Guardians of Ga'Hoole 09 - The First Collier

distracted. I can fly through pain. I shall fly through pain, for my kingdom, for my son, for owlkind. She flipped her head upward and felt her gizzard clench. Printed against the moon were the ragged shadows of three enormous hagsfiends. She was surrounded!
    Had I known what was happening at the same moment the chick was hatching, I am not sure what I would have done. Instead of hagsfiends, I was seeing a little miracle happening in front of my eyes. Every hatching is in some way a miracle, a miracle that is beyond any magic. But this one in particular seemed especially miraculous when one considered the short violent history of this little chick in its egg. As soon as the egg tooth pierced the shell, a crack began to creep across the surface of the egg. The egg then gave an enormous shudder. Theo and I were rapt with attention. There was a sharp cracking sound that went onfor several seconds and then, suddenly, the egg split wide open. We gasped as a featherless pale blob tumbled and flopped onto the down of the nest.
    Within those same seconds when the egg split, Siv was brought down to the ice of the firthkin. She stood in a pool of moonlight, still, with her scimitar raised.
    “You can’t be serious, milady,” Lord Arrin said, lighting several paces in front of her.
    “I am deadly serious. Stand back.”
    “My dear,” he began.
    “No ‘my dears,’” she shot back.
    “All right, milady. Save yourself, save your young’un. Join us. You can be my lady, my queen, the queen of the nachtmagen. And here is your court.” He swept a ragged wing toward the half-dozen hagsfiends who were now closing in on her.
    “Never.”
    “We can control everything through our magic. You have already proven yourself invincible in ways that have amazed us. Is that not right, Penryck?” They came closer.
    “That’s right, Lord Arrin,” said the foul hagsfiend, larger than the rest. He stared hard at Siv. “How ever did you escape the yellow fyngrot?”
    She ignored the question. They are trying to distract me, Siv thought. She was fully prepared at this moment to die.
    “Has the chick hatched?” Lord Arrin asked.
    She would not answer any questions. She was silent, silent as the night, and she stood in her silence as solid as the ice that covered the firthkin. She was completely undistractible. She could not be amazed. She was fearful of nothing except losing her son or revealing anything that might suggest that the egg was not with her, but with Grank. She knew at this moment that he had hatched. That he was alive. She and her chick might be leagues apart but they were in the same world. She felt a deeper connection with him than she had ever felt for anything before.
    Lucky I had plucked my own breast feathers for the schneddenfyrr. For this little chick, and it was a male, was as naked as could be. Not a tuft of fluff on him. He was a funny little creature with his big head and bulging eyes sealed shut. Though he could barely hold that very large head up, he tried to stagger to his feet but flopped down again. Then he looked up.
    “Welcome, Hoole,” I whispered gently, and he cocked his head as if he were really listening, even though he could not yet see me. “Welcome, little one.”
    And the wind stilled and the trees stopped creaking and the very stars in the sky stopped twinkling as if holding their breath. It was as if all the world knew that something fantastic, something magical, had just happened. A small owl of great consequence and great nobility had been born.
    Across the Bitter Sea, in a remote icebound firthkin, a lone Spotted Owl stood with her scimitar raised, prepared to fight to the death. She was not fearful in the least, for in her gizzard she knew that her chick had hatched, and a new life had begun.
    Call me Grank. I am an old owl now. What I have told is only the beginning of the story. My writing ends here, but the story goes on. It is time for others to take up the task, others who have lived through this strange period of magic and violence.

EPILOGUE
    S oren watched from his perch as Coryn finished reading the last page of the book. The young king closed the ancient tome and looked at Soren.
    “I think I know why he wanted us to read this,” Coryn said quietly.
    Soren felt his gizzard give a small twinge. “Why, dear boy, why?”
    “I think the ember is dangerous, very dangerous, and that is why I was destined to retrieve it before…” He hesitated. “Before my mother, Nyra,