***

"Why did you ask how long ago I'd sensed you?" the Patriarch remembered, having shoved his ward's muzzle into the smoking carcass enough times to make the choice clear: either hunger or loathing of raw meat.

"I ran into a suspicious bunch not long ago, so I thought that you might have picked up on something interesting. If you had been watching me, that is."

"What was the bunch?" Selorn inquired.

Aniallu told him about the cat in the tree, and about the dark mages' secret lair that she had discovered as a result, neither of which the patriarch found particularly distressing. But as soon as his daughter mentioned the Question Candle and her misgivings concerning the stranger that had vanished into the portal, the Eale cocked his ears, turned to Aniallu and began probing her for details. Aniallu patiently retold the story, trying not to omit anything. The look of curiosity on Selorn's face gave way to bewilderment, and then to annoyance.

"I don't understand why you didn't get involved!" he eventually cracked. "Why didn't you get to the bottom of it? Were those old humans so powerful as to pose a threat for Alasais' Shadow?"

"No. Not a threat..." said Aniallu, wavering, choosing her words.

"What was the problem, then?"

"I don't know. Maybe I sensed that I may ruin something by exposing myself, or that focusing my attention on the humans would cause me to miss or fail to accomplish something more... significant."

"More significant?" Selorn was almost hissing. "And it doesn't bother you that someone may have turned one of the outsiders accepted into our clan, either with money or fear? Forcing the treacherous scum to steal those damned candles from our treasury?"

"They were stored here?" Aniallu arched her brows. "But why?"

"The council didn't allow me to destroy them," the patriarch grimaced, his tail lashing ones of his sides.

"Don't be angry," the sianae scratched at his shoulder gently, conciliatorily. "I'm just as worried about all this as you are. Let's not growl at each other, but brainstorm as to who that creature might have been. He was tall like an elf or even a dragon, so he couldn't have been Alae. Besides, his eyes weren't glowing... Wait! Didn't Matriarch Meori take a Darlaronean under her patronage recently? Enaor wouldn't stop whining for her to do it."

"It's not him" Selorn dismissed her with a wave. "Those two have been toiling over yet another invention since yesterday morning. After racking their brains for several months, they've finally moved on from theory to practice. And you know how Enaor's experiments usually end."

Aniallu pulled her head into her shoulders.

"I ordered him to put a magical barrier around his room to ensure nothing can get in or out. It's still active."

"Then let's keep thinking," Alu spread her arms.

"Certainly," Selorn nodded. "I've already dispatched Oddeye to check out that basement. Let's see what he finds out."

***

For a long while Selorn and Aniallu walked through the chambers of the Outer Castle, heading to its heart and the gigantic green glade of the Inner Courtyard.

Aniallu paused on the doorstep of one of the halls, as waves of another's sorrow came crashing over her. Before the sianae could trace their source, a door leaf creaked open in a dusk-covered wall section to her right, and some Eale slipped through the formed opening. He darted toward the stream flowing across the hall, scooped some water into a pitcher, and slipped out onto the street just as quickly and soundlessly. Selorn didn't seem to give the matter much thought, but Aniallu stopped and scanned the hall, wondering what might have been the reason for the "water carrier's" sudden disappearance. All seemed peaceful, aside from the water warbling and the tapestries decorating the walls fluttering ever so gently, as if from the breaths of Eale depicted on them.

But when Alu shifted her gaze to a cluster of statues, at the feet of which the stream began, a bright patch of heat betrayed one of them to be a living Alae female. She was kneeling by Alasais' statue, head resting on a hand that was leaning against the base. Warm currents had soaked her long sleeves, pulling them along, causing the translucent silk to spread over the rippled surface of the water. It was her sorrow that Aniallu had shared upon entering this hall.

"Is she like this often these days?" Aniallu whispered to Selorn, quickly deducing the cause of her grief, shared by all Alae.

"Too often. The world has changed," the patriarch's deep ringing voice echoed in her mind, "and for the worse. Everyone feels it, but many refuse to believe it."

"Selorn, I'm sure that this misunderstanding will be straightened out soon, and everyone will retu – " Alu began, but was interrupted by the patriarch's vicious mental growling.

"Return?! From the abode of Death?!"

"Exactly. Veindor is Death, not some mortal judge that could be easily mislead. And I don't believe that he could punish the innocent," said Aniallu, though with far less conviction than she would have liked. "He has never committed an injustice so grave as one you've just now suspected him of."

"And what's preventing him from forcing my cats into reincarnating as ignorant shepherd folk in some hinterland? In a body that wouldn't allow the gift to manifest? After all, it's a sure way to keep all those Cahnerali sheep safe from harm!"

