1
KIRALAU
Kira ran until her heart threatened to burst. She didn’t dare look back. She wouldn’t be able to see the trace cat anyway—it bent reality around itself in streaks of bleeding light. The beast’s footfalls thumped through the dying forest with a lion’s gait; it was probably an adult male.
And she was probably dead.
Kira plowed through a joyberry bush and ignored the stinging scratches across her shins. She cried a prayer that the noose of her big-game trap still lay in the same spot. And that it would actually work this time. The bait had never been so good.
She ducked under a gnarled oak branch and broke into the clearing, where the merciless sun beat down on starving grasses and decaying stumps. Energy surged through her, flinging her toward the young tree, pulled taut with her trap’s noose. As she leapt over the rope, she realized the sapling wouldn’t be strong enough to hold a trace cat of this size.
Water goddess, creator, elementals—whoever’s listening—help me! Kira grabbed for a throwing knife as she flew over the noose. But her leather sheath wasn’t in its place on her thigh.
Wood cracked and rope groaned. A high-pitched snarl pierced the forest, and Kira ran a stone’s throw before daring to turn on her heel.
The cat that writhed in mid-air was as large as her father’s prize bull. It shimmered in and out of existence like a firefly at dusk, with streaks radiating across its pale fur like a tiger that had lost its stripes. Fiery-orange eyes fixated on Kira with wild hunger.
Terror chilled her blood despite the midday heat. It was an adult male all right, and her trap wouldn’t hold the awkward grip on its shoulder any more than her mother’s nagging could keep her from Granny’s joyberry pie.
She turned and ran straight into umber skin and white cloth. Her brother pulled a lasso from his belt and glared at the trace cat with ice-blue eyes.
“Lee!” Kira stumbled back and nearly fell. “What are—”
“Back up!” Lee swung his rope, and Kira ducked, barely affording him enough room in the clearing to toss the rope. It circled around the trace cat’s neck and cinched tight. The beast floundered against it with a guttural growl.
Lee tossed the lasso’s slack over a tall branch. “Help me!”
Kira grabbed the rope and pulled just as her trap’s young tree snapped and splintered. The fibers burned against her palms as she yanked down and heard a strangled pop.
The forest quieted to nothing except her panting and the hesitant song of a distant bird.
She looked back at the beast. Its body lay still, pulled between her noose around its shoulder and Lee’s lasso around its neck. Light glistened along the length of its fur, which faded to a dull beige.
Lee dashed to the beast, drew his knife, and turned his back to Kira as he finished the job.
Kira’s fingers trembled but refused to let go of the rope. Whichever deity had heard her prayer clearly wanted her alive.
“Bleeding stars.” Lee wiped his blade on a rag as he straightened. “You ever seen one this big?”
“No.” Kira’s voice shriveled in her throat. “You might have saved my life.”
“Yeah, like that’s never happened before.” Lee winked over his shoulder, his bright eyes glinting in contrast with a dark smirk. “What the tails are you doin’ playin’ cat-and-mouse with a trace cat?”
Kira looked down at the empty spot on her thigh where her fanned sheath of throwing knives should have been. I’m never going anywhere without a weapon again. “It wasn’t on my agenda for the day.” Her bones creaked with resistance as she released the lasso, allowing the cat’s body to lie flat across crackling leaves. “How’d you know I was in trouble?”
Lee sheathed his knife and tossed the bloodied rag to the ground. “Your screechin’ was a little higher pitched than usual.”
Kira huffed and wished she was close enough to smack him, then reminded herself that he’d saved her life. And she had no desire to move nearer to the beast that had nearly made her its brunch. “You were at the edge of the forest already?”
“Yeah, I came to give you somethin’ to sell in town.” Lee wiped sweat from his brow and stomped into the spotted shade. “Though this cat’s pelt will make us ten times as much.”
Kira’s frantic mind calmed enough to wonder exactly how late she was for this week’s trade run to Navarro, and how Lee could possibly tan such a large hide without their mother or grandmother noticing. She clenched and unclenched her fists to stave off the trembling in her limbs, unable to tear her gaze from the body. “Since when have they come so close to the border?”
“Maybe since the drought got so bad.” Lee made a show of looking her up and down. “Must be pretty desperate to hunt a gangly thing like you, Frizz.”
This time he was close enough for her to hit him. “Don’t call me that! Just because you’re taller than me now doesn’t mean you’re older.”
“No, but I’m better-lookin’.” Lee dodged her strike with that devilish grin. “You get anything for dinner?”
“That cat stole everything my traps caught,” Kira grumbled. “Too bad we can’t eat carnivores.” Or maybe they could try. Desperate times called for desperate experiments in the smokehouse.
“So they’ve found a source of free food. Great.” Lee strode past her, sending a shower of dry pine needles to the earth as he pushed a branch aside. “You’ll have to stop trapping.”
“What? We just killed it!”
“Trace cats of this size tend to travel in pairs,” Lee said. “There’s probably a female nearby.”
Kira charged after him. “So I’ll trap her too. What would we eat without the rabbits and branch runners? We can’t slaughter another calf.”
“We will if we have to.” Sunlight brightened Lee’s dreadlocks as he stepped from the forest and into amber plains. “It’d be better than teachin’ trace cats there’s free food at the edge of our property. Next thing you know, they’d be leavin’ the Gnarled Wood to eat our livestock. Or us.” He gave her a meaningful look.
Kira scanned the rolling hills for any soul who might witness them crossing the border. She couldn’t just stop trapping. The mechanics, the thrill of the catch, the reward . . . they made life on a withering border ranch bearable. The more efficient her contraptions became—from the irrigation system in Granny’s garden to the pulley system in the barn—the easier life was for her family. Even if Mom would never admit it.
“I’ll just set up my traps deeper in the forest, then,” Kira said, ignoring the way her gut churned as the words left her mouth. She wiped clammy palms on her tunic and frowned at a new tear in the fabric.
Lee snorted as he approached his mangy, saddled buffalo, which nuzzled the dusty earth for anything to munch. “Yeah, ’cause Dad’s not gonna whip our rear ends bad enough already.”
Kira narrowed her eyes. “If you’ve told anyone I’ve been crossing the border—”
“’Course not.” Lee flipped a pouch on his buffalo’s saddlebag open and withdrew a stack of branch runner hides. “Think you can sell these discreetly enough in town?”