The clearing Katherine had pointed out was nothing special, but it worked. There was space between the trees, the ground was retively clear, and a few fallen logs formed a kind of natural border that at least cut the wind a little.

  Kai set the rolled-up hides down beside a thick root and gave the pce one st look before nodding.

  “It’s fine. We’re staying here,” Kai said as he leaned the sword against a trunk and crouched beside a pile of dry leaves.

  Katherine moved her ears forward and set the bag of supplies on the ground. “I’ll go get thicker branches,” she said while looking around carefully. Then she crouched for a moment to move a few stones aside with her hand. “If we make the campfire here, the fire won’t spread as much.”

  Sira dropped the hides she was carrying and flexed one shoulder with a small grimace. “How exciting. Our first family campsite,” she murmured as she pced a hand on her hip and looked over the clearing with exaggerated drama.

  Kai snorted through his nose and kept gathering dry leaves, bark, and twigs. It did not take long to find enough material. The forest was full of dead things useful for burning. Even so, he did not stop paying attention to the surroundings.

  The night in that pce did not seem like the kind of night you could afford to ignore. There were too many small sounds.

  Katherine came back carrying an armful of dry branches and several thicker pieces of wood. She dropped them beside Kai and then knelt next to him to help arrange them. “If we leave space underneath, it’ll catch better,” she said while pcing two snted branches like a small structure.

  Sira appeared a few seconds ter with less firewood than Katherine, though she made up for it by bringing a hollow log that would probably help keep the embers going longer.

  “I brought something important,” she said with a sly smile as she set the log on the ground. “Unlike certain people, I think long-term.”

  Katherine did not even look at her. “You brought less,” she replied while continuing to arrange the base of the fire.

  “I brought quality,” Sira shot back, lifting her chin slightly.

  Kai watched the two of them for a second and then picked up a dry stone. He still had the improvised flint they had used before in the vilge. It was not perfect, but it was enough. ‘I wish I had a fire skill.’

  He leaned over the dry leaves, focused his gaze, and began striking sparks with patience. The first attempt did not catch. The second released only a thin thread of smoke. On the third, a small orange light bit into the bark and began to grow slowly.

  Sira smiled immediately and crouched a little lower. “Now that’s something I like seeing,” she said while her ears tilted forward with almost childlike interest.

  Katherine carefully brought a thin branch closer and shielded the fme with both hands so the air would not kill it. “Don’t smother it,” she murmured without taking her eyes off the fire.

  Kai added twigs one by one until the small fme became a decent fire.

  The heat started pushing back the dampness in the air, and for the first time since the sun had fully gone down, the clearing felt a little less hostile.

  Kai slowly straightened up and looked at the skinned wolf carcasses they had left off to one side. “We’re going to use the meat,” he said as he picked up the sword again and walked toward one of the bodies.

  Sira moved her tail with satisfied slowness. “Finally a wise decision,” she said while barely licking her lips. “Those wolves smelled better than they fought.”

  Katherine made a small face and approached more cautiously. “If it’s cooked well, it should do,” she commented while examining the meat with a critical eye. “But not all of it. Some parts are too badly damaged.”

  Kai nodded. He cut several usable pieces with firm movements and separated them onto broad leaves they had gathered from the ground.

  It was not elegant work. It was not clean either. But hunger made the matter look pretty practical. Once he had enough meat, he improvised a few sharpened sticks and skewered several chunks.

  Sira was the first to sit near the fire, crossing her legs with an expression that bordered on happiness. The orange light gave her skin a different glow and drew soft shadows across her face.

  “It’s been a while since I ate something freshly hunted on the road,” she said while watching the meat with the attention of someone staring at treasure.

  Katherine sat on the other side, straighter, with her hands resting on her knees. She did not seem as enthusiastic, but not indifferent either. “I prefer the food from the vilge,” she admitted while her eyes followed the path of a spark rising into the air. “But this is better than eating roots.”

  Kai held one of the skewers over the fire and watched as the fat began to sizzle. The smell spread quickly. Roasting meat. Smoke. Dry wood. Old blood still lingering in the air. It was a strange mix, but a functional one.

  Very different from any normal dinner in his previous life. And even so, an uncomfortable part of him admitted there was something satisfying about that scene.

  ‘I’m cooking wolves in a forest with two catgirls,’ he thought as he turned the meat. ‘And the worst part is that it doesn’t even seem that absurd to me anymore.’

