He didn’t reply.
Ember ran over to him. “Hyrees? Hyrees, we have to go.”
“No,” he said. “You have to go. I’m kind of tired. Hypothermia, you said? I’m curious. I want to see what it’s like.”
“What?” she whispered. “Wait, you’re giving up? But Hyrees, you said you’d take care of me. You said you’d be there for me. What happened to us? Why is this happening to us?”
“Well, let’s see, my mom is dead, my dad is dead, my brother is dead, we got sent into exile in the middle of a blizzard. It just keeps going, doesn’t it? Isn’t life great?” His eyes narrowed. “Look, you can keep going, and reunite with your family, and I can stop, and reunite with mine. Now go; get out of here. I’m too tired to keep doing this, to keep going and getting back up only to be thrown down a steeper cliff. I did my part. No one needs me anymore.”
‘I need you. And is that even how it works? That doesn’t—’
“Ember, are you still there?” Michelle asked.
Her mind locked up. She visualized walking back to Hyrees and curling up around him, then did it.
“What are you doing?” he asked. “You’re only making it take longer.”
“Ember? What happened? What’s going on? Please answer me.”
‘I’m here. Wait. Too much grey to think right now.’
“Oh?”
He tried to shove her away, but his legs were too weak. “Are you even listening to me?”
“I’m listening. I-I’m listening, Hyrees, I’m just choosing to ignore you. I’m not leaving without you. If your stubborn self is going to stay here, I am too. If you wanna die, I guess I’ll have to die too.”
“Okay then,” he said. “Like I already said, you being next to me is only going to make it take longer. We’re going to suffer. I’m suffering, Ember. It hurts.”
“More . . . more time to change your mind.”
“Ember, what is going on?” Michelle pressed.
‘Blood. Blood, there’s blood on my teeth.’
“Listen sweetie, I know something’s going on, but I can’t help you until you start making some sense.”
‘You can’t help. Can’t help this one. I messed up. I messed up really bad. I just killed someone, and it wasn’t an accident, but it was, and now I’m in the Lowlands, in a blizzard, and my mate wants to die, because his brother is gone, because the cat I killed killed him, because he got threatened by the East into becoming a spy, and everything is falling apart, and I’m cold, and I’m scared, and I don’t know what to do. Michelle, what do I do? What if I am defective? What if I hurt someone else? What—’
“Whoa, whoa, slow down. So wait, you killed someone who killed your mate’s brother, and was also a spy? My, I . . . guess I missed a lot. What in the world is going on in that valley of yours?”
Ember swallowed hard. ‘War.’
“Oh . . . right. Well then. So, uh, what did you need help with?”
Ember paused. ‘Why did I call you?’ she thought to herself. She directed her thoughts back to Michelle. ‘I . . . don’t know. I killed Whitehaze, Michelle. Just like I killed Tainu. I’ve known them both all my life. They were my friends, and yet I just . . . killed them. Yes, Tainu attacked me first, but—agh! I don’t even know if Whitehaze did it. He didn’t do anything against me. I don’t know what made me do it, made me kill him, but it was something else. It wasn’t me. I couldn’t stop myself. Or maybe I could have; I don’t know. I don’t want to be a wildcat. I don’t want to kill. I’m scared, Michelle. I’m dangerous; I’m becoming a monster. I’m losing control; I’m losing everything, and I don’t know how to stop. I don’t know how to fix this. I don’t know how to fix myself. What do I do? What do I do? What do I do?’
“Uhm, wow, sweetie, that’s quite a mess you’ve gotten yourself into. First, try to calm down. I don’t know the whole situation, so I’m not really sure how to help you right now. I want to help—believe me, I do—but I can’t. At least not at the moment. There’s a lot going on, so I can’t exactly sit down and let you explain everything to me.”
‘No time?’ Ember bit her tongue and tried to ward off tears of disappointment and fear. ‘But what do I do? Everything is broken.’
“I don’t know. Listen, I’m sorry I have to cut this so short, but I really have to go. They just called me up to speak, and I can’t keep everyone waiting. I’ll try to call you back later, okay? Goodbye, Ember. Take care of yourself.”
