“What are you saying, Mida?” Caolan shakes his head, drawing away from his brother. “Stop making up stories.”

“I’m not! I can’t! I would do anything to make this only a story. But it’s not. Bearach’s gone. The Redcaps…” The catkin breaks off, gasping, unable to complete the sentence. And at this point, he no longer needs to.

EIGHTEEN

CAOLAN’S GONE GRANITE; HIS RIGID shoulders spell out his disbelief. Croi fumbles, uncertain what to do or say. Diarmaid pulls his knees to his chest, rocking back and forth.

“Caolan.” Croi leans forward and, after hesitating, touches his shoulder. It isn’t to offer comfort, not exactly. She doesn’t know how to console someone. She simply needs to do something. Anything. Caolan recoils from her, losing his balance. He hits the cage bars hard, and the conveyance lurches once again. His eyes are wild. He looks destroyed. A sudden violence, a silent ruination.

Croi leaves Caolan to his pain and Diarmaid to his and retreats to a far corner of the cage. She cannot understand what it must feel like to lose someone that terribly. Actually, she doesn’t even know what it feels like to have someone to lose. Her heart cannot fathom the horror, though her mind understands the depths of the loss.

Time passes. An hour, maybe two or three or five. What does time matter anymore? Croi is surrounded by kin, but she has never felt as alone as she does right now in this full cage, on this dark road, with the damp smell of grief and her broken self.

The road continues in front, and on either side of the conveyance, the forest remains unchanged. This monotony is difficult to endure, but endure they must.

“Have the Redcaps eaten anyone else since?” Croi finally breaks the silence and asks the younger catkin, who raises a tear-wrecked face to her, baleful glare in place.

“Isn’t it enough that they took our brother?” he chokes out.

“For you it’s not enough; it’s too much. For them, it may be too little.” Croi glances at Caolan, wondering if he’ll ever be unbroken again. “They will need to eat again.”

Diarmaid swallows before answering. “I don’t know how long I’ve been asleep. They only woke us up when they took Bear.”

Croi stares at him, willing him to say more. Surprisingly, he does.

“After, they left us awake for three days… so they could watch us grieve, I think. We were in shock for the first few hours. We couldn’t understand it. The injury was too great. Then Aindriu started screaming. He screamed till he went hoarse. Orrin just went silent. Me? I cried. I’m useless. I was the one who made them come out to play, you know? I called Bear away from Mother. He didn’t want to join us, but I told him he needed to play with the big cats now. He was only seven. I killed him. I killed him. You see? I should be the one dead. Not Bear. Me.” His words crash into each other, slurring in their rush to get out, to be heard. As though confessing will vindicate him. He wants so badly to be told that everything will be all right. No one here will tell him that lie.