“Cloud,” Songbird whispered.
Ember shivered with sorrow and rage. Misty orange and fang yellow swirled through her head, defying the ever-encroaching grey. ‘They’re dead, and it’s all Bracken’s fault.’
Chapter 33
Ember
A gentle, steadfast breeze blew through Dark’s Valley, adding to the chill of nighttime. Branches rustled and clicked together, reminding Ember where she was. She was in the old maple: her favorite tree in the entire forest. It was her maple, their maple. Cloud had always sat in the little crook in its roots. He’d waited so patiently as she’d daydreamed and breathed in the gale every morning.
She sighed. A day had come and gone since he’d left, but it hurt all the same. Her cheeks were wet again, yet she couldn’t bring herself to cry anymore; not now, when everything was calm and quiet—and over. It was over, all over. The fighting was done, at least for a while. The East and the West as she’d known them were gone. Cats were dead, wounded, or missing, and no one knew what to do about it. No one even knew what to do about the ones who weren’t. There was no commander, and with the Rift taken, very little hope. She’d overheard a few cats suggesting Jade might take up the mantel again, but after everything that had happened, the once great leader’s self-confidence had plummeted. With all the contempt and cynicism surrounding the position, no one else seemed eager to take it.
Ember lowered herself to rest on the branch. She yawned, then gazed out across the Lowlands. It looked both smaller and less inviting than when she’d last viewed it from her perch. Dark blue joined the faded orange in her subconscious. The colors were there, bright as ever, but inside she felt nothing. A dull ache traced the scabbed cuts across her face and along her neck and chest, yet in her heart, the only feeling was an empty, hollow fogginess which her thoughts usually associated with grey.
After the fight, Songbird had taken her to the Glade to get her wounds cleaned and let Kivyress know what had happened. It was the worst possible way to reunite with her sister, but at least Kivyress was still alive. Afterward, they’d spent most of the day helping treat the injured, and recovering what bodies they could. There were too many for individual fires, so two closely-monitored bonfires at each of the battle sites served to clean the areas of the deceased. Then a long and tearful memorial ceremony had been held to honor the fallen.
Ember hadn’t said anything during the ceremony. She’d been too shaken and exhausted from the day’s events. Most cats still considered her a traitor anyway, so she’d decided keeping a low profile would be better for everyone. Songbird had given a short-but-sweet speech for Cloud, then retreated to the old family den with Kivyress to mourn in private. Ember had fallen asleep in the History Tree, for lack of a better home. It had been cold without Hyrees.
The following morning, a few brave Easterners had left to see what had become of their homeland and the family members they hoped were still in it. Yet most of them were still too exhausted, both physically and emotionally, to make the trip back, so they remained in the West, defeated.
No one had given her any instructions after they’d left, so she’d spent the day wandering the territory. She’d gone to all of her favorite places, but nowhere in the entire forest did she feel more close to her father than in her maple. So she sat there and watched the stars.
Ember swallowed hard and closed her eyes. ‘I’m at home. I’m in my tree because I wanted to escape the winter meeting, which was going perfectly last time I checked. Dad will come get me soon to take me to the feast. After that, Hyrees and I will sit in the History Tree and try to count stars. Maybe ask T—No, Thai doesn’t exist.’
[That is technically true. I don’t have a physical form, after all.]
‘You’re not making this any easier. Please be quiet.’ She licked her lips, and shuddered as the wind picked up. ‘Where was I? Oh, stars, right. We’ll watch the stars and wonder what they’re made of, then curl up in each other’s paws and go to sleep. Tomorrow Tainu will give me hunting lessons, and Whitehaze can give me clawmarking tips so I can pass my next test. I can do it. I know I can. And after I do, things will get better. I’ll prove to them that Dark was—No, Dark was someone great whom I still look up to. He wouldn’t want to kill me at all. No one wants me dead. Especially not Commander Aspen. And I’ve never killed anyone. Why would I ever do that? Oh, and Boreal has—wait, I don’t know a Boreal.’
