‘Oh great. Now? We’re doing this now?’
She ducked her head low and speed-walked to the nearest tree, where she coughed out a lump of fur, along with part of her morning meal. Ember rubbed her tongue against the roof of her mouth in an attempt to get rid of some of the taste. After a few rubs, she gave up, buried the furball in leaves, then continued on her way.
Sunbeams and songbirds agitated her senses as she moved. Unnerving or not, she missed the darkness and silence of evening time; in the nothingness of dusk, she could breathe properly and release some of the tension in her everything.
As she neared the cliffs, the rocks got bigger: rocks of all shapes, covered with moss like huge, tiny-leafed bushes. It was the biggest collection of green still in the forest, even compared to the clusters of evergreens dotting the mountain. Here, every tree still seemed alive, blooming with mosses and blue lichens.
Her mind wandered back to Hyrees’s suicide attempt. She shook the thought away. To calm her nerves, she imagined winter as a giant white cat trying desperately to take over the cliffs. The trees and rocks fought him back with the power of moss. They won every battle until winter attacked with snow, its secret weapon. When that happened, the war came to a draw, and anyone who wandered onto the cliffs during the aftermath would be greeted by a brand new season: wummer.
‘Or sinter. But I like wummer better. Sinter sounds scary for some reason. Not sure why. Come on, Em, back to mentally preparing yourself. You can do this, Ember. There. Now I’m fully prepared for anything that could possibly happen today.’ She stopped and chewed on her tongue. ‘Not anything. I’m definitely not ready for kittens. And I don’t think I’m quite ready to die. Wait, does that mean I’m slightly more okay with dying than I am with becoming a mother? What in the forest is wrong with me? Then again, if I died, I wouldn’t have to worry about being a mother, but if I became a mother, I’d definitely have to worry about dying. Maybe that’s why.’
“There you are,” Aspen’s voice said.
Ember looked up. He peered down at her from atop a boulder, Whitehaze crouched over beside him.
“Er, will I be taking the test up there, or should I stay down here?” she asked.
Whitehaze stood up. “You will be taking it up here. We,” he pounced off the stone, then landed beside her, “will be down here. You have to be able to clawmark above the conversation. As highly as the East thinks of themselves, they still can’t fly, so the whole meeting will be held below the History Tree, and by extension, below you.”
“I know, sir,” Ember said, trying to focus on warding off the color of panic. “I, uh, you let me watch you during the summer meeting. I remember how it works.”
“Good. You’ve got a piece of leaf in your fur.” He groomed her cheek. “There. Now, up you go. Your carving stick has already been prepared for you.”
Aspen jumped down beside him and touched noses with her. “When you were a kitten, I didn’t know what kind of cat you’d become. I want to let you know that, so far, you’ve surpassed almost all my expectations.”
Ember tried to smile. “Thank you?”
She examined the rock and the cliffs beside it. Roughly a leap below, the dirt and shale beneath her boulder had been eroded away by winters of weather patterns. Small trees and dying ferns masked some of the deadly jagged boulders and the Wolf Trail waiting far below, but not enough for her to pretend she might land softly if she fell. “So, I don’t mean to be rude, but why here? Why can’t I do it in a tree somewhere?”
“I know,” Whitehaze leaned closer and whispered, “I don’t trust it either, but the Commander insisted your trial be held here. It isn’t my place to say, but I’m beginning to fear for his sanity. Try to jump lightly, Ember. Be careful.”
“I wanted to test her tenacity, Whitehaze,” Aspen said. “Willpower and the ability to perform under stress are extremely important traits which every historian must possess. But as you could see, Ember, Whitehaze and I waited for you from atop it. The rock is stable. You’ll be fine.”
Ember sucked in a deep breath, then pounced onto the rock with as much grace as she could muster. She sniffed her carving branch, examining it, and sat to await her instructions.
“So, what do I do?”
Aspen’s tail twitched. He cocked back his ears. “We will begin to discuss some things you might expect to hear during a meeting. You must pick out the important parts and summarize them in the clearest way possible. Also, even though the History Tree is always growing, there is still a limited amount of space on it, so your clawmarks must be small and clear. No mistakes or cross-outs. Do what you’ve been trained to do.”
