Lost Tales of Ga'Hoole

swooping, and playing on the thermals, he winged it home to the Brad. He felt his life was beginning anew and was full of wonderful possibilities. The wind was a caress, and the stars were not twinkling but smiling down on him.
    Back at the Brad, Braithe settled into his nest and drifted off into a deep, restful, dreamless sleep. Near the end of the day, at first dark he awoke to the odd sensation that he was being watched. There, just a wingspan from his nest, the scroom of Ezylryb coalesced out of the early evening fog that hung in the dell. The old owl seemed to stare at Braithe.
    You! Back again? Braithe exclaimed. I thought your work was done. But I am glad, so glad! I wanted to thank you. The thoughts tumbled from Braithe’s mind toward the old Whiskered Screech. The scroom seemed to churr in answer.
    Lil’s spots.
    Lil’s spots? Braithe repeated.
    Yes, Lil’s spots.
    The voice Braithe heard in his head was soft and slightly melancholy, but in it Braithe also sensed contentment and relief. You have inherited her spots, Ezylryb went on. Those mahogany and white spots on your wings … Mahogany and white, your da had the same spots on his wings. They came from his mother—my mate. Lil.
    Inherited? Braithe asked with his mind’s voice. I don’t understand.
    Nor did I, until I passed. I thought I had lost the egg, my last connection to my Lil, during the battle of the Ice Claws. But that egg hatched. And that chick survived.
    Braithe was puzzled. What had all of this to do with him? And why had Ezylryb spoken of inheritance? The scroom was beginning to fade before him.
    Wait! he called to Ezylryb with his mind.
    You say you know you come from Ambala, lad, but it’s a little more complicated than that. Our chick, mine and Lil’s, was not lost. Good-hearted owls found him, took him to Ambala, and raised him as their own. Ezylryb’s image seemed to solidify momentarily, and his chest to swell with pride. They named him Bo! He lived a good life as a good owl.
    Braithe tried to make sense of what he just heard. He stared at the scroom of Ezylryb in disbelief.
    How do you know all this?
    When I passed from this world it came to me little by little until I just knew. Then it was as if I had always known.
    Braithe understood, at last. But this means—
    Bo was my son, Ezylryb intoned in Braithe’s mind. And he was your father, so—
    You are my grandda!
    Indeed, the scroom answered softly. Now and forever…
    Then the scroom of Ezylryb faded and was gone.
    Braithe sat silent in his nest while the night grew full and dark around him. The scroom was truly gone, Braithe could feel it. And yet Ezylryb remained—in Braithe’s veins and sinews, in his gizzard and his heart. The young Greenowl of Ambala spread his wings and rose into the deep blue-emerald air of the Brad. He soared up, up, up into the open sky above its mighty heartwoods and set his course for the Great Ga’Hoole Tree. He had much to ask Soren about his grandfather.
    All of us who know Braithe have seen a deep and subtle change in him these last several moon cycles. His voice rings with a new lightness, there is fresh power and spring in the great sweep of his wings, and according to the young owls under his tutelage in the Brad, he never forgets any of the words in his stories anymore. I think, dear reader, we know the reason for this happy change!

SIX
Cleve’s Sorrow
    H ow does one begin to write about someone so…close . Literally! How does one write about someone who is reading at the other end of the hollow as my quill scribbles across this page. I speak, of course, of my dear Cleve. I want to tell you his tale, for I think it’s one worth telling, but I do not think I could do justice to it. I think, instead, I will ask Cleve to tell his own tale. It seems only fair, as he, too, is a great scholar and an accomplished writer.
    Cleve, dear, the page is yours. Tell your story as only you can.
    Why, I’m honored, Otuli—
    Wait! I will need to retain editing privileges, of course. All right, now, the page is yours.
    Thank you, Otulissa, I’m honored that you think so highly of my story and my—
    Please, Cleve, address the readers, we have to remember the readers here.
    Oh. Of course. I am Cleve of Firthmore. I hail from Firthmore Passage in the Tridents of the Northern Kingdoms. I am a student of the healing arts, who has spent many seasons cloistered at the Glauxian retreat on the island in the Bitter Sea. I came to the Great Ga’Hoole