Chapter 9

There Is a Scar

Astra comes to visit, and so does Grey.

Astra bounces into the tent. She barely looks around, when normally she’d look at everything, oohing and aahing at it all, her curiosity and excitement contagious. Instead, Astra glances each way, then, when she finds me, she bolts over, weaving through Grey’s legs and sending him tumbling back into one of the support logs for Wyatt’s oversized medical tent.

Grey grunts but doesn’t say anything; he just catches himself and takes a breath, ticking his head to the side.

“I take it Wyatt has helped you, Brook?” Grey asks.

I nod, pausing in answering Astra’s questions that she’s shot off like a throng of arrows.

As she speaks and I reply, I look over Astra, taking in every bit of her appearance, the way her fur sits, the way she carries herself, if she’s limping or favoring any part of herself, if any bandages cover her body. I don’t smell the bitter tang of pain —the scent that clings to Jabez like a second skin, as much a part of him as he is it; pain is him and he is pain— on Astra’s body, nor do I see any bandages, but I do see a few scrapes. She moves quickly and with her usual ease, face and posture light and easy.

Astra’s ok, I assure myself, seeing her for myself and that she’s in one piece. Astra’s ok. We kept her safe. Wherever Freedom is, she and Jabez will know that Astra is ok. I kept my promise and my duty to Astra to keep her safe.

“Alex is the new Midnight Wolf,” Grey says when Astra’s chatter lulls for a moment. He’d been fiddling with a stick, peeling the bark off and tearing it into tiny pieces.

“What do you mean Alex is the new Midnight Wolf?” I ask. I sit up a little straighter, frowning. My forelocks fall over my eye and I shake my head to shift their positioning.

If Alex is the new Midnight Wolf, then shouldn’t she be here with us? Shouldn’t she have come back from wherever Grey and the others went on their search for the new Midnight Wolf, who apparently is Alex?

Grey shakes his head, something pained flashing across his expression. I see a crack in his gaze, the shudder that passes through him, the agony.

He still hasn’t seen his sister, I realize, and my heart sinks.

“Alex is the new Midnight Wolf,” Grey repeats. “That’s why she disappeared after Arcane shed the Midnight Tear. She went to the Midnight Cave, where the Midnight Wolves go when they spawn, and then she… she… I don’t know where she is.”

“She’s on Ragdon, right?” Astra asks, pushing into my chest and resting her legs over my folded forelegs.

I bend down to nuzzle into her forehead. “I don’t know, but I think so. I don’t know why she’d leave.”

“Seneca and Icarus are from-from the… the… other Ragdon, whatever it’s called.”

Grey snaps his head up. “Other Ragdon?”

Astra nods. “They’re from another… what did they call it?” Astra pulls away to look me in the eye. “Alternate timeline?”

“Yes, alternate timeline. Seneca said she and Icarus are from an alternate timeline of Ragdon.”

“That,” Astra says.

“Where are they, Seneca and Icarus?” Grey asks. “I’d like to meet them.”

“Probably with Katelin and Camden.” I tilt my head to the side. “I don’t know where Katelin and Camden are, though. Katelin might be working at the King’s castle.”

Grey shook his head. “No, I saw her over by the Erebus Tree.”

I push up on my forelegs in an attempt to stand but don’t make it far. “Let’s go, then. We can go see Seneca and Icarus. I think you’d get along with them. I don’t know them well, but they have a King of their own on their timeline of Ragdon. The King on the Carnelian Throne.”

“The Carnelian Throne is orange,” Astra adds, “and the King wears orange. Icarus said so.”

“What do you mean Icarus said so?” I ask, turning my attention to Astra, whose green dew claws brace herself as she rocks on her paws.

“He told me.”

“He chirps.” I furrow my eyebrows, licking my lips and chewing.

Astra nods. “You told me that’s his way of communicating. I tried to understand and I think I’m learning.”

I hum. “I see. I’m glad you’re trying to understand Icarus, Astra. It’s important to try to understand others. All communication is communication.”

xxxx

I try several more times to stand up, but I eventually make it to my hooves. The change in posture has my legs tingling and the change in blood flow making my head spin but I remain upright. I shift on my legs as I adjust. Astra watches with big eyes, pacing as she makes sure I won’t fall.

“I was scared,” she tells me. “I thought you were gonna…. I thought you were-. I thought…”

Tears well up in my eye, blurring her image.