She opened her eyes to look down at her paws. The heating wires inside them glowed faintly. Every move she made caused them to whine. Spots of blood appeared on her toes. She did a double-take, heart racing. The blood spots were gone. She exhaled slowly. ‘Calm down, Ember. It’s over now. But who am I trying to fool? I can’t even pretend everything is normal. That normal is gone, and I’m never getting it back. I don’t even know if I want all of it back. I want Dad back. I need him. We need him. Everyone needs him, but now he’s gone, and no one knows what to do. Now everything is broken, and we can’t fix it.’
Ember looked down, still half-expecting to see Cloud waiting for her. He wasn’t. No one was there. The crook in the roots was empty. She sat up and swiped at the tree with her paw. “Can’t at least Hyrees be okay?” she asked no one.
“Ember? Ember, where are you?”
Ember jumped. Her front paw slipped, and her chest slammed into the branch. The scratches crossing it stung, sending bright, painful blue into the back of her mind. She pushed herself up and coughed. “I’m up here,” she said weakly.
Songbird walked to the base of Ember’s maple. “Could you come down, please? They’re going to have a meeting to discuss who should become the next commander. They want everyone to be present.”
“I didn’t think anyone still cared about what I wanted. Especially now that both colonies hate me,” Ember said.
She scaled down the tree to greet her mother.
Songbird pressed her forehead against Ember’s. “I care. I want you to have a say in this, because it doesn’t matter if they like it or not; this is your home. If anyone wants to take it away from you again, they’ll have to fight me.”
She leaned into her mother’s warm nuzzle. “Thanks, Mom,” she whispered.
Ember sniffed back tears as they walked, side by side, away from from the old patrol route. Frigid air filled her lungs and silence gave the forest a sense of rare tranquility. It was a peaceful night for having a stroll, the kind of night she usually loved, but after everything that had happened, she found herself unable to appreciate the stillness.
As they neared the Glade, voices grew louder. Cats yelled, but she couldn’t make out what they were saying. Like war. Cats were fighting. Her heart raced. She stopped. Her body refused to move another step, no matter how much she wanted it to go, and no matter how hard she breathed, her lungs felt empty. She closed her eyes and panted. ‘I can’t do this. I don’t know if I can do this.’
“Are you okay? Ember, talk to me. What’s wrong?” Songbird asked.
She shivered harder. “I don’t wanna talk about it. I don’t, I don’t wanna—” She dropped her stomach and covered her eyes. Even with them closed as tightly as she could close them, death, destruction, and blood flared in her imagination. Cloud tumbled off the cliff all over again. “No! Make it stop, Mom, please make it stop! Make the fighting stop. Don’t let them die. Don't let him die.”
“They’re not fighting, Ember, they’re . . .” Songbird sighed. She lay down against Ember’s flank, wrapped her tail around her haunches, and rested her chin on top of her neck. It offered some warmth against the cold but did nothing to stop the pictures in her head.
“Help me,” Ember whispered.
“I’m trying my best,” Songbird replied.
They rested outside the Glade, not saying anything as Ember fought with her own imagination. Then Songbird started to hum. It transitioned into singing: gentle, sweet singing that made something inside of her know things would get better.
“Sleep, little one. The fear has gone. The fear has
gone. The fear has gone. Sleep, little one—for goodness, it has won. You’ll be safe with me right here tonight.”
The shivering slowed. The flashbacks stopped. Ember forced herself to be still. She nuzzled Songbird’s neck. “Thanks, Mom.”
Songbird leaned back to look at her. She sniffled and wiped the tears from her eyes. “Last time I sang that to you was the night he saved your life. You were so small then. Barely more than a mooncycle old.”
They sat up together. Ember pressed herself more firmly against her mother’s fur. Pressure; she needed pressure. Songbird wrapped a paw around her shoulder. The silence came back. Wind howled; branches creaked; an owl hooted in the distance.
