We reported our finding to the others and left Himitsu, each of us returning to our separate housings upon entering Soule, being too late for us as a group to discuss anything, but as for Luna and I it was a lot to take in. The two of us laid awake in our beds, staring into the darkness.
“Why do you think mom or dad never told us?” I asked.
“Probably because they knew that if we knew, we'd go running all over the land trying to find that Seth guy. That would put us in danger, and our mom couldn't live with herself if we got hurt because of her,” Luna explained.
“I guess that would be reason enough,” I agreed with a sigh.
“The elders must've known too, and probably our village leader. In fact, I think all of the adults must have known.
“Most likely I suppose...”
“It makes me mad how everyone new, yet no one told us. Doesn't that make you angry too Lee?” Luna turned to look at me in the dark.
“...I don’t know...” I blinked up at the ceiling, in deep thought. “They did it to protect our safety....” I could say not much more, for all of my words were contained in my mind, trying to sort themselves. Luna saw that I trailed off into thought, so she carried on.
“Well, it'll be a long day tomorrow, so we should get some shut eye,” she said, rolling onto her side. After that, neither of us said anything, and we drifted off into dreamless sleep.
• • •
Another morning arose and everyone sat in our room. I was randomly flipping through our mother's diary, glum, as was Luna, but everyone else was serious.
“Its amazing how she- they- could keep a secret like that until their deaths,” Riku shook his head, the first to break the silence.
“Fifteen years is a long time to keep a secret,” Sieve added. We returned to silence for a few minutes.
“Do any of you know Seth Lowell?” Luna finally asked, hopefully shattering the silence for good.
“Here in Soule we don't keep tabs on anyone, neither humans nor cats. This is a place to escape them, not stalk them,” replied Riku.
“True. Speaking of cats, we still don’t know why they slaughtered our clan-mates and set our village on fire.”
“We can only find out by going into their city and asking them,” Sieve replied.
“No way,”Luna disagreed, “we step one foot into their city and we're all done for.”
“We could send in a spy to gather some information,” Sieve said.
“So who wants to play spy then?” asked Riku, immediately counting himself out.
“Not me, Luna replied.
“I’m no good at espionage,” Sieve said, also removing herself from the list.
“Well then what about-?” Luna said as she looked around for Nero, but he seemed to suddenly vanish. “Coward,” she cursed at him, disappointed that she couldn’t send him off to his possible doom. Everyone looked to me. I was still flipping through the diary, not noticing their stares until I glanced up.
“What?” I asked them, confused.
“Sieve?” Riku asked with a smile on his face.
“Yes?” she replied with that same smile.
“Get a camp set up just outside of the Nahai border so we can get our spy here ready.”
