Guardians of Ga'Hoole 14 - Exile

Within Flames
    A s he left the lacemakers’ hollow, Coryn felt an urgent need to find that young Burrowing Owl who had tried to speak to him. That owl had something vitally important to tell me. I need to find him. But how? Where? Coryn went back to his hollow and looked deeply into the flames again. For too long he had ignored his gift of firesight.
    “Sir! Sir! Your Majesty.” Coryn heard an unfamiliar voice behind him. He turned and saw a Short-eared Owl enter his hollow.
    “Yes?”
    “Your Majesty, the Striga has suggested that I keep you company.”
    “As you wish,” Coryn said, “but do not speak to me,” and he turned his gaze back to the flames. The Short-eared Owl, who wore a blue feather tucked between his coverts, stood in the shadows, watching Coryn study the flames.
    No two flames were ever exactly alike and yet they all possessed the same structures. It was the central yellow curved plane of the flame that yielded the images.
    He blinked, then his eyes opened in wonder. There was a familiar shape, a space from his past. The cave in the canyonlands where he had experienced firesight for the first time! How ironic that this extraordinary gift had been revealed at the Marking ceremony in which his father’s bones had been burned! Coryn felt his gizzard quicken, his mind suddenly keen. Within the cave, other shapes began to take form, but the one that riveted his attention was a dearly known one—his friend, his only friend from that long time ago, Phillip, the Sooty Owl, the very owl his mother had murdered. The flames curled in, engulfing the image. The yellow plane quivered and grew longer, more slender. Another owl shape revealed. Unmistakable in its length and elegance. Kalo! She was perched on an immense fallen trunk. He knew that tree trunk because he had lived there as an outcast when he had fled the Pure Ones, years before. He tipped closer to the fire in his grate. Felt the warmth on his beak. These flames are telling me of my friends. Phillip is gone and…and… He blinked and looked deeper into the very gizzard of the fire. Something was burning within theflames. There were flames within the flames, another fire, and at its center was Kalo! But suddenly the shape that was Kalo dissolved into ashes and another took its place. A smaller owl. It was the young Burrowing Owl who tried to speak with Coryn. “My namesake! Coryn!”
    “Sir?” said the Short-eared Owl. “Your what?”
    “Namesake.” He said the word slowly. Coryn’s eyes widened into a seemingly vacant stare as he looked at the Short-eared Owl. The images of the fire were replaying in his mind’s eye, stirring the innermost part of his gizzard. He knew Kalo was in the Shadow Forest. She was safe, but not for long. Of this, he was sure. For now, the images yielded by the flames and the words of the Striga began to weave together into a diabolical design. So this is to be the great and special relinquishment ceremony that is to mark Balefire Night .
    It all came to Coryn in a single piece. Owls would be burned in the flames of Balefire Night. Of course, only a few owls knew what was planned, only those closest to the Striga. They were now hunting down the offenders to the way of perfect simplicity. And Kalo was not a simple owl. She loved to think, to read. He remembered her well. It all made perfect sense now that her brother had come to seek his help—help from the king whose name he bore.
    “Are you all right, sir? You look like you’ve seen a scroom.”
    “Perhaps I have,” Coryn replied quietly. He moved away from the fire and flew onto the perch near the portal.
    “Where are you going, sir?”
    Coryn thought quickly. He was going to the Shadow Forest, but he did not want this blue-feathered owl to know. So he replied almost casually, “To the spirit woods, of course.” He paused and blinked at the Short-eared Owl. “That is where scrooms can be found, you know.”
    Getting away was very easy for Coryn. The dawn was just breaking. The owls had been up past twixt time preparing the fires for Balefire Night, which would be set the coming night. They were so exhausted that most had not even gone to the dining hollow for breaklight but repaired immediately to their hollows for sleep. Coryn left his hollow and flew off into that dawn to save Kalo, sister of another owl named Coryn whom he had saved once before. This time he might save himself as well.
    “He what?” said the Striga, blinking his eyes rapidly.