The pressure stopped. Songbird stood and sniffed the air. She turned to face Ember. “Do you think you can come into the Glade now?”
The expression on her face was as unreadable as ever, but this time it was a different kind of unreadable: one that didn’t seem right, but not in a bad way. It was hiding some kind of emotion that didn’t line up with anything done or said previously. Indigo flickered through her thoughts. She sniffed the breeze. New scents filled her nose—scents she hadn’t smelled in what felt like an eternity. For the first time in almost two days, Ember smiled. She sprung to her feet and charged into the Glade.
Her eyes searched the mess of cats for the sources of the scents. They found one of them; no, two of them. Her heart leaped. “Boreal! Shard!”
Boreal looked up and caught her gaze. Ember diverted her eyes automatically but kept going. Boreal ran to meet her. They pressed their heads against each other’s shoulders.
“You made it,” Boreal said. “At least someone’s alive.”
“I thought you’d all been killed,” Ember replied. She stepped back, crying tears of joy. “Hyrees?”
“He’s in your cave of healing. Woke up not long after everyone left. He’s made it this far. I think he’ll make it the rest of the way.”
She sighed with relief and peered around Boreal’s side. Shard sat with Jade, crying against her neck. A stab of sorrow hit her chest. Echo was gone. He would never see his sister and best friend ever again. She was nothing but ashes now, an echo of memories and time they would never get to spend together. It seemed everyone had lost someone close to them.
‘But that’s life, isn’t it?’ she thought. ‘You gain, then you lose, and it keeps happening over and over again until you lose yourself.’ She shook her head. ‘Don’t think about that.’ “Boreal? Hey, I-I’m sorry about your dad.”
“He was a traitor. And a terrible father. He had it coming. Besides, I already thought he was dead. In some ways it’s easier knowing he deserved it. Oh, and I’m sorry about your father. He spared my life, you know. Back during that first fight. He didn’t deserve this.”
“No. No, he didn’t,” Ember spat. Her words came out more bitterly than she intended, but she didn’t bother trying to take it back. She started to shiver again. ‘No, you have to stop this, Ember. Don’t think about it. Don’t think about any of it.’ “S-s-so what happened at the Rift?”
“Strange cats came and told us everyone who’d left for the West was gone and none of them were coming back for us.” Boreal sat down and pawed at a patch of dirt.
Ember stared at her moving paw, trying to shift her focus onto anything but the battle. “They smooth-talked themselves into the colony and started running the place,” Boreal continued. “They said anyone who didn’t agree with them taking over could leave. A few tried to fight. They were killed. Most stayed out of fear, though I think a few actually agreed with them. The rest of us left. We didn’t know what we’d be walking into when we reached the West, but we decided we’d be better off taking the risk. Oddly enough, they gave us one of their carrying things filled with food to take with us. Other than killing the ones who tried to fight against them and manipulating themselves into power, they . . . weren’t terrible to us.”
“N-not terrible? That’s an interesting statement,” Ember said. A faint growl edged into her voice as purple appeared in her mind. She backed away. “I-I should probably go . . . see Hyrees.”
“Good luck with that,” Boreal mewed.
Ember did her best to dodge talking cats and loud noises as she made her way to the healing den. She stepped inside. And there he was. Fern was putting rocks around one of his paws. His chin rested on his other paw. Her heartbeat quickened. “Hyrees?”
“Ember?” He lifted his head and moved to stand.
Fern placed a paw against his back. “Sit still,” she said. “If you want that paw to get better, you’ll need to first stop making it get worse.”
He settled back down. “Sorry. Hey, Ember. I’m . . . glad you’re not dead.”
‘Oh. That’s all? Okay. I guess things really are going to be different now.’ Her face burned. Swarms of colors filled her head as emotions muddled together. “I’m glad you woke up. And survived the Lowlands again. S-so what happened to your paw?”
“I got caught under a root and broke it. Or at least I think it was a root. But I’ll be fine, I guess.” He sighed. “Fern, could we . . . maybe get some privacy?”