‘Okay, I can do that. You can do it. You can do it. You’ve got this, Ember. No need to panic. Noooo need to panic. Ignore where you are, and focus on what you’re trying to do.’
“And when do I start?” she asked.
He chuckled. “Right now.”
Then he began the most forced-sounding discussion in all recorded Western history . . . by asking Whitehaze about the weather. She knew because she had every clawmark of recorded Western history memorized. As they spoke, the topic shifted to things they could do to improve inter-colony relations. It wasn’t hard to pick out what needed marking down, as they kept emphasizing the important things. It wasn’t enough to be insulting, but rather, with subtle cues: a little louder, a little longer, a little softer, or a little lighter.
Ember bit her tongue. Her clawmarks refused to be nice and pretty, but if she wanted them to look good enough for even the lowest standard, she needed to slow down. They needed to slow down.
‘Come on. Just take a moment to breathe. A moment to breathe. How can you possibly be able to talk so long? Don’t your throats hurt? Please. I’m not fast enough. I don’t know if I can do this. But I want to—I want to so badly.’
“Whitehaze, do you think colonies should trade clawmark tablets?” Aspen asked.
Whitehaze hesitated. “Hmm. On one side, there’s something to be said for exchanging knowledge, but those tablets are extremely hard to craft. We only have a few, molded by history’s greatest historians and clayworkers. I’m sure the East would value their tablets even more, considering they don’t even have a history tree.”
“But does that mean they would value our tablets even more?”
Whitehaze chuffed. “Hah! They might not even read them. And how in the forest do you figure we’ll get them across the valley to make the exchange? No matter how careful anyone was, they’d break before they even left the territory. No, I say we leave them where they are and allow them to be read by anyone, Eastern or Western, who wishes to learn.”
“But what if . . .”
She wanted to wait and let the discussion sink in. Their words weren’t forced now; they were real thoughts coming from some of the biggest authority figures in her life. All hints stopped. The conversation became a debate. Jumbled nothingness mixed with a few good quotes scattered here and there, and she couldn’t decide if they were worth mentioning or not, as some of it was still nothingness, but more poetic.
Thoughts backed up. Her paw refused to move quickly enough. Her mind refused to discriminate between the important and the superfluous-but-beautiful. She took a moment to evaluate her work and found the marks were getting bigger and more lopsided with every word. She growled, clamped her teeth over her tongue, and forced herself back on track. Somewhere at the edge of her mind, she registered tasting blood, but refused to acknowledge it.
‘Come on, Ember! Paws, work! Work! Come on, this is what you want. Be a good molly, and do it! You can do this, Ember. Please don’t fall, rock. I don’t want to die today. Just calm down. Calm down and focus. OW!’
A searing pain cut through her mouth. Bitter liquid coated her throat. Ember stopped and released her own tongue. She wiggled it around her mouth and winced. Her stomach tightened.
‘Wait, did I just bite through my tongue? I just bit through my tongue.’ Her eyes widened. Light green gripped her
insides and twisted them into knots. ‘I just bit through my tongue! What am I doing? I have no clue what I’m doing. I can’t do this. I can’t do this. I literally can’t do this.’
The world spun around her, bouncing in and out of focus. She shivered all over and glared down at her work. ‘Stupid. It looks stupid. Why did I agree to do this? My clawmarks have always looked like carrion. And now my mouth is full of blood, and my tongue hurts. My shoulder. My shoulder. My everything. Why do I feel like this? Am I dying?’
Darkness crept along the edges of her vision. Her conscience was wide awake, but her body felt like it was drifting away. She jumped off the rock and stumbled, but regained her balance. Ember searched the moss forest for Aspen, or Whitehaze, or anyone at all.
‘What’s going on? Why can’t I see? Am I going blind? No, that doesn’t make sense. My tongue isn’t attached to my eyes. Oh my mouth tastes terrible. Commander Aspen. Whitehaze? Where are you? Come on, say something, Ember!’