  Sira received the first piece as soon as Kai decided it was cooked enough. She took it with both hands and bit into it too quickly, letting out a small sound of pain from the heat.Even so, she smiled right away.

  “It’s really good,” she said with half-lidded eyes while blowing on the next bite. “Much better than the vilge’s dried meat.”

  Katherine waited a little longer before trying hers. She took a smaller bite, chewed slowly, and then lowered her gaze to the piece of meat. “It’s not bad,” she admitted after a few seconds. “It’s still wolf, but it’s not bad.”

  Sira let out a low ugh. “What an exciting compliment.”

  Kai kept his own portion in his hand for a moment before trying it. It was not amazing, but it was hot food, freshly made, and enough to take the edge off hunger. That was enough. He chewed in silence while watching the two of them through the fire.

  The flickering light made everything feel a little more intimate. Also more dangerous. Serious conversations in the dark carried a different kind of weight.

  He took advantage of the moment.

  “Katherine. Sira.” Kai slowly turned the remaining meat before lifting his gaze. “I want to know something.”

  Both of them looked at him at the same time.

  Sira tilted her head. “That sounds serious,” she said while resting an elbow on her thigh.

  Katherine stopped eating. Her ears moved slightly to the sides. “What is it?” she asked while her fingers tightened a little more around the skewer.

  Kai watched the campfire for a second before speaking. “I want to understand better what your race’s retionship with the humans in the city is like,” he finally said as he looked up at them. “We’re already heading there. And I don’t want to walk in without knowing where I’m stepping.”

  The air changed. It was subtle, but clear. Sira stopped smiling completely. Katherine lowered her ears a little. The fire kept crackling in the middle of the silence, as if it were suddenly taking up too much space between the three of them.

  Kai noticed it immediately. He had touched something sensitive. ‘Good,’ he thought while keeping his face still. ‘Then this really matters.’

  Katherine was the first to look away. She stared at the fire with forced attention, as if the color of the embers were more interesting than the question. “It’s not a good retionship,” she said after a few seconds while lightly wetting her lips. “It never really was.”

  Sira exhaled through her nose and set the empty skewer aside. Her expression remained calm, but there was nothing pyful left in it. “Before the city existed the way it does now, there were fights,” she said while lifting her gaze toward the darkness of the forest.

  “Not me. Not Katherine. Not most of the ones still alive in the vilge. That was in our parents’ time. Or their parents’.”

  Kai said nothing. He only watched her, letting her continue.

  Sira ran a hand slowly along her tail, as if she were putting her memories in order along with the fur. “Before, our people were more numerous,” she continued while the firelight cast half her face in shadow.“We didn’t live so scattered. There were bigger cns. More warriors. More territory. The forest was ours in many areas. We hunted, moved, raised vilges and then others. Not everything was connected, but we weren’t as broken as we are now either.”

  Katherine looked up for just a moment and then lowered her gaze again. She did not interrupt.

  Sira kept speaking, this time with less ornament in her voice. “Then more humans started arriving. At first there were few. Then bigger groups. They brought tools, better weapons, more people, more hunger for nd. Wherever they raised walls, they no longer wanted us nearby. Wherever they opened roads, they pushed us deeper into the forest.” She stopped for a second and barely frowned.“There were cshes. Ambushes. Hunts. Attacks from both sides. Sometimes over territory. Sometimes out of fear. Sometimes out of pure accumuted hatred.”

  Kai held her gaze. “And you lost?”

  Sira gave a brief, bitter smile. “Look around us, Master. What do you think?”

  Silence fell again for a second.

  Katherine tightened her jaw a little before speaking. “We didn’t disappear,” she said in a low, almost dry voice. “But we’re not what we used to be anymore. The cns became small. Some vilges were destroyed. Others fled deeper into the forest. Some still exist, but they barely have contact with each other.”

  Sira nodded slowly. “The city grew and we didn’t. And when one race grows while the other breaks into pieces, you already know how that ends.” She lowered her eyes to the fire and nudged a branch with the tip of her foot. “Now most avoid getting too close to humans. There is little trade. Less trust. And long memory.”

  Kai set the meat aside, already almost finished. He had not gotten all the details yet, but he already had something much more important about the retionship between Humans and Cat Girls, and if he was going to enter the city with Katherine and Sira by his side, that was not a minor detail.

  He looked at the fire a moment longer.

  ‘Good,’ he thought while the smoke rose between the branches. ‘Now at least I know this isn’t just forest against city. It’s something older.’

  The night kept closing in around the clearing, and the crackling of the campfire remained the only steady sound among everything else.