Raven Catclaw's Arc

Chapter 5 of 12

They stopped to rest where a waterfall fell into a mossy stone pool. Whisper drank at the edge. Raven watched him and felt the promise press on her chest. She had told him everything on the dock. Everything but one thing. She still would not say what her claws had done when she stopped near the ridge. Hiding it now would make her a liar again. She had sworn no more tricks. Whisper lifted his head. Water dripped from his chin. "You're doing it again," he said, his deep voice soft over the falling water. "Holding something back. I can see it." Raven's claws dug into the moss. She made herself pull them free. "When I got close to the ridge, I stopped," she said. "I told you that. I didn't tell you the rest." She swallowed. "My claws were already out. There was fur on them. Gray fur. Not mine." He went still. "Whose?" "I don't know." Her voice shook. "I don't remember doing it. I smelled the burned thing, the living thing, and then my paw was wet and there was fur, and I ran. I've been afraid I hurt something up there. Something alive." She looked at the acorn cap tucked in her fur. "I was afraid if I said it, you'd see what I am. And you'd leave." Whisper stepped through the shallow water toward her. He did not flinch back. "My mother clawed a fox once, protecting me," he said. "She wasn't proud of it. She did it scared." He sat close. "You're scared. That's not the same as cruel." Raven breathed out. The tightness in her chest loosened. "I broke the no-secrets promise the moment I hid it. I'm not hiding it now." "Then it isn't broken," he said. "You told me before it went too far." She pressed her nose to the handkerchief at her flank. His scent, warm and plain. It steadied her. "There's more," she said slowly. "The fur was gray. Long. Like something that runs low and fast." Her purple eyes widened. "When I was a kit, something ran beside me and vanished. I never saw it. I only smelled it." Whisper's ears went forward. "You think what's on the ridge is the thing you lost." "I think my claws found it in the dark and didn't know it," she said. "I think that's why I stopped. Why I couldn't say." The truth sat between them, whole and ugly and out in the open. Raven had feared it would drive Whisper off. Instead he leaned his shoulder into hers. "Then we go up," he said, "and you look this time." Raven stood. The ridge waited above, wet stone and burned things and something alive. Now she knew what she had to find there. She had kept her promise. And she was not afraid to climb.