“I was scared I was going to lose you too, Astra. You’re so precious to me.” I lean my head down until I’m nearly nose to nose with my stepdaughter. “Always remember that I love you more than anything. I love you so much, Astra. I will fight through anything to get to you and keep you safe, but love isn’t about violence. I want to show my love for you by making sure that you get the best life possible. ”

Rustling my tail against my legs, I follow Grey out of the medical tent. Wyatt turns around; they’d been sitting with Myles just outside.

“How are you feeling, Brook?” Wyatt asks.

“Much better. I think with a bit more rest I’ll be back to normal,” I reply.

“That’s good to hear. I’m glad to see you up and moving. How’s your eye feeling?”

I incline my head. “It aches, still.” I pause.

How do I put into words the psychological effects? I know my injured and now blind eye will heal. I trust in Wyatt’s abilities and Myles’s ability to help in a pinch like he had when they’d both found me. But what about the psychological effects? I know I’ll be ok. I have Astra. I have Jabez and Freedom, wherever they are. I have others, but I just lost half my vision in a split second, the briefest of moments.

Wyatt twists their lips, pushing their dark hair over their shoulder. “You don’t have to be ok, Brook,” they tell me. “No one expects you to be. What you just went through with the fight, the threats you faced, the injuries you sustained, the stress your body went through physically and emotionally and mentally, no one expects you to be ok. It takes time to work through it all. Take your time. And with something permanent like losing vision in one of your eyes, that also takes time to adjust to and to work through. Don’t push down your emotions. Feel them. Work through them. We’re all here for you.”

I huff. “Yes, thank you.”

“Where are… Seneca and Icarus, right?” Grey double checks.

Astra nods her head firmly. “Yes, they’re Seneca and Icarus.”

“They should be with Camden and Katelin, I think, so long as Katelin isn’t up at the King’s castle working. That’s my best guess.”

“If they aren’t with Camden and Katelin, then they’re probably with Freedom and Jabez. I heard they’re over by the coast.”

“Freedom Coast?” Grey asks.

Astra shakes her head as we start walking toward the Erebus Tree, the common meeting space for nearly everything.

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“No, the coast closest to the Sea. It doesn’t have an official name. It’s just got real steep cliffs. I saw them myself. Jabez told me not to get too close. They were scary. I don’t like them. The cliffs were so tall, and it was such a long way down. I couldn’t really even see the bottom. I didn’t realize how high up we were, and the waves were so angry. They were smashing against the cliffs!”

Astra shakes off the stress of the memory, then keeps trotting and padding ahead.

I wish that I could do that with the memories of the fight. I kept her safe. I kept Astra safe, and she made it out alive, until she had to kill someone. I wish she never had to. I’ll never be able to forget how much she shook, how hard she trembled, the spray of the Guard’s blood as my own stepdaughter’s claws ripped through his flesh and tore him to shreds and I was too helpless to do anything when it should've been the other way around: I should’ve been the one killing the Guard since he posed enough of a threat that he would not back down on his own. Astra should not know what it feels like to take a life.

I don’t want to know, either, but Astra’s my stepdaughter. She’s a child. She deserves a childhood. I don’t want her to grow up any faster than she has to.

Astra doesn’t seem affected by the experience, but I don’t know. She might be. She might wake up tonight, tomorrow, a year from now, and suddenly it hits.

I’ll be there for her and I’ll figure out how to support her in the best way I can.

xxxx

Seneca and Icarus are with Camden. He says that Katelin’s still at the King’s castle as he fiddles with a few strands of the black hair he’s left hanging loose when he pulled half up into a ponytail.

“The King’s making her work more,” Camden spits bitterly, “and he’s making her work for longer. I think he’s just getting… getting so… so spiteful. I think he’s just getting mad.”

“The King needs to be nicer. Brook says that you should be nice to people and show them respect because you don’t know what’s going on in their lives and everyone deserves respect,” Astra says, echoing nearly word for word what I’ve told her before.

Camden smiles but it doesn’t reach his eyes. He raises his eyebrows and ticks his head to the side, taking a breath, but doesn’t respond to Astra.

Icarus fluffs out his feathers and shakes, ruffling them until they all sit right. He stretches his bound wing, but he cannot move it far and a pained noise slips from his throat when one of the leather straps catches on a joint, pinching and digging into thin, sensitive skin.