[Call disconnected.]
Ember’s jaw trembled as Thai hung up without her consent. She repressed all verbal thoughts, as if doing so might enable her to hear Michelle’s gentle thought voice again. Silence filled her head.
‘Please come back,’ she pleaded, trying to get one last invocation through to her human savior. ‘Don’t abandon me too. Please don’t leave me here. I don’t have anyone else to go to.’
Hyrees shifted beneath her, dragging her back into the external world. He lifted his nose to the air and sniffed. “Who’s there?” he called weakly.
Ember realized the storm had gotten worse. She could barely make out the silhouettes of trees two leaps away from them. Hyrees squirmed out from underneath her.
He got to his paws and growled. “Show yourself.”
Ember positioned herself in a halfhearted fighting stance beside him. Glistening silver filled her head as her heartbeat thumped in her ears. Adrenaline trickled into her bloodstream, body trying to prepare her for whatever might come. Yet inside she just felt tired, and like Hyrees, ready to give up.
“What is it?” Ember asked.
“Outsider or rogue, I think. I don’t recognize the scent,” Hyrees replied.
“Why do you care then? You wanted to die.”
“Maybe, but I don’t want you to die. You actually have a future,” he said.
“Are you going to protect it? My future?”
He sighed. “Fine, yes. You win. For now at least. But when you’re safe . . . I don’t know. Just promise me you’ll let me go in peace if I decide to go. Wouldn’t want to keep me from my family, right?”
Her tail thrashed from side to side. “No. I don’t do promises, and I don’t think you’ll be seeing your family when you die, so stop getting your hopes up.”
Ember scanned the treetops for movement. With movement already everywhere in the form of snowflakes, spotting a hiding cat proved itself a difficult task. A feline gradually took shape in the branches of a tree a few leaps in front of them. She sniffed the breeze. Her muzzle burned in the frigid air. A familiar mixture of scents came with the pain. Dark red, fang yellow, and sky blue all shifted around her subconscious, raging with the storm.
Hyrees growled softly. “You know what you are? Em, you’re a stubborn—”
“Rogue,” she whispered.
He sidestepped away from her. “Uh, that’s not exactly what I was going to say, but—”
Ember pawed his chin upward. “No, look. I mean it’s a rogue.”
He jerked his head away from her. “Ember, I’m half blind, remember?”
The cat jumped down from the tree. He strutted toward them, multicolored eyes appearing to glow with reflected light
Ember tensed what muscles she could and kept her stance. “Eclan.”
Eclan stopped. He snorted. “Well, ain’t this a surprise? We just keep finding each other, don’t we, kitten? What do you want?”
‘Oh, I want to hurt you. This is probably your fault. Don’t, Ember. You need his help. You really, really need his help right now. Gotta ask for help.’
“We just want to be left alone. Now go! Get out of here!” Hyrees snapped.
Ember pinned back her ears as cyan and vivid green flashed. ‘He’s going to chase him away, and then we’re gonna die.’ “No, Hyrees! No, no, no, don’t say that! No!”
Both cats stared at her.
“Didn’t he try to kill you twice?” Hyrees asked.
“But he didn’t,” she said.
Eclan snorted again. “
She has a point. If I wanted her dead, she’d be dead already. Now, you two are in my territory. What do you want?”
Ember swallowed. “Uhm, I uh, I never thought I’d say this to you, but, er, well, can you help us? This storm is-is only going to get worse. We need shelter. If you help us, we’ll pay you.”
Hyrees pawed her side. “We will? Ember, this cat tried to kill you. You want us to follow him into a blizzard? Also, what are you going to pay him with? We have nothing.”
“He’s also working with the East but that’s not important right now. We need shelter.”
Eclan’s eyes narrowed. “Hey, I’m listening, you know, kitten. What do you got that I need?”
Ember closed her eyes and worked out what to say. She placed a paw on her ETAg, as if acknowledging its presence might somehow give her words confidence. Her eyes snapped open. “The biggest collection of knowledge in the world. I can’t give it to you, but I can use it for you. I can answer questions, show you how to do things, give you all kinds of useful information. I have the secrets of the universe hanging around my neck. I can quite literally give you power, if you ask the right questions.”
