Guardians of Ga'Hoole 14 - Exile

a sliptween.”
    “Yes,” the Striga said coldly, and decided not to say more.
    “And aside from that, she is a very good creature. She is sensitive and loving and wise. All those things.”
    A vain slithering thing , the Striga thought, her music as useless as the baubles the awful tree singer, Madame Plonk, collects . But he said none of this. Instead, he affected a very mournful gaze and looked down at his talons.
    “You seem distressed, Striga,” Coryn said anxiously.
    “Does that matter to you?” the blue owl answered.
    “Of course it matters. We owe you so much.”
    “You owe me nothing, but I owe it to you to share what I have learned; to share my vision of a world that might end—will end—on the night of the Great Scouring. I have seen it, Coryn.”
    Coryn suddenly wilfed, growing as slender as the branch he perched on.
    “Let me tell you this, Coryn—you are your own worst enemy.”
    “How do you mean?” Coryn felt a sickening swirl in his gizzard. He thought he might yarp a very squishy half-digested pellet.
    “Don’t you see?” the Striga said.
    “See what?”
    “Hagsmire is real. You and I have both lived it. We both endured, survived, two very different kinds of hagsmire. I, in the Dragon Court, and you in the canyonlands as the hatchling of Nyra. You remember those times.”
    “How can I ever forget them?” Coryn had tried as ayoung innocent owl to be everything that his mother had ever wanted. But he had not realized her lies, the true depth of her sadism, or how far she would go. She had tried to force him to murder his best friend, Phillip, and then killed the young Sooty Owl herself.
    The Striga flew to the branch in the hollow where Coryn perched, so that his face was just inches away. He looked deep into Coryn’s shining black eyes and saw his own reflection. “Don’t you see? You and I share something. We have a bond, a bond like no other two owls.” His voice had become rough with a new intensity. “In my hagsmire, I had a vision, a vision of a hagsmire to come. But there can be a glaumora for us if we are ready. I was chosen to survive in order to show the world this vision. And so were you. Who else has lived through hagsmire? Look at me, Coryn, my feathers once would have nearly filled this hollow and trailed out the port. And now I stand before you nearly scoured. And yet I fly, fly without ornamentation, without the vain trappings and fripperies in which I once luxuriated. And feathers were just the beginning of my vanities.”
    A small light like the flame of a candle flickered in Coryn’s shining dark eyes. “We have shared something, haven’t we?” Coryn spoke with a deep intensity and the Striga nodded. The young king thought about hishagsmire—a harsh country, cut with rock canyons. There was not a tree, not a meadow, but that harshness was nothing compared to the cruelty of his mother and her insane ambitions to raise him to be as ruthless and cruel as she was. And then there was the Striga’s hagsmire—the resplendent palace where owls were so laden with feathers that they could hardly fly. Those foolish owls had become numb, without ambition for anything but their own pleasures. They had even mistaken that palace for glaumora, some said. All, that is, except for one owl, the Striga. Now that Coryn thought about it, the Striga’s achievements were staggering. Coryn had fled harshness and cruelty in a barren landscape, but the Striga had abandoned luxury beyond measure, beyond imagination. How had he done it? This was an owl to be listened to. His talk of vanities was not idle.
    “Tell me, Coryn.” The Striga’s voice had lost the intensity, the tautness, and agitation with which he had spoken moments before. His voice grew soft and had a lazy, almost casual tone. “Tell me about the ember.”

CHAPTER TEN
Skart!
    T here’s one, down there!” Twilight called out. “Finally!” Gylfie said. “Should I go for it, Digger?”
    “Let’s just see where it came from first.”
    For almost ten nights the Band had been in the southeastern part of the Shadow Forest pursuing their experiments for Otulissa. They had set out feather buoys to track the sources of the elusive feeder currents that Otulissa hypothesized were related to the River of Wind. So far, they had found none. Gylfie and Twilight flew into a low ground hover and focused on the tufts of feathery down that were slowly circulating inches above the ground. There was a green tag attached