"Veindor always chooses an incarnation suitable to the creature's soul. And it's never punitive. It is the cornerstone of the order which he serves. The path – "

"The path?! Are you seriously giving me this serpent balderdash?! Snap out of it!" Selorn snapped at her, and Aniallu recoiled in spite of herself. "By Her fangs, I swear I will get that Tanae goddess that steals from Alasais her priestesses and turns them into her own puppets! And in place of strings, imposing on them a bloated sense of compassion. Toward everybody and everything!"

Whenever the patriarch spoke of his daughter's eternal problem, which was fairly often, his rage was a thing to behold. His face became a mask of menace, as his ears pressed tightly to his head. Typically Aniallu paid no mind to it, but this time around she felt ill at ease. Her father's threats, aimed at Tialianna, were implausible at best, and yet she sensed that they weren't idle: his voice bore the resolve to make them a reality.

"Dad, I'm not exactly thrilled with my fate either. But Tiana doesn't act on a whim, so let's not make her into some kind of puppet master... or petty tyrant," Alu objected gently. "She serves the Infinite... The problem is with me. I am too... inblexible. Look at Etalianna. She's a sianae like me, but that doesn't seem to detract from her happiness," Aniallufn cited her sister as an example for probably the thousandth time.

And Selorn answered for the same thousandth time, almost spitting every individual word.

"Your precious Etalianna is too foolish to recognize the sorry truth of her situation, and the perverted nature of her actions."

"Maybe you're right... we are right, in a way," Alu sighed. "But retaliating against Tiana is madness. Without her the world would change beyond recognition, and who knows if there would even be a place for Aniallu, Selorn or Alasais. Don't forget about a far more dangerous enemy awaiting us southeast. A true enemy, and not an ally whose actions we may at times misunderstand. I doubt you want to make Lajnaen such a royal gift for the Thousand Candles Day, do you? Just imagine the Elaaneans'[1] jubilation at the thought that accord among the rest of the Nae is a thing of the past."

The patriarch was quiet, and Aniallu pressed on.

"Nor can we afford to war against Veindor..."

"What gives them the right to judge us!" Selorn's eyes flashed with fury. "It's as if they're gods, and we're some wretched mortals! Those silverskinned bastards, who are they to meddle in our affairs? Has it ever happened that one of ours was unjustly condemned while we stood idly by, claws retracted? The city has always stuck up for its own, rescuing them from prison or execution. And at any cost, too, even the blood of those who had condemned them! We cannot allow this rule to be broken or our lives will never be the same!"

It was Aniallu's turn to be silent. She understood the validity of the patriarch's arguments, but she also knew that hearkening to those arguments would almost certainly lead to trouble.

"Clearly, the serpent's venom that's been poisoning your soul for going on twenty centuries has eroded your vision to a point where you no longer see what's going on. We've been attacked, our brothers and sisters have been captured, and I'm not allowed a response?!"

"All that is true. But your brothers from the Great Forest haven't committed any crime. Sooner or later Veindor will come to that conclusion, if he hasn't already. He will not harm them, so there's nothing to rescue them from."

"Aniallu," for a moment Selorn looked old and weary, like a human that had lived a hundred years, "it's been two months. A favorable resolution is less than likely. We must summon all our strength and fight to liberate the captives."

"Not only would that be a senseless action, it might become our very downfall. If the Nae's children cease to exist, there's no telling what might happen to Enhiarg. I know what you're going through, father, I really do. But you are Alae, and you mustn't let your emotions be the ruin of your people, or yourself. You teach us what it means to be cats, so why are you forgetting your own teachings? We should be waiting, not gearing up for a journey, and I know that you feel it, too. So let us forget about all that, if only for today," implored Aniallu, wanting badly to lead the enraged patriarch out of this hall, and leave the Eale female by the statue alone with her grief. "We are powerless to change anything right now anyway."

Selorn didn't answer. Instead he gave his thick pitch-black mane a jerk, as if trying to shake out trash falling down from branches overhead, and headed silently for the exit.

***

After passing the latticed doors, Selorn and Aniallu emerged on a broad stairwell of heated stone. And Aniallu froze where she stood, riveted. The inner courtyard was illuminated by a thousand candles. Isles of honey fungus sprouted from tree trunks, hiding amid the leafage, as water lilies swayed gently on the ponds' greenish surface. The hedges were cut neatly into extended tabletops and lined with food and drink. There was music, laughter, singing and purring coming from every direction. The conclusion was as startling as it was obvious: the Eale of Al Emenayit, notorious adherents of Alae tradition, were celebrating the Thousand Candles Day, a foreign holiday, like all the other citizens of Briaellar.