Eclan smirked. “I like the sound of that. You promise not to tell any of your colony cat friends where I take you?”
‘Okay, good, that’s a promise I can keep,’ she thought. “Yes. I promise. We’ve been exiled, anyway. We’re no more colony cats than you. Now let’s go before this snow gets any heavier.”
“Ah, wait,” Eclan mewed. He turned to Hyrees. “You gotta promise too, tomcat.”
Ember pawed Hyrees’s side. “Come on,” she whispered.
Hyrees growled. “We can’t trust him, Ember. You said he’s working with the East? What if he’s the one who told Whitehaze to kill my brother?”
“If I want to live, this is my best option. I’m taking it, with or without you. You can promise and come, or you can stay here and die alone, never knowing whether I made it or not.”
Hyrees glared at her for a few seconds. “Send a fox on you, Ember.”
He sighed and stared at his paws. Tears trickled into his fur as quiet sob escaped his throat. For the first time since his mother had died, Ember could read his pain. He looked empty, lost, and sad, and she understood that part of him, because it was also a part of her.
“Heh,” he huffed after a few moments of silence, “I knew I followed you out here for some reason. Alright, fine. I promise. Not like there’s anyone I can tell anyway.”
Eclan snorted. “I guess we got ourselves a deal, then.” He turned northeast and started walking. “Follow me. Stay close. Easy to get lost in a storm like this.”
As they walked, the wind blew harder. Eclan led them through a thick patch of forest and underbrush. When they reached a large bramble patch, Ember wondered if it was the shelter he’d planned to lead them to, but he pushed through a small tunnel under the spiky mess and kept going. Ember and Hyrees followed, wincing as thorns cut into their backs and sides.
With no one speaking, Ember’s mind wandered back to that morning. Farlight and Whitehaze’s dead bodies flashed through her head, agonizing and unstoppable.
‘Monster. Wildcat. You did this. You killed him, and he’s dead. They’re dead. Both dead. Gone. Dangerous. Going to hurt someone. I’m going to hurt someone. You, you, why?’ She shook her head. ‘What is even going on? How did I get here? Robot legs. Blood on my jaws. Everything. Everything fell apart. What is wrong with me. There’s something wrong with me. Matthew never said anything about this. This problem. Because this isn’t that, this is all me. I killed them. Am I defective? I’m . . . defective. Defective. Defective? Am I? Whose fault? Mine? But I lost control? It wasn’t me, was it? My fault because I lost control? I need more control. Who—’
Something hard slammed into her face. She jumped backward. “Ouch!”
Ember snapped into reality to find a wall of rock in front of her. “Oh.”
Hyrees brushed against her side. “You going blind, too, Emmy? Even I saw that.”
Ember grimaced but said nothing. His eerie, silver-inducing tone of voice made her fur stand on end. Eclan only snorted and kept walking. He led them into a gorge with a small, frozen stream running through it. Rocks towered over them everywhere she looked. The exposed stone walls lining the gorge blocked out some of the wind and snow, but even with the extra cover, she couldn’t see more than three leaps ahead. They passed by an abandoned, burnt-out fire. She smelled it more than saw it, since most of the charred wood had already been buried in the drift. As they walked, the gorge widened until she couldn’t see either side. Surreal, metallic turquoise dripped in, mixing with the already present silvers and greys.
‘I’m walking in silver. Guess that’s what I am. Silver. I walk in silver. Silverwalker. Does that mean I’m not a villain, either? If I’m not a hero or a villain, what am I? Silver little me, I guess. Somewhere in between everyone and everything. And not sure where I’m going. At all.’
A faint shadow loomed ahead of them. It became more defined as she neared it.
‘Rectangles. Triangles. Edges. Perfect edges. That’s . . . that’s—oh!’
She stopped and tilted her head.
“What is it, Ember? What’s wrong?” Hyrees asked.
“It’s a house,” she replied. “A human den-thing. It looks old. What is it even doing here? I thought there weren’t any people in Dark’s Valley.”
