Chapter 3

I awoke in the dark.

At first I didn’t even know if I was awake, it was so pressing. I started to panic, trembling uncontrollably and barely able to breathe, so convinced that I was dead. Then I realized—I was not dead, but my eyes simply refused to open out of pure exhaustion. It was the comfortable weight of several blankets and the soreness of my split lip and the ache of what I assumed was my busted nose that reassured me I was still among the living.

Movement at the edge of my vision drew my attention, but I immediately regretted it with a sudden throb from my nose. A huge paw gently pushed on my shoulder and I lay down from the sitting position I didn’t remember getting into.

“Shh. Don’t worry. You’re safe here. No creature would dare come here. What’s your name?”

“Dank you. By dabe is Shab.”

“Shab?”

“By dose! Shab. By nabe is Shab!”

“Oh, your name is…Sham? What kind of a name is that?”

“Ask by buther.”

“Hmm…well, try to rest. You don’t have to worry here. Sleep easy.”

I breathed. The potency of those words was immediate as it soothed my reeling mind and battered soul. My mind closed off and I was cast into the world of dreams.

I am unsure of how much time passed as I lay there, almost believing this was some delusion my dying mind had concocted. I did not understand how I could’ve subsisted so long on basically nothing and still drag my carcass around, when now I could barely lift my eyes to see around me. It was a sort of helpless blissfulness that I wasn’t completely at ease with. So when I realized I was in this state, I would fight my way out of it only to be soothed and become numb again.

During most of those ventures I’d be given a mouthful of broth. The explosion of flavor and heat sent my mind reeling with the suddenness of it all. When my life had been dark and tiring and cold for so long, I had trouble adjusting to this warmth and brightness and restfulness. After the countless time I jolted awake and the countless time I was soothed, my caretaker finally said, “Be at ease. I will protect you. You can relax.”

It was hardly different from what he said the last time I talked to him, but it got me past the block in my mind. I had been clinging. I had been clinging to the past to sate my desire to survive. Back then I had known that if I did not keep half of my faculties alert I could die. And so I never was fully rested since the night Faris bit through my arm and lamed me for three months. Alongside my mother’s death, I never forgot that lesson.

So it was with some surprise that I realized I was awake one afternoon. Unlike my fits, I woke very slowly, taking my time to understand all that I was feeling. First thing I remember feeling was the softness of the blankets and the sturdiness of the ground. The next thing I became conscious of was the space around me and the air currents moving around my whiskers, and then I could feel the shallowness of my own breathing and the slow, punctuating beats of my heart. After a moment of feeling everything, I took a bigger swallow of air and felt my chest expand almost painfully due to the stiffness of my body.

Shaking my head of the last tendrils of sleep, I was finally able to see where I was. It seemed to have been carved for the den of another beast, but it was clear that large animal had deserted it, if the scattered items were any indication. A few rays of sunshine slanted through the cave opening, just missing the edge of my blankets, but otherwise a gray light illuminated everything else.

Aside from a small fire within a ring of stones, my old clothes piled against one side, some other blankets, a knife near the fire, an iron pot, a plugged, leather canteen, and slabs of stone that seemed to serve as plates, the creature who saved me was nowhere to be found. As I crawled out of bed—still weakened and sore—I speculated over the identity of the creature. Was it the silver cheetah I remember standing over my sister’s body, or something else? Of the vague recollections after I had never been able to distinguish any features in the mish mash of memories.

Stretching my rangy body, I cautiously stepped toward the entrance, stopping only to touch my nose gingerly and found it only ached minimally, and stuck my head out to see where I might be. The first thing I noticed were the trees: they towered hundreds of feet above my head, and through the thick foliage I caught winks of sunlight doing its best to penetrate the thick cover.

I knew that I was somewhere within the Raskoan forest, just outside the race track, but I’d never ventured into it alone. Bringing my heard around I stared down at myself. The blood in my limbs surged more strongly, giving them life and freedom to move, but the few mouthfuls of broth had done little to fill out my frame, and I doubted I’d last longer than a day if I left now.

Yes, I considered leaving. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be around when the creature came back. Superstition ran deep in this forest and the stories of creatures stealing cubs and slaughtering the most valiant of creatures ran rampant along the backstretch. I shivered at the images that crossed my mind and in my skittishness I started out into the forest.

