Raven's Return - Ruby Dixon Page 0,12

and like. I can't help it if I know more Rihanna than Simon and Garfunkel."

"I like your songs," I say stubbornly.

Her smile in response is as warm and sweet as fruit from the island.

"Tell me who it was," I say. "I will talk to them. I do not like that they hurt your feelings."

She shakes her head. "It's not important. And it wasn't meant for me to hear, so I think it was just…spouting off, you know? Just letting off some steam. I don't think she would ever say it to my face."

"But it still hurt you."

Silence. Then, a shrug. "I guess because sometimes I feel like music is all I have to offer. I'm not skilled at anything that translates here. I'm—" She pauses for a moment and then stops herself. "—different," she finally says.

"I do not belong either," I confess. My failure to complete the proving is a secret that Shadow Cat has kept all this time, because I'rec does not wish for us to look weak in front of the other clans. I am keenly aware of it, though.

"Well, I think you're pretty great," R'ven tells me in a soft voice. She nudges me. "I think Steph thinks you are, too. I've noticed her looking at you."

S'teph? I wish for R'ven to notice me, not another female. S'teph is nice, I think, with bouncy curves and an understanding smile…but she is not R'ven. "I…have my eyes set upon another."

"Oh," she says, very softly.

I suspect we both know who it is, and my neck gets hot again. I stare up at the sky like she does, at the stars that are out tonight, and the pale moonlight cast down by both the Big and Little Moons. R'ven seems very interested in the sky, and I am very interested in changing the subject before she asks me more about what I meant. I clear my throat. "Why are you staring at the stars?"

She chuckles. "Oh. I dunno. They're supposed to have pictures in them. Constellations. But I don't see anything. I think I'm too big of a dummy."

Dumb? R'ven? With her clever songs and the way she always keeps a steady beat? Impossible. I gaze up at the stars, trying to see pictures in them, and all I see are…stars. Specks of light in the sky. "I do not see them either. Perhaps we are both big dumb."

Her laughter spills out across the beach, and the heat in my neck spreads to other parts of my body. Hearing her laugh like this makes me feel…good. Very good. She lightly bats at my arm in a teasing manner. "You're just saying that to make me feel better."

"I am not," I promise. "I see nothing but…a spray of lights in the sky, like the moons have sneezed and sprayed everywhere."

R'ven giggles harder. "That is the least romantic way I have ever heard the stars described, ever." Her laughter dies, and she gives a little sigh. "Thanks for keeping me company, U'dron."

"Always," I say, and I mean it.

Tonight, I would ask R'ven to look at the stars with me, I think. It is clear and bright out, a good night…if she were not missing. Looking at the stars has always been something we did together after that first night. Whenever I was feeling lonely or out of sorts, I would tell the others I was going to look at stars, and R'ven would inevitably join me. It was the same for her—if she separated herself from the group, I would join her and we would watch the stars together and just talk about how we saw no pictures in them, no matter what the others said.

It was something we shared, something that was ours.

And that is why I will find her again. Because I know R'ven better than anyone else, and I know she would want to be found. She does not leave the others because she truly wishes to be left alone; she separates herself because she feels unwanted.

If she finds out they have stopped looking for her, she will truly feel unwanted. I will not let her be hurt that way, so I will find her. I spend too much precious time sloshing through half-filled caves of water, but there is no sign of R'ven, no scent clinging to the walls. It would have been washed away. I head out to the shore and decide to swim south, following the cliffs. With my knife between my teeth and my body