3.
Cinders
In his dreams, it was his father who spoke to him. Misari was the alpha of his pack, an elderly wolf with fur black as charred wood and deep, golden-orange eyes that were commanding but sad. Tir remembered his surprise at the signs of Misari’s aging: the silver around his muzzle, a stiffness in his step. As a pup, he had thought his father to be invincible, a powerful force to lead them. But as Tir grew, he began to realize how things shifted and changed. And how, oddly, in the midst of that, some things still managed to remain constant.
Arwena had hated Misari. Doubtless, she had loved him once, but it went away when Tir’s sister had been born. When Tir was a pup, she had told him that Misari was a monster, a ruthless killer, but Tir knew this was not true. Arwena said a great deal of things, and he believed almost none of them; he didn’t think she even believed herself. Despite everything, he liked Misari. Though a distant presence in Tir’s puphood—a father he had never fully known—there was still something comforting about the wolf and his steady, deliberate leadership. He had led the pack for a very long time.
Misari was now far too old to still be alpha, but no wolf would challenge him. No wolf wanted the job. The times were too difficult.
“I am sorry to bother you,” Tir was saying, “But it’s just that—”
“You are worried about your mother, am I correct?” Misari interrupted.
Tir nodded, relieved.
“Of course you are.” Misari sighed. “I am worried. The pack is worried. It is no small deal when a pup disappears, and Seilo was very important to your mother.” His orange eyes narrowed. “But you are a different matter altogether. I know the look on your face. Do not be afraid; tell me what is troubling you.”
Tir took a deep breath. “My mother has been through so much,” he began. “First, there was my sister, and then her confidant, and now Seilo is gone as well. There are mutterings about her, wolves are already spreading tales. I—I just don’t know what to do, Father. I am afraid for her.”
“You are afraid that she cannot bear it any longer.”
“Yes, that as well. But the others are saying—”
“I know what they are saying,” Misari growled. “They mutter because they are ignorant. And, Tir, I assure you that there will be no drastic measures taken because of a fool’s superstition. You may sleep without worry.”
“Thank you, sir,” Tir said, relieved.
“Now, about your mother,” Misari said, and he sighed. Tir was struck by how old and tired he looked in the gloom of the den. “Arwena is a very strong wolf. She has been through much in her long life, you must understand, and it takes a lot to crack under the strain of sorrow.”
It had never before occurred to Tir that perhaps Misari had been as shaken by the killing of his sister as Arwena was. But as his father looked back down at him, the regret gleaming in his eyes told Tir that the choice he made long ago had caused him as much sorrow as it did her. Arwena was not the only one who had lost a daughter that day. It was the duty, however, of a leader to always do what is best for the pack. Even at the cost of a life. For the first time, Tir was very glad not to be in Misari’s position.
“I know it does,” Tir said in a whisper, feeling the need to keep his voice low. “But it’s been so long—she mentions my sister every now and then, sometimes going into these moments of grief where she seems to forget herself, and me, and—Oh, she’s just been worse than usual. Sometimes she even thinks that she herself is dead. She tells me that she is. It has always been bad, but now with Seilo gone, I don’t think she can take it any longer. You saw how she was this morning.” Tir was quiet for a while, miserable thoughts heavy in his mind. “Oh, why must these things happen?” he burst out. “Do The Spirits wish to torment her? They’ll kill her one day!”
“Arwena knows very well that nothing happens without reason, whether we like it or not. The Spirits know what they are doing, and they make no mistake.”
“No mistake?” Tir said in a small voice.
“No mistake.”
Misari’s eyes were filled with sorrow and pity. He remained silent for a long time, examining Tir as though he knew exactly how Tir was feeling. After awhile, he lowered his head as though in mourning.
“I must be honest with you,” he said. “I have waited far too long to discuss this with you, and I apologize. But I’m afraid your mother has been forced to bear more than any should handle. When her confidant died, Arwena felt as though she would be crushed in the weight of her grief and past. Her nearest and dearest friend, her rock of support, her shelter from her sorrow—gone. I know that some of her old wounds had been cut open that day.”
“She told me about it,” Tir said. “But I was so young, I didn’t understand.” That was a lie. He remembered very well the day his mother’s friend had breathed her last; he himself had been present. And he had understood more than he would reveal. Tir had grown up at a young age.
“Seilo and his two sisters became her only solid ground to cling to,” Misari said, and Tir looked away. Yes, he remembered that, too—there had been days when Arwena had forgotten him, so consumed she was with her sorrow for her lost friend. He remembered how he had sometimes hated Seilo and his sisters, for taking his mother’s friend and leaving her so miserable. How different were things now.
“With the death of each of the female pups, a part of Arwena’s heart died as well. She was desperate to keep Seilo alive, the last remaining bit of her promise to her dying friend.”
Misari took a deep, rattling breath as though he were in pain, as though the memories and miseries were his own. Tir, too, could feel his mother’s sorrow—palpable in the air, sapping away all other feelings and leaving him shivering.
There was a long, terrible silence, and when Misari spoke again, his voice was hoarse.
“Now Seilo is gone,” he said, and shook his head. “I can no longer lie to you in the hopes of sheltering you; you are old enough to know. Now is the time that you must lend your strength to the pack. I am sorry, Tir, but your mother is bleeding freely.”