"We could all use a bit of fun right now," Selorn explained, then added a cryptic and barely audible, "before the battle."

Aniallu nodded, recognizing the wisdom of the patriarch's decision. She could feel it, too: were the music to stop, the singing and the laughter to die down, it would be immediately replaced with a heavy, suffocating silence... Besides, were any of the Eale's wishes to come true, surely that couldn't hurt. Especially since the vast majority of them shared but one wish.

Alu shook off her boots at the entrance and followed behind the patriarch. The moss path tickled and massaged the soles of her feet, which had never fully grown accustomed to wearing shoes. It was a rare sight to see so many Eale gathered in one place, aside from few religious holidays. Rarer still was the long guest list of House an Al Emenayit, consisting of hundreds of cats of different breeds, as well as many non-Alae. There was even a dragon, reclining on the glade in a majestic crescent that blocked out the entire lower story of the closest building. He was still young (not to say little), and could thus easily fit in the courtyard. Somebody had stuck several candles on the dragon's back; their tiny yellow dots reflected off the black mirror-like surface of his scales, polished like the shoes of a capital city dandy, spraying flashes of light all over the masonry.

Myriad variegated Alaean eyes shone and squinted with rapture in a sea of candles. Their owners lounges on pillowed scattered all over, strolled and conversed, feasted on Elven delicacies and engaged in lighthearted shenanigans, danced or simply observed their tribesfolk from inside tree hollows and atop branches.

Aniallu responded to smiles and greetings as best she could while trying to not lose Selorn from view. She was astounded to see the Eale so far out of their element in organizing the celebration; the menu, the costumes, the music – every little detail had been deliberately, meticulously reproduced in an uncharacteristic display of respect for another, Elven, culture. It was as if, in their rage toward Veindor's dragons, it had suddenly dawned on the Eale that the other races weren't so bad, at least when compared to those scaly overgrown lizards, and it had become acceptable to adopt some of their customs.

Admittedly, the picture was periodically disrupted by somebody's claws puncturing the toe of a boot, or a skirt hiked up and torn along the seams, showing off the lean sinewy leg of a huntress. Or a lovely lady bowing her graceful, diadem-topped head... to lick meat juice off her fingers. Or a slick gentleman in a high-collared shirt and a vest with embroidered with fir boughs offering his date a canapé skewered on his own claw...

Out on the lawn, a pair of golden-eared, satin-skinned an Kamians flowed from one dance pas to another as a crowd of spectators watched, mesmerized. Not a false step was made, not the tiniest deviation from perfection allowed: every element of their outfits, from the knots of their laces to the patterns in their braids, every word and every gesture was impeccably executed. Were it not for their feline features, nobody would ever tell them apart from those whose masks they had elected to try on this night. Even the perfume they exuded was the perfect reproduction of the delicate aroma of the sun-kissed Elven skin.

"... And what did you think? There's a lot of science behind it, my friend. See, there's this wonderful thing called Cat's Essence," the speaker was somewhere to her left, his tone clearly inviting all who happened to be nearby to drink up the priceless pearls of his wisdom, "and she's got that in spades."

It didn't take Aniallu long to track down the philosopher with her eyes. He was Eale, and a bit clumsy like all young cats. Stretched out on a hedge, he swirled wine in his glass playfully and gazed downward at his friend sitting in the grass.

"I mean, her ears are a bit oversized for my taste, but she carries it well!" the youth concluded his monologue with the air of a true connoisseur of lady parts.

With that he dispatched into his mouth the greenish-gray shoot of alanae aka "catleaf" – the only plant that allowed the Alae to enter a state vaguely resembling intoxication. The herb was harmless, non-addictive and didn't affect kittens that might have otherwise gotten hooked on it.

Aniallu spread into a big smile at the sight of the young Eale. He sensed her looking. His dark skin concealed the sudden flush in his cheeks, but the sianae's heat-sensitive eyes saw it anyway. The boy shifted hastily into a panther, but the bright scarlet triangle of his nose kept shining into the night. The sight was so amusing that Aniallu turned away, unable to keep from laughing. She finally felt at home. "Oh Alasais, how I love everybody here!" she thought to herself as she surveyed the courtyard with delight... And nearly hiccupped with surprise.

"Tellyrien? What's he doing here?" she whispered to Selorn. The patriarch shrugged his answer.