“It sounds like your King on the Amethyst Throne’s gotta go,” Seneca says. “How are we going to do that, though? He’s up at a castle it seems like no one can really get to, and he’s got a lot of power. The King on the Carnelian Throne is—.”

Seneca is cut off by Phoenix.

“How we kill a cream puff is by destroying his oh, so very mortal body enough that Lucius has no choice but to come, except that the cream puff’s body has sustained enough damage that not even Lucius knows what to do with the bloodied remains.”

The black cat stalks up to the Deer and the Eagle in long, even, confident strides with Ky trailing a pace behind. Ky tilts his head to the side, ears pricked as he takes in Seneca and Icarus.

“Anyway,” Phoenix drawls. “Who the fuck are you?”

Phoenix raises his tail and flicks the end as he moves in front of me and Astra, positioning himself so his haunches block Seneca and Icarus’s view of Astra. Ky comes to stand by his side, looking far more curious than his brother’s open and blatant distrust and prickling irritability. Astra sits up on her own haunches, forepaws hanging in front of her belly, ears pricked as she watches the interaction. The tip of her tail twitches.

“Well,” Seneca says. “I’m Seneca, and that’s Icarus.”

Phoenix drags his eyes from the dark-skinned woman to the golden eagle, who chirps what I assume is a hello.

The black cat squints. “I haven’t seen you before.”

Seneca shrugs. “We’re not from around here. You just got here.”

“I remember those I see, and I haven’t seen you. So I repeat: Who the fuck are you?”

“I’m Seneca, and I’m the Deer. Icarus here is the Eagle. He is stuck in his eagle form and cannot talk because of that.”

Icarus chirrups.

“Icarus says hello,” Astra announces. “And he said that he can’t fly because the King on the Cor-Carm-Carnnelian Throne bound his wing.”

She stutters and struggles on Carnelian but makes it through.

Seneca frowns but nods, impressed. “Yes, that is what he said. You picked that up fast, Astra.”

Astra beams, preening.

“We’ve already got the Wolf and the Dove, but I’m gonna kill the cream puff,” Phoenix snarls. “That’s my job. I’ve already called dibs on his life. He’s mine. I get to kill him, and you… the… the fuckin’ Deer and Eagle or whatever the fuck you think you are? You ain’t gonna come on in here and screw that all up. It might take a while, but I will be killing the cream puff and delivering him to Lucius myself, no matter what. He will die at my claws and teeth. I will do it myself. No one will take that kill from. No one.”

Seneca raises her eyebrows. “Eesh, ok. My mind hadn’t gone straight to kill the King on the Amethyst Throne, but apparently we’ve gone there and that’s where things are at. You can kill the King. He’s yours. I do not wish to kill more than needed, and if you feel the King’s death is something you need to do, you can. It seems you’ve determined his blood on your conscience is worth it in your mind.”

Phoenix bristles, baring his teeth. “You judging me?”

His voice deepens and turns into something far more dangerous. His eyes sharpen into a hard set, waiting, daring.

“No, I’m not judging. Considering how firm your intent is to take the King’s life, I’d assumed that you had already determined that the scar on your conscience of taking the King’s life is worth it.”

“Do you know what a fucking monster the cream puff is? If you say you ain’t from around here, I could maybe get it, but the King is a monster. The worst kind. There is no scar on your conscience for a life like that. I’d be doing the world a favor, but in my case, I’m doing it for myself. He needs to die. He needs to have no fucking way he can do another thing. Death is the only permanent, the only guarantee anyone ever gets in this screwed up world.”

“There is a scar, Phoenix,” I say. “No matter how justified the death may be. But I can understand that you want to take the King’s life.”

Phoenix turns around, a mix of anger and grief so raw I can nearly feel it myself. He looks at me, eyes flaring with a thousand emotions before he blinks, forcing them away. He turns his attention to the Erebus Tree.

“You should’ve never let them go,” he whispers, voice turning hoarse.

When he finally drags his attention back to me, after a long silent conversation through looks exchanged through holding eye contact with Ky and brief snarls and a threatened cuff across the face with claws unsheathed, Phoenix glowers at me.

“You don’t get to tell me that.”

“Don’t hurt Brook!” Astra squeals, rushing forward before I can stop her.