Tir left Misari’s den with a heavy heart, the horrible cold of Arwena’s anguish still sharp and painful inside of him. How did Misari know all of that? Did he understand her so well? Tir felt very sorry for Misari, who didn’t deserve to be hated so by Arwena. Didn’t Arwena understand that some things must be done? It wasn’t Misari’s fault that his sister was dead—was it? It had been Arwena who had carried out the deed, after all. Tir felt very tired.
He padded across the moonlit camp clearing, where the bleak land had been transformed in the glow of the night. Dead, withered trees had become cream-white towers with silver-dipped leaves that rustled and shivered in the low breeze. The ground was scattered with silver stardust, and boulders gleamed with a translucent, pearly sheen. Tir’s head was spinning with what he had just learned—his mother had once been a strong and respected member of the pack. Could she ever be that way again? It was good hope, but the chances were as insubstantial as the moonlight that washed over the ground.
His ears pricked at the sound of rustling in the shadowed bushes. Tir relaxed, however, as Avrok and his weary tracking patrol tramped through the underbrush surrounding the camp.
Their paws were raw and bleeding, staining the dusty ground red. Bits of thorn and bramble had snagged in their matted, dirty fur. With a sinking heart, Tir knew it was useless to ask how it went.
“Misari is waiting in his den,” Tir told Avrok, who had emerged into the clearing last. The large black wolf’s brow was furrowed with worry, all signs of his customary grouchiness gone. He nodded, his head hung low and his tail dragging in the moonwashed dust. The others followed him in the direction of the leader’s cave; a few of them sent sympathetic glances in Tir’s direction as they passed. They had not yet heard the mutterings.
“We tried,” muttered a reddish-brown she-wolf as she passed. Avrok’s daughter. Kiala, Tir’s friend since he had first opened his eyes as a
pup. Her grey eyes were sad. “I’m sorry, Tir. We tracked Seilo as far as the old oak, but lost the scent. Arwena must be despondent.”
“I know you tried.” Tir looked away. “You all must have run to your limits to catch the scent at all. Sometimes things happen. Don’t worry, The Spirits will watch over him. They—they make no mistakes.”
“I hope not,” Kiala muttered, before following the rest of the tracking patrol into Misari’s den.
Tir watched her go, his limbs numb with dread. What would Arwena say when she heard? Tir almost cried out. Could it be true that Arwena was cursed?
“Is this what we have been reduced to?” someone snarled behind Tir. He whipped around, startled. “We don’t even care for our own pups?”
It was Arwena. She was stumbling out of her den, her eyes wide and round and glittering as she gazed up at the night sky. She looked madder than ever—her tawny fur was unkempt and sticking out in tufts and her ears flattened like wet leaves against her skull. Her eyes were as distant and blank as someone in a dream.
“I’ll make her live!” she said, lashing out at imaginary enemies. “She has lasted longer than other runts have, perhaps she is stronger! Shame on you, all of you! And you,” she said with a sudden rush of poisonous savagery. She glared straight through Tir. “You, Misari—do you not see her? She is your daughter! You would have me slit her open, wouldn’t you? Anything for the pack, you tell me! Anything for the pack!”
Arwena threw her head to the sky, glaring at the stars so high and far away.
“She may be small, but she’ll grow up strong—you’ll see!” she cried, and then collapsed into sobs, her frail frame shaking and quivering in the silver dust. “I am sorry,” she moaned, into the ground. “Forgive me, child, I am a terrible coward. I have done wrong; you have been punished because of my shameful fear.”
Tir realized that Arwena did not know what she was doing. Perhaps she was dreaming, caught up in some nightmare from her past, still fighting to keep her runt pup even though the battle was long since lost. His own despair deepened. Oh, what was he going to do?
Tir padded to her side, his legs trembling as he nudged her to her feet. She rose, not looking at him, not noticing him, and allowed herself to be led, stumbling and sobbing, back to her den. Arwena lay down in her cave and descended into a miserable, fitful sleep. Tir tucked her tail between her paws, as though she hadn’t been disturbed.
Then he turned and padded back into the clearing. He looked up at the dark sky.
There were stars there, so many stars. A myriad of endless, twinkling lights stretched on above him forever, as uncountable as the dust beneath his feet, as bright as his mother’s eyes had once been. They almost seemed to be in a pattern, to be moving, dancing and swirling in a swath of shining silver, other colors blinking here and there and vanishing before one could see them straight. It was impossible to tell which one of them could be the tiny spirit of Tir’s sister, only one amongst uncountable millions, but the knowledge that she was somewhere up there, watching them, was comforting.
Now you must lend your strength to the pack, Misari had said. But beneath the stars, Tir felt small and helpless; he gazed into the shining dome as if waiting for an answer, but the night was silent.
It was a long time before he turned around and padded back to his den.
His dreams turned to a new night, and he found himself pelting across a barren, rocky landscape in the stinging rain. Ahead, he could see the faint outline of a welcoming green forest. Green had grown over the charred black skeleton that the fire had left behind—and fur had grown over the burnt bones of the wolves that had been left behind. They would be alive there, and waiting for him. Arwena would be whole again, his dead sister brought up from the ground and into life, Misari’s orange eyes at last contented and relieved of their old sorrow. Arwena would not hate him any longer. They would be strong, two brave leaders, and Tir was their son. The red-eyed yew tree would have been burnt to the ground and forgotten.
But the more he ran, the more tired he became; and the forest never seemed to get any closer.