to trust the word of a rogue? Or in this case, a mercenary for hire. Cats like him will do anything for the right price. You know that.”
“Why didn’t you come back?” she asked. “Falcon, cats are dead because of you.”
“So now it’s my fault, is it? Yeah, I suppose, in a wa
y, it is, but I didn’t call for this. I mean, I’m flattered you think so highly of me, but don’t you think this was a touch overreacting?”
“You . . . abandoned me.”
“Sorry, Love. I guess you shouldn’t have trusted me. I’d have thought you would have known better, but you’re not my commander. My allegiance is with Bracken, and it always has been.” His gaze wandered around the battlefield, lingering on the dead and dying. “After all these years, I thought for sure you would’ve seen right through me, but it would seem your feelings got in the way, blinding you from the truth. It’s like I said, really: no molly should ever be commander. You’ve gotten cats killed, Love.”
Jade stepped back, eyes wide.
“But while it’s not okay,” he continued, “you can still come with us. We can start over, under a proper leader this time.”
“Which is exactly what I’m offering. A second chance for those who need second chances,” Bracken said. “Those who would like to join us may come. Those who wish to stay may stay. I will not force my leadership onto anyone.”
An Easterner stepped closer to him. “Hold on, you’ve been workin’ for him? What in the whole bloody forest goin’ on?”
Bracken opened his mouth to reply.
“You-you-you did this intentionally!” Ember said, cutting him off. “You had Falcon volunteer, and then . . . Oh tahg.” She staggered backward, as if someone had just hit her in the face. “You started this, all of this—the assassination, the ambush, F-Farlight; you had him killed! You had them all killed! For what? So you could come in and take over?”
“Tahg, she’s tellin’ the truth, isn’t she?” the Eastern cat asked.
Bracken stepped closer to Ember, eyes narrowed but calm. “I haven’t killed anyone. What happened to Commander Aspen and his former successor was not my fault. Everything I do, I do for justice and for good.” He looked around to address everyone still present. “Colony cats, your system is broken. All I’m trying to do is help you see the destructive truth of your own ways. I work and speak for all the cats your way of life has hurt. Now that it’s finally hurting you too, you’re hearing me out. Yet even now, when I’m offering you a way to stop this, you still aren’t listening to our voices, the voices of the cats you sentenced to die.”
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