Unlike Michelle’s home, and even more unlike the Center, large stones held together with hard-looking, white stuff made up most of the building. The snowy roof rose to a shadowy peak over the entryway, propped up with two arching pillars of stones. Several large windows lined the front of the house, but many of the glass panes were broken or missing. The front door was also gone.
“There aren’t any,” Eclan said. “Not here, at least. Place has been like this for winters. Not a sign of them wantin’ it back. Not even a scent. So we’ve taken it for ourselves. Now let’s get ourselves inside before we freeze to death.”
“We?” Hyrees said.
Eclan chuffed and kept walking. “’Ey, you’re outsiders now. Might as well know about this place. Welcome to Starcross’s Gorge. Lowland center of trade, if you will.”
Ember’s ears perked up; feline voices, faint but audible, came from the dilapidated building. She loped to follow him. As she moved, the voices grew louder, making her shiver with anxiety. Hyrees sighed and walked behind her.
“You can get anything you need here,” Eclan continued. “All for the right price, of course. Food, place to sleep, finest assassins-for-hire in the valley. Name it and I’m sure you can find it. Get a lotta my work here, and I don’t doubt you could make a decent living here too. That is, if you really do have what you claim to have. If you don’t, well, we have our own ways of dealing with cats who don’t pay up.” With an unsettling grin, he climbed up the stairs toward the empty doorframe. “C’mon in.”
Ember’s fur rose again as she stepped inside. The voices hit her like a windstorm. Cats—dozens of them—filled the room. A small table sat against the battered left wall, on which three large tabbies slept side by side. A series of shelves lined the back of the room, with each shelf housing a rough-looking feline. Several others stood, sat, talked, or walked along the cold, tile floor. The ceiling above them loomed with holes and water stains. The entire place reeked of mold, ungroomed fur, tooth decay, urine, and the marks of countless sprays and scent glands. The resounding noise, nauseating smells, and sheer number of cats sent a sickening light green spiraling down her subconscious.
“Hey, Starcross,” Eclan called. “Got some fresh exiles for you. You’re gonna like these, I can promise you that.”
For a few moments, no one so much as batted an ear. One of the sleeping tabbies opened his eyes. He nudged his friends awake and gestured toward Eclan. Other cats followed their gazes. The roar of voices became a hushed murmur. Almost every cat awake faced them, staring and exchanging whispers. Ember crouched down and presse
d her tail against her legs, trying to make herself as small as possible as she stared at her paws.
“I am, am I?” a sweet voice with a Lowland drawl asked.
She looked up. A large black cat strode toward them. A white patch in the rough shape of a human addition symbol marked her forehead. Her left ear was torn in half down the middle, and a metallic, ring-shaped bijou dangled from a hole in the right. A large scar traced the side of her face, missing her cold, yellow eyes by a whisker. A few other scars marred her sides and limbs, many of them partially obscured by her long, sleek fur. Her face itself was slightly angular, and she carried herself with an intelligent, reserved bearing.
Ember tilted her head. Light brown and white eased away some of the queasiness causing her stomach to churn. For a moment, she forgot the events of that morning. ‘Wow. Hum. Starcross, huh? I guess her parents weren’t feeling very creative when she was born. She looks better than most of these other cats, though. Actually, she’s kind of pretty. Where did she find that thing on her ear? It looks human.’
“What have we got here, then?” Starcross asked. “A walking skeleton and a machine? I’m impressed, alright. So what’s in these two for me? What can they do?”
Eclan coughed twice. “Ember here claims that thing ’round her neck contains the secrets of the universe or something. Says she can make us powerful in exchange for a few days’ shelter.”
“Oh? Us, huh? You for what? Taking them here?” Starcross stepped closer and sniffed them over. She examined Hyrees for a moment. “This one’s useless to me. Partially blind, skin and bones. A kitten could take him down. There’s nothing he can offer that I’ll accept as payment, but I’m guessing this is a two-piece deal.”
Hyrees growled. Ember’s fur bristled. ‘He is not useless. Know what? Maybe you aren’t so pretty.’
Starcross turned her attention to Ember and walked around her a few times. Ember tucked her tail and willed for the outsider not to hurt her.
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