The elf was renowned throughout Enhiarg not only as a wonderful singer and raconteur, but an ardent defender of nature, one of the few who had dared to openly condemn mages from Lindorg for poisoning the woods surrounding them with waste byproducts from their sorcerous activities.

"It will soon be five hundred years since the victory on Fire River," Tellyrien's own voice sounded in her head, as his deep gray eyes looked up at the sianae. "I wanted to compose a new song about those glorious days. And you're just the one I wanted to see to tell me about them."

Alu nodded.

Sitting next to Tellyrien (in a dress, no less!) was Irera, Selorn's second daughter, and accompanying the celebrated minstrel on a harp, one of the Alae's most beloved instruments. The Eale gave Aniallu a friendly smile.

"I need to speak with him," Selorn's voice reached the sianae.

With an ambiguous wave of the hand, the patriarch disappeared into the crowd. I suppose the audience is over, Alu shrugged to herself.

She climbed up on a boulder and looked around, estimating the quickest route to her chambers. Her eyes paused on an unusual staircase that led up into the crown of a branchy tree with golden leafage, growing alongside an Inner Castle wall and linking to it via a roofed gallery. It looked as if several panthers had hopped off its branches, one after the other, and were now frozen in midair, unbound by time. The cats hung in the air in a chain, each one connecting with its head to the tail of the one before it. The first panther was almost grounded, while the last was still pushing off a thick bough with powerful hind legs.

Aniallu made her way up the unusual steps, upholstered with shiny black hides; at the top she pushed aside a single branch and found herself inside a gazebo, hidden away inside the tree's luxuriant crown. The uninitiated guest might have easily mistaken the lolling Eale females for concubines of some affluent merchant, awaiting their shared lover. All were clad in dresses of a similar cut that concealed far less than they revealed; likewise identical were the amber pendants that adorned their high foreheads all the way to the charcoal brows. Some were engaged in conversation while their tales swayed languidly; others sipped on birch juice while observing the celebration through the golden veil of the leaves... However, this illusion of a seraglio wouldn't have lasted more than a couple of minutes, or until the guest would muster up the will to look up, tearing himself away from the visual feast of their flawless bodies.

A mysterious, otherworldly force that lived in those cats lent a terrifying beauty to their gentle faces and an almost menacing twinkle to their deep, penetrating eyes. They seemed to be in perpetual introspection, focusing on their inner sensations, as a mortal woman who had conceived from a god might freeze in anticipation of the miracle child stirring in her womb.

They were Anaeis, the Feelers, the Eale's greatest treasure. They were neither great magicians nor powerful telepaths, like some of the other cats of their breed. The Anaeis' talent was an altogether different one. In them, the gift of intuition, generously allocated to all Alae, was developed to extraordinary heights. Living in total harmony with the nature of their own souls, with their Cat's Spirit, they remained in equal accord with the Infinite. And, according to legend, he would occasionally impart to a select few his own innermost memories.

The Anaeis paid almost no mind to Aniallu. Aside from a few short nods, politely acknowledging her presence, it was as if she wasn't even there. Truth be told, she herself didn't want to be here any longer than absolutely necessary. The intent stares of those somber eyes never failed to give Aniallu the willies, and there was nothing she could do to shake it, always half-expecting one of them to pounce on her and tear her to shreds for improper treatment of her tel Alait, for splitting her allegiance between Alasais and Tialianna. But then, Alu wasn't the only one in whom the Anaeis unwittingly inspired trepidation, forcing them to count their sins. Indeed, rare was the creature that understood that their eyes shone not with suspicion or malice, but with power. Only this power was so enormous and unfathomable that even rarer was the creature that wasn't frightened by it.

Alu flinched when one of the Anaeis, tall and stately, got up to meet her. The Feeler's long straight hair was adorned with a wreath of dark silver and amber – a symbol of her especially powerful gift. She was Matriarch Meori, Selorn's joint ruler.

"You have chosen the right path," the Feeler's soft, coarse voice sounded in Alu's consciousness; it seemed to flow outward from there, through her entire body, filling it with a peculiar shiver. "No matter what obstacles you may encounter, you must follow it to the end."

Tal sianae gave the Eale an incredulous look, but the latter had already sat back down in the same spot, and seemed to lose all interest in Aniallu, her entire demeanor indicating that the conversation was over. Alu knew that any attempt at getting clarification from the matriarch would be pointless. She had expressed to the sianae all that she herself knew, all that her own hypersensitive intuition had suggested.

_________________

[1] Elaaneans – "children of the Light." Created by Lajnaen the Nae. Infamous for their pridefulness and cruelty toward all who "cast a shadow." Known to despise Daoreans, and dislike the Alae.