Time ticks like water in a still cave. After a turn of events out of their control, the renegades have scattered with a promise to reunite in a year and a season. They are not the only ones who have disappeared from the South Forest. While hope blos...
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The rain strengthened into a downpour as day shifted back into night. The cavern lake shocked everyone awake as it lapped at their paws. They scrambled higher, feeling blindly through the darkness.
"We need to get out," said Wing.
Sethral, Whipper and Silversand skidded and clawed their way to the ceiling. Sethral found a weak spot and bulled through it. Rain pounded in. Silversand found fallen branches for Sethral and Whipper to drive into soil pockets in the cavern wall until the Coppertails could climb out.
The world outside was pitch black and more water than air. 'Find shelter!' tapped Jay on everyone's shoulders.
Wing tripped on something soft and spilled Whipper in the mud. He shouted for everyone to stop, then felt his way back. "Oh Shelha. Jay!"
It was a body. A Coppertail, by the feel of it.
'No collar,' tapped Whipper. Sethral could hardly feel his paws.
The creature was still limp. Wing dragged it onto his back and kept going.
They found shelter in a grove of trees almost as dense as the Darkwood. The rain was not gone beneath them, but it was less. Wing dropped his burden and swapped places with Jay. Ryatzi was dipping dangerously close to hypothermia and starting to lose consciousness. Wing made himself the center of a fur pile to warm the Saberel.
When the scare was past, Sethral left Wing and Silversand to groom Ryatzi and extracted herself. Whipper caught her before she reached Jay.
'What's up?' she tapped on his paw.
Whipper took a shaky breath. 'It's Dusk,' he tapped back. 'Don't tell the others yet. That Coppertal is Dusk and we can't tell if he's still alive.'
It took her several heartbeats to even be able to formulate words. 'You... can't tell?'
'If he has a heartbeat, it's too faint for Jay or I to find. Either he's barely alive, or he only just died. Or he's been dead for a while already.'
She couldn't wrap her head around this. Everything felt numb.
'Do you want to come see him?' tapped Whipper gently.
She said yes and Whipper took her to the Coppertail. Jay was curled around the Nightlock with his nose in his fur.
Sethral put her claw to Dusk's chest, then his paw, then pressed her fingers in the dip of his flank. She could not feel a heartbeat or breathing. She tried his other paw and found something rough. Dusk had a clean, straight scar across a vein on his foreleg. She had never seen that before.