“I, uh, I don’t feel very good. I don’t wanna do this anymore.”
Then it became so much easier to just let go. So she did; not caring if she passed, or failed, or died, or lived. She heard voices, distant voices calling her. She thought they might be calling her name, but she couldn’t decide for sure. They didn’t matter. Something similar to running pawsteps echoed in her ears, too muffled to make out from the soft hum of the breeze.
She realized she was still inside her own body, and shook her head. Something wasn’t right. Something sharp tugged at her neck. She opened her eyes. A little spot of color flickered in her vision—green, then brown. Something rough and cold rubbed against her forepaws and hindquarters.
“W-what happened?” she asked.
She felt herself being lowered, but she couldn’t quite secure the connection between her mind and her body to confirm the sensation.
“You passed out,” Aspen said. “Ember, listen to me; are you well enough to walk? I don’t think I can carry you all the way back to the Glade on my own.”
‘That’s strange. I don’t remember passing out. It feels like I’ve been awake the whole time. I don’t feel all that sleepy. Actually, on second thought, could just I stay here? The dirt is surprisingly comfortable. never mind the bad taste in my mouth. I’ll deal with it. Maybe if I concentrate hard enough on what a failure I am right now, I’ll pass out again and skip forward a few days.’
Still, instinct said she needed to get moving, so she tried to blink vision back into her eyes. “Can’t Whitehaze help?”
“Whitehaze went to tell the healers what happened so they can be ready when we get you back. Come on, Ember. Please try to get up.”
Ember closed her eyes and forced her body to obey her. It took almost five times longer than it should have, but when she opened her eyes again, she was standing. She blinked twice. The shadows creeping along the edges of her vision faded, but not all the way.
She coughed out blood, then felt queasy all over again. Her stomach lurched and she dry-heaved.
“Can you walk?” Aspen asked. “Come on, we need to get you back.”
“I can walk,” Ember said. She coughed again. “I’m—I’m fine. I don’t need the healers.”
Aspen nudged her into motion. “Ember, there’s blood dripping out of your mouth. You passed out. You yourself said you aren’t feeling well. It could be something serious. You need the healers.”
She tried to focus on placing one paw in front of the other instead of the end destination. “Actually, there’s a reason for all that. I, uhm, I wasn’t exactly paying attention to what my mouth was doing, and bit through my tongue. Hence the bleeding and such. I guess everything happening at once overwhelmed, well, not really me, but my body definitely didn’t like it for some reason, so it just kind of . . . stopped working. I don’t know why.”
Aspen didn’t reply right away. He grimaced and shook his head. “You will still be visiting the healer’s den.”
She sighed. At least the darkness was gone. Her gaze wandered off into the forest. Without the moss, everything looked dead again, and the wind pushing against her fur didn’t help. “I’m guessing I didn’t pass.”
Aspen watched her for a moment, then looked away. “No, Ember.”
Ember grated her teeth together, careful to avoid her still stinging tongue. “That’s fine. I wouldn’t make a good historian anyway.”
He stopped. “Don’t say that, Ember. Anyone can be good at anything with enough time and determination. You just need more practice.”
Her legs felt like they might give out at any moment. She growled internally at how pathetic and weak her body was being, but sat down anyway. “Ever try flying?”
Aspen sighed. “You know that’s not what I meant. When I was your age, I was a terrible hunter. So I practiced every day, and eventually, after a few winters had passed, I could even catch birds.”
‘And after that, you caused a mass murder.’ Ember shivered. She closed her eyes and played with the little swirls of indigo and grey light that appeared.
“I’m trying. Maybe I’m not meant to be a historian,” she said quietly, her tongue stinging with every word.
Aspen nudged her side. “Maybe you are, maybe you aren’t. Either way, we have to keep moving.”
She opened her eyes and obliged. As they walked, the swirls of grey in her mind got brighter, so she imagined them turning into a ghostly figure who weaved in and out of the trees, following them, protecting them.