I managed one stride before a heavy blow sent me to my forelegs, muddling my senses. Shaking my head, I rolled my eyes upward and met the oddest colored eyes I had ever seen in a cat. Bright orange. Blinking rapidly to focus better, I was able to see they belonged to a huge and sturdy silver cheetah. A warrior. Even stranger than the eyes was the fact that I did not feel any fear, but a strange excitement that coursed through my body. I think it was the lack of open hostility, even in his eyes, replaced by a stern kindness that made me feel I could trust him.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“I’m not sure. I thought you might eat me.”

A smile pulled at his lips and he said, “Folk tales tend to stretch the truth of things, but even so the Raskoan is a dangerous place. You’re safe with me.” He gave me no more room to object as he bent down and nudged me pointedly toward the belly of the cave. Still, I hesitated.

“Thank you for your help, but I’m fine now. I can go.”

“You won’t go anywhere so long as I deem you unfit. Now go.” This time he stood back on his hind legs, bent down and picked me up with his paws, realizing that I could not be coerced.

“No, I’m fine. If I’m unfit then I have been my whole life. I’m used to it and I don’t expect it to change.”

That smile suddenly vanished and he was at once quietly angry and somber. This change in demeanor caused me to shrink in his arms as he ducked down to enter. “Just because it’s all you know doesn’t mean you shouldn’t deny my offer.”

I shook my head in resignation and slight exasperation. “Just let me alone! I’m of no use. Let me die.”

He abruptly dumped me on the blanket, which made my head rattle and as I waited for my swimming mind to settle I heard him angrily say, “So that’s how it is. Why are you still alive then? If you believed that you should’ve died by now. Clearly you don’t. So then why are you listening to them now?!”

I bowed my head in dismay. It had been my goal to prove my mother wrong about me. To prove wrong all the silver cats who thought I was useless, but I had gone without a win for three years. And then the racers had nearly killed me—something, I’m sure, they were spoiling to do. It seemed that despite my stubbornness they had been right all along.

“I did,” I said, “but that was before my failures were pointed out to me. I wasn’t meant to be a racer. I am a sham.”

He immediately began growling, which sent me back against the wall in surprise and my hair stood on the back of my neck in my complete fear. The big cat’s claws flexed as if he so desperately wanted to wrap them around my throat and tear it out. Instead of heeding his impulses he swung his head around and began pacing on all four paws.

As I watched him warily I began to notice subtle differences in his form that I hadn’t seen before. He appeared a warrior to me at first while he was walking on his back legs, but now I could see that his waist tapered to what resembled a running cat. I knew that warriors tended not to have such a lean form since they never ran quite like the racers did. Could it be…?

The frustrated cat halted when he saw my puzzled expression. Looking over himself, he then seemed to realize I had recognized his inheritance and started digging through the other pile of blankets. I leaned forward trying to see what he was doing when an orange cloth suddenly landed on my head. I pulled it off in irritation and when I did so I noticed the cut was similar to my own now shredded racing jacket.

“Y-you’re a racer.”

“Yes, I am the lowest of the low, but that never stopped me. And now, after nearly twenty-four years of starving, I am the fastest racer these tracks have ever seen. But you—you’re pathetic,” he said with a disgusted sneer and his eyes still narrowed in anger.

“Wait, are you…Starkren?” My heart was almost thumping painfully in my chest, and I’d started trembling with awe and the excitement of the revelations.

“Fands. Fands Starkren is my name and I am a half-breed. I’m sure I started worse than you, so stop your moaning,” he snapped, and then he lumbered out of the cave before I could collect my wits.

He ducked back in moments later with a sizeable carcass borne on his back, and then led it slide to the floor much in the same way he’d dumped me. Grabbing the knife he began cutting the meat of the young beast.

We sat in silence for quite some time. I stared morosely at his quick paws, but I had retreated into the back of my mind and was thinking of the next thing to say. My assumptions and his had started us on the wrong paw and I was intent on remedying the situation while I could. I had enough enemies from the pureblood that I didn’t need a half-breed mad at me either; especially when hearing his name had given me hope that I’d never felt before.

Finally I said, “Your life could possibly be worse than mine, but I will say I’ve likely had as terrible a life as you.”