Wings flared and short fur fluffed up, she tries to make herself look bigger, but she’s ten and not full grown, and Phoenix outweighs her several times over. Still, he takes a step back, face twisting.

“I won’t hurt Brook. I just don’t want her to tell me there’s a cost to killing the cream puff when the alternative is worse than anything.”

“Why is the alternative worse than anything, if you don’t mind me asking?” I say carefully.

Phoenix’s jaw chatters as rage, unfiltered and raw, flickers across his face.

“He killed my family. He murdered them all. He has to die. I have to kill him myself. I need to know that he is gone. He needs a fate worse than death, but death is all I can give him. A horrible death where he feels the tiniest fraction of what he did to my family when they burned alive and I was too fucking weak to stop the fire.”

The hollowness in Phoenix’s body and voice speak volumes. I can see flickers of a child terrified beyond anything, filled with pure terror, struggling to wrap his head around events no one should have to face. The same fear flits across Phoenix’s face now.

Phoenix lost his entire family?

I look between Ky and Phoenix. They look simultaneously so young and so old as they stand before me, both kittens and full-grown adults. Ky looks haunted and angry, and so does Phoenix, but Phoenix’s rage simmers and broils in the front of him, blatant for anyone to see, mere moments from bubbling over and snapping and exploding out. Ky’s anger is more muted, leaning more into the haunted emotions. He’s quiet, and his body is quieter, too, more shut down, but I can still see the anger beneath it all. He wants the King gone.

Phoenix’s lip quivers.

“He murdered my family, and I will kill him. He had every chance to not do so, and yet he still ordered his Guard and Soldiers to carry out such a stupid decision that cost the newest newborn their life and two lovers and parents and beings above all else because they were all someone.” Phoenix’s voice cracks as the scabbed over wound breaks open again, fresh blood flowing as the pain arises anew once more. “Ky and I were playing in the forest and took our time to return after hearing our sister had been born and that was the only reason we weren’t in the house when the Guard and Soldiers set fire to it. I should’ve been able to stop the fire, but I was too weak and I couldn’t. My parents and sister died that day. We still don’t know what our parents named our sister, their daughter, the little kitten born that day who was alive for the shortest blip of time before the Guard and Soldiers snuffed her light out and sent Ananta seeking her out on her dark fucking wings to call in Lucius.”

Seneca studies Ky and Phoenix for several long moments, and Icarus does, too, before they both nod.

“I understand,” Seneca says. “You will kill the King on the Amethyst Throne in the way you feel is necessary to exact your revenge for him ordering the murders of your parents and newborn sister. Neither Icarus nor I will step in your way or stop you unless we see a direct threat to your life.”

Phoenix raises his head, eyebrows furrowed. “I don’t trust you, but I’ll take your word for now.”

Icarus ducks his head, leaning forward. He whistles, clicking his tongue.

“He says that’s wise,” Seneca says.

“Now that we’ve all met each other,” Grey says, changing the subject, “what exactly is our plan on stopping the King? We don’t really have a plan, and the King’s… he’s powerful, whether we want to admit it or not.”

“Brute force,” Phoenix says. “If we hit him hard enough, he’ll break sooner or later.”

“He’s too strong,” I counter. “We should take a subtler approach. Try to catch him off guard.”

“Ha ha, Guard,” Astra laughs, waving her tail behind her.

Camden tilts his head to the side. He’s about to speak, when he’s interrupted by a shout.

We all lift our heads, and Icarus squawks in alarm, feathers rising on the back of his neck.

Katelin comes sprinting toward the Erebus Tree. She huffs and puffs, cheeks flushed from exertion. Her hair waves behind her in time with her strides. When Katelin reaches us, she stops and hunches over, hand on her collarbone and the other on her knee as she gasps for breath. The top buttons on her shirt are undone, collar thrown upward, and smudges of dirt are smeared across her legs. The grey I know is purple of her shirt and skirt because Camden told me how he hated the King made Katelin wear the same colors he did that matched the Amethyst Throne a while ago is rumpled on the fabric.

“Hang on, stop,” she says. “We need to head to Siren’s Lookout! The King just sent Guard and Soldiers there. I didn’t stay to listen to what they were planning on doing, but it’s something big. Whatever you were planning, it’s a change of plans.”

Ky freezes, eyes going wide and ears drooping.

“Fuck,” he curses. “The Siren.”