“Oh? Er, yes, of course. Just let me finish up, then I’ll get out of your way.” She pushed the last stone against his paw, then left the den.
Hyrees stared blankly at the ground. “So.”
“So,” Ember repeated. She sat down. ‘Why is this so awkward? It’s not usually this hard to talk to him. Is it going to be like this from now on? I don’t want it to be.’
“Those sticks you gave me. Did you really mean all that?”
“Maybe,” she said, a little too quickly.
“Maybe?”
She rubbed her paw. “Yes. Yes, I meant it. We’ve been hurting each other, and I don’t want to do that anymore.”
He turned his head to stare at the wall. “Yeah. I guess we have. And I’m sorry, Ember, I really am, but is it true you never wanted to be mates with me? Because I have a hard time believing that. I mean, everything we went through before this mess—it seemed right. I really thought we were meant for each other.”
“It seemed right because you’ve always been my best friend. I really do care about you, and I really do love you, but it’s only ever been as a friend.” She flattened her ears and closed her eyes. “I really thought becoming mates with you would change how I felt, and maybe help us both not be so looked down on by the colony. I thought it would make everyone happy. But nothing changed, except things got worse between us. I don’t want that.”
“Oh,” he said. “Okay. So what are we now?”
She bent over to examine the dirt floor of the den. “Still friends, I hope?”
His mouth twitched into something she guessed was a smile, but as soon as it appeared, it was gone. A tear dripped onto his cheek. “We’ll try for that then. I still love you, you know. Even if I find someone else, I’m worried it’ll be hard to stop.”
“We don’t have to stop loving each other. It’ll just be a different kind of love. The kind where we can go our separate ways when we have to. We don’t have to hold each other back to be happy anymore. Or, well, I’m not sure that was the best way to put it, but you get the idea. I guess.”
“I guess so.”
She stood up, tail twitching. “But, uhm, I am sorry. For-for everything I’ve put you through.”
“You saved my life, Em. You kept me going when I wanted to stop more than anything else.”
“So you forgive me?”
He looked in her general direction. “Do you forgive me?”
“Yes, but why is this conditional?”
“I don’t know. It felt like the right thing to say, okay?” He sighed. “Which means I probably shouldn’t have said it. Sorry. Yeah, I forgive you. I’m glad we had this talk. It’ll help me move forward with whatever life I have left. Hopefully I can make myself a decent one.”
“Yeah,” Ember said. Her face still felt warm.
Songbird peered into the den. “Ember,
sorry to cut in, but we’re about to have the meeting. Are you coming?”
“Yes, ma’am,” she replied. “Sorry, Hyrees. I have to go now. Take care, okay?”
“You too.”
Songbird nodded a polite greeting to Hyrees, which he didn’t seem to notice, then Ember followed her out of the den feeling confused and more than a little queasy. Yet it was worth it—seeing him alive and letting the truth come out had made it worth it.
‘Now things can get better the right way. At least when it comes to us. I don’t know about the colony itself, or just me by myself, but at least that’s settled. Better than nothing at all.’
Songbird nudged her toward the gathering of cats. Ember let herself be ushered closer to the noise, even though it made her heart race and her body shake.
Kivyress limped beside them. She’d gotten good at moving on three legs. “So is it true you aren’t going to be together anymore? Not even now?” she asked.
“Yeah. It’s for the better,” Ember replied.
“Will he be okay?”
“For the first time this mooncycle, I think so.”
They sat down at the edge of the group. Jade sat on the commander’s den, but unlike all the times she’d made announcements before, she looked as broken and uncertain as everyone else. She inhaled slowly, then began, “The colonies have called for this meeting, and as former commander of the East, I was chosen to conduct it. But I have failed my colony. I am no longer deserving of the trust my kin once placed in me, which is why the time has come for a new leader to be chosen. No one suggest yourself. I want you all to think about the cats you know. Who is most fit to take up this task?”
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