“That’s doubtful,” he replied, seeming to have slipped back into a somber mood. “A pureblood’s life is considerably less harsh than a half-breed’s.”

“I’m flattered you think I am a pureblood.”

At my utterance of that he glanced up sharply and stopped his dicing of the meat. I blinked at his ignorance of my own heritage which I though was so obvious to everyone else. I continued looking at Fands with a peaceful expression as I watched him fumble for the words that seemed caught in his mouth. For a moment I was afraid that something was actually keeping him from speaking before he managed to say, “I-I’m sorry. I-I didn’t realize you were a-a half-breed. I mean, it seems obvious now after I saw that silver cat try to kill you, b-but even the poorest pureblood racers can get killed. I’ve seen it happen.”

I nodded. “Do you remember the first time I woke up and I spoke to you? You asked me what my name was and I was having trouble saying it because of my nose?”

“Yes,” he said with a sigh before returning back the meat he’d cut and carefully laid it into the iron pot.

“Well, my name is Sham and my mother named me so because she hated me.”

Fands slumped this time and he said, “I guess your life has been worse than mine. My mother at least cared for me, but we always went hungry because of it. Though she was a pureblood she was shunned for having a different attitude towards the warrior cats and just other creatures.”

“My mother didn’t share a different attitude.”

“Then why in Pailin’s name did she keep you?”

“She wanted to see me suffer,” I whispered. My head had come to rest on my paws and I averted my eyes to the cave floor. Once again I was mired in the misery of my life. Would I ever escape it?

“You’ll just have to prove her wrong, won’t you?”

My ears pricked and my eyes suddenly alighted. “What?”

He stared at me evenly and calmly, but that fire seemed to have reappeared in those eyes; how convenient it must be to have bright orange irises. He took a moment—I could see his eyes narrow subtly as if thinking his words, or something else, fully through. “I said you’ll just have to prove her wrong.”

“How might I do that? I’ve never won a race,” I said, becoming increasingly grumpy with his roundabout answers.

“Well, we don’t know if that’s your fault or not,” he said, having taken no heed of my irritation.

“How do you figure that? I’m responsible for me! Nothing could possibly keep me from winning,” I said in a flash of temper that I usually restrained. But still, Fands remained unperturbed.

“Yes, there is something that stands in your way: tarns.” I recoiled at this, but the weakness of my body ailed me and I finally understood. “How can you possibly run at your greatest potential if you can’t even eat one meal a day? It requires so much energy just to jog that I don’t understand how you can be alive.”

In the time we had been talking the meat in the pot had simmered to a tender and he reached in to grab a strip. I watched him slice them into smaller chunks with drool practically streaming from my mouth. I had never had anything prepared for me or very fresh. When my mother had brought home fresh kills, she’d only let me eat after her and my sister, so it wasn’t very warm either.

Fands looked up and tossed me a chunk.

I followed the arc of it with wide eyes before I coiled and snatched it out of midair, feeling the meat from between my teeth all the way to my stomach. Another chunk sailed my way and I was up before I could even think, and chomped on it eagerly as it immediately soothed the stomach pangs I’d suffered for so long.

“That’s enough for you,” Fands said and then, after cutting of a few more chunks, he began chewing on the rest of the strip. I stared at it with a mixture of longing and frustration, but he continued, “You won’t get anymore. As thin as you are you need to wait. You’ll make yourself sick if you continue. Sleep.”

I frowned deeply at him, but did not protest the issue when I started feeling lightheaded. Quickly settling myself on the blankets, I remained staring at him. After studying his casual actions I said, “What do you plan to do with me?”

“Train you! Surely you didn’t think I’d let you go off to starve again.”

“I wasn’t sure what to expect. You should know that if I’m a failure I cannot pay you.”

“You don’t need to pay me. Now go to sleep.”

“But what about the training?”

“Patience! You’re too weak to do anything. If you sleep you’ll recover faster.” I was about to protest again when he added, “I’ll be more inclined to start faster if you do as I say.”

I snorted in my annoyance, but I slipped under the blankets and curled up quietly. Of my last glimpse of him I could see a sly smile twisting his mouth and a measure of cruelness in his eyes that greatly unsettled me.