Emberwood There's a party and we're all going

To her question, Hirundo had no good answer. He stared down at his paws. Should he have looked?

He knew in his heart he should have tried to find the survivors. And he had, sort of, only he’d given up when the trail went cold. He’d given up, and now he was here. But what good could he have done, anyways? He would have led them right into an ambush, or into hunger and sickness. He was not his mother. (Or he might find an aunt or cousin and think himself safe, only to watch ivory teeth tear through her last scream.)

That was what he told himself. Yet guilt chewed at his insides.

If something took his life, it might claim yours too, he told her, ears drooping with concern. His voice did not sound like his own. But if you don’t look, will you regret it later?

Hirundo did not speak that awful question. No grieving heart needed that pain lumped on by someone else. (Unless it was his own, weak and foolish as it was.)