‘I have to be a historian. I’ve studied the Tree since the day I learned to read. I spent mooncycles upon mooncycles memorizing every line of law, tradition, and documentation I could find. If I can’t be a historian, what was it all for? What am I supposed to be? Who am I?’ She mewed quiet gibberish to herself. It helped calm her aching chest. ‘I messed up so bad. What am I going to do? What are Mom and Dad going to think?’
Ember shook her head and lifted it. As she did, a soft, sorrowful misty orange joined the grey. ‘It doesn’t matter. I can try studying harder. Practicing more. Once I get better control of myself, I can do better, and Ember, if you can’t find yourself a place, you can always try your best to make one. What you can’t do is give up. If you give up, you’ll never know if you would’ve passed the next test, so you have to keep going. Try. For Mom and Dad, if not yourself.’
Her vision blurred. She blinked furiously, trying to keep herself from crying. ‘Don’t cry, Ember. This is not the time or place for all these emotions. Save it for tonight, after Hyrees has gone to sleep. Or, preferably, don’t cry at all. This is nothing. Nothing worth crying over, at least.’
She growled at herself as the tears escaped. Ember let out a long, slow breath, and gave up. They continued to fall, making her cheeks cold and wet. ‘Thanks, me. Way to listen to yourself.’
“Don’t be hard on yourself,” Aspen said. “You’ll get another chance next summer. I suggest practicing on your own time. Have your friends talk about something, and try to mark down the basics of what they say on a young tree or stick. It will help you improve your speed.”
“I . . . I might try that,” she whispered.
“You should,” he said. “You’ll know you’ve passed when they can read your marks and remember almost everything they spoke about.”
She stopped for a moment to wipe her eyes. ‘I’ll try to remember that.’
As they neared the Glade, the silvers in her mind grabbed her by the throat. She coughed. ‘Right. Silentstream.’
Before she’d even passed through the southern entrance, Cloud ran to meet her. Instead of touching noses, he walked around her, sniffing her all over. “Ember, are you okay? Are you okay? Whitehaze said you passed out. Are you okay?”
‘Alright, Ember. Say “yes.” You’re fine. Everything is okay, and will have gone back to normal by tomorrow. You’re okay.’
“No.” She pressed her head against his neck, tears dampening his fur.
‘Why would you say that? I’m fine, right? Who am I try
ing to fool? I’m not. Nothing is okay.’
“Oh, Ember,” Cloud whispered.
The next few moments passed in a blur. She felt herself being ushered to the healer’s den. She opened her mouth to let Fern, Silentstream, and the other healers examine her tongue. Hyrees and Tainu appeared for a moment before being walked out by Fern’s partner, Fledge. Meanwhile, Ember was in a whole other world, trying to figure out what went wrong. Cats whispered outside the den, most too quietly to make out coherent speech, but plenty loud enough to know they were all talking about her. Words like ‘failure,’ ‘disappointing,’ and ‘defect’ pounded at her ears. Two of the voices belonged to Cloud and Aspen.
“So how did all this come about?” Silentstream asked, breaking her dazed concentration.
“I bit my tongue,” Ember replied.
“I can see that. You know what I meant. Don’t you play fluffhead with me.”
Her mind locked up again as a sickly green filled her head. She shivered and clamped her jaws shut, trying to keep herself from throwing up. “I, urm, I,” she stammered.
Fern wrapped her tail around Ember’s haunches. “You’re alright. Calm down, okay? She wants to know why you bit your tongue.”
Her mind loosened up enough to flicker with creamy white indignation, but couldn’t quite form a coherent verbal thought. Instead, Fern’s quiet meows made a little mouse appear in her head. Ember closed her eyes. She let the mouse scurry around a blank void until the nothingness got boring. She threw it into a lush fern patch and watched it nibble on grass seeds.
“I’m waiting,” Silentstream said.
Ember flinched. “Uhm . . . I, uh, I bite it sometimes when I, er, get nervous. It usually helps me feel better. Unless I bite through it.”
Silentstream shook her head. “You need to stop doing this. These silly little habits of yours seem to be causing you more problems than anything you could possibly be gaining from them. Find something more productive to calm yourself down.”
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