“I see you’ve discovered Libena and Ziben.”

Kyra whipped around to see Pashla standing a few paces away. The two kittens stopped wrestling.

The woman smiled and knelt in front of the little ones. She spoke to them at length, looking back at Kyra from time to time as if she were talking about her. Pashla ran her hand affectionately down their backs before sending them off to play.

“You have something in common with them,” Pashla told Kyra. “They spent their early years without a clan, as did I.”

“They did?”

“Our people lead a warlike existence. It is not uncommon for cubs to be left without a family. Most of the time, other clan members take them in. But sometimes they end up alone.”

“Who raised them? Humans?”

Pashla shook her head. “No, they’re pureblood. While you spent your early years as a human. Libena, Ziben, and I spent ours as cats.”

On one hand, the idea of growing up as a cat stretched the limits of Kyra’s imagination. On the other, the story felt familiar. The two kittens were playing a game now, something requiring the involuntary participation of an unlucky insect. They might have fur and sharp claws, but their play wasn’t that much different from the orphans back at Forge. She wondered if Idalee and Lettie had recovered from the fire, and how they were getting along with both her and Bella gone.

“Do you remember what it was like?” she asked Pashla.

Pashla exhaled slowly. “It was a long time ago, but I do have some memories. I remember my mother. I remember being carried around by the scruff of my neck, huddling under her belly with my littermates. It’s not uncommon for mothers to stay in cat form with their children when they’re younger. The mothering instincts, like all other instincts, come stronger in our fur.”

Kyra felt a touch of envy. She had nothing like those memories. “And then what happened?”

“I don’t know.” Pashla’s voice was suddenly sad, although it must have been decades since those early years. “She sometimes left us, I assume to go hunting. If she was with a clan, we never saw the others. One day she didn’t come back. By then, my littermates and I had grown enough to fend for ourselves, although we didn’t know enough to stay together. We drifted apart. I hunted small animals and kept myself from starving. When you don’t have language or reason, you think differently. When I was hungry, I knew to hunt, and when I was tired, I slept. Sometimes I was scared, or lonely, or angry, but I didn’t know what it meant. I made no plans. I just existed. In the same way, my memories are different. I have images and impressions, but nothing like the memories I have of later.”