Trixie Longclaw's Arc

Chapter 7 of 13

Trixie returned to the hollow at dusk, jaw still tight from the morning's silence between them. She meant to walk the ground again, alone, and make it answer to her paws. But the wind carried something wrong before she reached the oak — a sharp musk, fresh, not hers. A stripped sapling stood near the entrance, scratched and reeking. Pale fur clung to its bark. Beyond it, tucked into the roots, sat a small shelter of stacked logs and down feathers, the bedding still warm. The rival had not just visited. They had moved in. Trixie's claws dug deep into the dirt. She climbed down into the hollow. The old bedding had been turned. Her scent was buried under a stranger's. On the flat stone where the star-shard rested, a single pale tuft had been left like a signature. She came back up shaking. Celeste was already there, sitting at the tree line, a folded square of weathered hide between her paws — a map, its ink faded, the hollow circled in a hand long dead. "I've had this since before you crossed the bridge," Celeste said. "You should have it now." Trixie stared at the map, then at the scent post, then at the small cat who had waited too long to speak. "You knew they'd come here." "I knew someone would. I didn't know when." Trixie took the map in her teeth. The hollow was hers in name. The rival slept in it tonight. "Then we hunt them out," she said. "Together. And after that, you and I are done sitting as equals."