Chapter One CHAPTER ONE
Catclaw knew something was wrong the moment he landed on the branch of the Rowan. He felt it like a stab of cold through his abdomen, an electric shudder that ran down the length of his soft, tatty wings. So like any mothling would, he checked around for predators: nightbirds and bats—especially bats, so deadly and swift. Really, it could be anything. Since the Warmwind, creatures—and even plants—had changed, mutated. Moths themselves had evolved in subtle, sometimes surprising ways. They had developed their gifts, for starters—and it wasn’t unusual for them to live up to twelve moonturns now. Sometimes more, like Master Saturna, who was well into his thirteenth moonturn.
Terrifying new creatures had appeared too: woken from hibernation deep underground or risen out of marshes. Creatures like the Bluetails: the stuff of nightmares.
But the night was clear and silent and empty, the Dream Moon was round and buttery and low, and only the distant scent of woodsmoke drifting over from the Greylands far beyond the forest stirred Catclaw’s senses. He’d left the reassuring warmth and (annoying, but familiar) chatter of the other moths way below him. Up here he could feel the cold—and the stillness of the world—more keenly.
Pushing down his unease, Catclaw fluttered out toward the tip of the branch where Master Saturna usually sat. His stomach was growling like an angry badger now. He hoped the others wouldn’t get so bored waiting for Master Saturna to give his customary speech that they would give up on tradition altogether and start on that delicious food without them both. The thought made him hurry forward.
Catclaw pushed aside a big leaf with all four arms. “M-Master Saturna?” he called. “The Dream Feast is ready to start. Everyone’s waiting.”
Maybe the problem was that Master Saturna didn’t think everyone waiting for him was all that important anymore, Catclaw thought. Their clan had been hundreds strong back when they were Dreamkins, but now many had drifted into the lone-way. All of Catclaw’s relatives had gone the lone-way already or been killed—both of his brave parents were caught by bats while out gathering food for the clan’s stores. Now there were less than a hundred former Dreamkins left… But surely that wasn’t it. Master Saturna took care in knitting these last few moths together, just as he always had. Anyone could see that.
“Master Saturna? Are you there?”
No answer. Catclaw’s voice sounded squeaky and small under the weight of all that silence. The feeling that something wasn’t right bit down again, hard. Suddenly, Catclaw found himself wondering what would happen to the last of them if Master Saturna were to… if he were gone. And before he could stop it, an image flashed through his mind of Master Saturna: the old emerald-colored moth, lying at the end of his branch underneath his beloved stars—still and pale and lifeless.
Catclaw shook himself. He hadn’t conjured up the image on purpose. It had just appeared in his head like a lightning flash. But that was impossible. No member of his clan had had a premonition in generations. The image lingered in his mind’s eye as if seared into it. He hesitated as coldness clenched his insides. Everything in him wanted to turn and flee. But how could he go back to the others now, without their leader? Without doing the one job he was sent out to do? And all because he’d been scared by his own imagination.
Catclaw drew his little wings around himself to drive out the chill he felt and forced himself onward. He wouldn’t let this be another mishap.
“Master Saturna?” Catclaw’s voice came out in a whisper as he neared the end of the branch. And as he pushed through the last cluster of leaves, Master Saturna’s favorite sitting place finally came into view.
At first Catclaw could make out little more than shapes in the moonlight. Then, slowly, his eyes made sense of what he was seeing. There was old Master Saturna—their leader, and Catclaw’s only friend. He was wrapped in his own wings like a new bud, as still and as silent as the night.
“Master Saturna!” No. No.
Catclaw rushed over and then froze. He breathed in the silence and stared into the wise old eyes of his clan’s leader that still, somehow, seemed to be stargazing. It felt as though, if Catclaw waited here long enough, Master Saturna would come back… though deep down he knew it couldn’t happen. But even that wasn’t what bothered Catclaw most. It was that Master Saturna looked just as he’d imagined him moments before.
It was too much.
Now that he took in his old friend’s surroundings, he could see that a scruffy book lay next to him, open in the middle and face down. Nearby lay Master Saturna’s leaf quill. There were splashes of berry ink from an overturned cup, more ink pooled on the branch. Master Saturna had always taken pride in his favorite sitting place. The least Catclaw could do was tidy up a bit: give Master Saturna some dignity when the others came. So, Catclaw reached for the book. It was not one he’d ever seen Master Saturna reading. That was strange. Now that he looked closer, he could see that it was a diary of some kind. He turned it over.
The page was covered in scrawls, a chaos of words and sentences overlapping and intermingling. But written in Master Saturna’s own handwriting were two words that stood out.
CATCLAW. TRAITOR.
