Guardians of Ga'Hoole 14 - Exile

talented young Barn Owl, had illustrated them with quill ink drawings. Pelli noticed that Bell was the only one of her three daughters who had not demanded another. She turned her head to look at the young owl who was feigning sleep, and wondered.
    I love them, too , Bell was thinking. So much, especially the parts about the wolves of the Beyond. But what would the Striga think? That’s what the Striga said they should ask when they were in doubt. They should hold their blue feather close and ask, “What would the Striga think?” But she couldn’t reach for her blue feather because then they would know she was not asleep. Oh, what to do? Does it really hurt me to listen to this? she wondered. “All right,” she heard her mum say. “One more…”
    Her mother’s voice threaded through the milky light that washed into the hollow as the sun rose.
    “‘In the strange, distant region known as Beyond the Beyond with its clans of dire wolves was one wolf by the name of Fengo, who became a good and great friend of Grank the first collier’…”
    By the time their mother finished the story, the young owlets of Pelli and Soren were fast asleep. Pelli retreated to her corner of the hollow and took up a book she had been reading. It was about King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table. Much as Pelli loved the story, she could not concentrate on it. She was worried about Coryn. Since the Band left, he ate alone in his hollow and she had seen him haunting the emptiest branches, gazing into the night sky as if looking for answers. And he was growing thinner. He seemed almost crippled by melancholy. The Others called this condition melancholia, which was far beyondwhat owls called the gollymopes. Coryn took no joy from life. How could he feel this way here in this magnificent tree on this little piece of Glaux-given earth in the middle of the Hoolemere Sea? Pelli hopped over to the port of the hollow and peered out. Through the shimmering strands of the copper-rose milkberry vines, the daytime world seemed to glow, and beyond the vines she could see patches of the Hoolemere Sea sparkling like jewels. She looked down at the book of legends, which she had left open. There was a magnificent picture of a dire wolf glimmering in a pool of moonlight. That was art, not some proof of vanity. How could Coryn see only sadness and vanity in such a world?
    At the same hour of the day that Pelli contemplated the melancholy of Coryn, the young king was alone in his hollow staring fixedly at the spot where the Ember of Hoole had once sat in its teardrop-shaped iron case. It had been so dangerous, having the ember in his hollow. Merely being in the presence of its radiance had made Coryn think strange things. Coryn feared his own vulnerability to the radiance of the ember and often felt unequal to its power. The Band and those close to Coryn had noticed his moodiness around it. Their concern hadprompted Otulissa to suggest removing the ember to the ordinary coal pits in Bubo’s forge. There, surrounded by other embers, it seemed to be insulated and less able to disturb the owls around it. The whereabouts of the coal was a secret, a deep secret to all but Coryn, Otulissa, the Band, and Bubo, of course. It had been a wonderful solution.
    However, in the last few days, the Striga had been pressing Coryn for information about the ember. He had not asked for it directly but he had been very disappointed that Coryn had not been more forthcoming with information.
    “I sense,” he had said that morning as he visited Coryn in his hollow, “that you are holding something back.” Coryn had not replied. “Coryn,” he persisted, “there should be no secrets between us.”
    “Yes, I know,” Coryn had said, but did not look straight into those pale eyes from which a stream of weak yellow light flowed. “I feel terrible,” Coryn added. But the Striga said nothing. His silence, which seemed to stretch endlessly, made Coryn feel even worse.
    Finally, the Striga spoke. “I shall depart this evening on a contemplative journey.”
    “A scouring one?” Coryn asked.
    “Yes, there will be some of that, because it is only when I tear out my own feathers that I can hope to understand this strange impasse at which you and I have arrived.”
    Coryn felt a deep ache in his gizzard. He groaned. “No,” he whispered.
    “Coryn,” the Striga said patiently. “This will give us both time to reflect. I have failed you in some way. Perhaps away