Oaths are hard to keep, without exception. They are not mere promises, meant for today or tomorrow or maybe next moon. They are not fleeting and easily fulfilled. Instead, oaths are sworn for all time, and must be kept in order to ensure the flow of the universe. A broken oath one day may lead to chaos the next, and the course of history may crumble in response.

Oaths are hard to keep, but they must be kept. No matter what. Sometimes, it means watching the wrong side win, or losing loved ones to injustice. Or it means saving lives for their future roles, and witnessing something beautiful unfold. There is no way of knowing what an oath will bring until it has been upheld, and that is all that matters.

I chose this life. A second life, really. I crawled into StarClan, broken and beaten, the victim of a monster I should have never tried to outrun. Somehow, death had not eased my pain. I remember how long I hid in the grass, shivering as the moonlight washed over me, healing nothing. I remember wanting to die again. And I remember getting my second chance.

I swore to protect the oaths of the world, swore it before all of StarClan. I took up the rank of Oathkeeper, a role to be served for one hundred moons, at which point the next Oathkeeper would be chosen for duty. "You will train them for fifty moons, and then you will pass into the stars," they told me. One hundred and fifty moons to return to the living world. StarClan meant it for justice. I meant it for love. For family I left too soon, abandoned in their deepest grief. For friends left to fill the empty spaces at their side, seeking a face that is no longer there. I cannot visit them; it would upset the natural balance. But in between oaths, I can watch over them, guide their paws on safe paths. I am an Oathkeeper. I see past, present, future. I have a paw in all time, stretched beyond the horizons and then some, and I will do everything in my power to grant my loved ones long, happy lives.

But first, I must keep this oath.

Cinderfoot no longer offers his advice at every turn, reserving his sage wisdom only for reprimands or emergencies. During the last few moons of my apprenticeship under him, he has allowed me full control over the oath. This is a blessing in some cases, but a curse in others; tonight, it is certainly the latter.

Ahead of us, a queen crosses the river by way of an old, rotted log. The spray of the current makes the bark slick, and her rounded black belly does her balance no favors. Behind her, quivering in fear, is a whole litter of kits. They look old enough to be apprenticed, but not old enough to make the crossing alone, not with their young claws and their mother's heavy pregnancy. No one on the log is safe.

The river splashes up over the banks, pulling at my paws, and the sharp scent of fish scorches my nose. It does not come from the water, though, but from the oath. Each has a distinctive scent, growing stronger as they reach the point of fulfillment, and since this oath was made over a shared minnow, it thus smells of fish. I have smelled better oaths, but those oaths are often the easier ones, the ones which require the least work from me.

"Cinderfoot," I say, "the kits must survive."

"Which ones?" A test. He knows which ones will live today, which ones will not see tomorrow. And so do I.

I don't answer him, instead signaling that he ought to go behind the kits, where they still hesitate on the shore, watching their mother as she tries to demonstrate the safest way to make the crossing. With a nod, he slips into the river, paddling with sure, strong paws. No one will see him, if he so chooses, a luxury I do not yet have. I must complete my fifty moons of training, keeping oaths the hard way, while he can become a ghost to set the world at ease. I suspect StarClan makes us accountable this way. My name, my face, my decisions, all will be attached to this oath until the end of time. The hard choices will be mine.

Cinderfoot has told me these are the worst days, the hardest days. Running along the riverside, I am beginning to see why. The smell of minnows burns in my mouth and nose, ripe with too long spent in the heat, and my skin crawls. I know what I must do.

The queen is halfway across when Cinderfoot reaches the log. There, he rises from the water and stands atop it, untroubled by the current. It rushes through him, over him, proving him no more than a ghost, and he stares up at me, unreadable and waiting. His advice is absent yet again, but at least I can be certain that when the time is right, he will act.

A tree-length from the queen, I shout for her attention, never slowing. Her kits have tentatively begun to climb up the end of the log, mangling the soft bark in their claws. One falls, nearly at the top, and brings another down with it, an ill omen. Another crawls over the edge and wobbles as it stands. The queen is torn between me and her kit.

"Hurry!" I shout. I must pretend like I don't see the skinny form on the log, taking one trembling step at a time. It's the kits that make this oath so much harder to keep. "You have to hurry!"

"I can't! My kits, they're not across yet. I can't leave them. They need me!" Her long fur clings to her body, collecting the worst of the current as it licks upward again. If she were dry and safe, free from wild panic, she could be beautiful. Terror, though, makes the best of us ugly.

Before it happens, I see it. The log shudders and groans, lurching down down down until a wet crack lances through it. One end rolls violently, sliding into the current; it will be dashed to pieces in the waterfall ahead. The other end will slide in the muddy slope of the bank, but get stuck between two rocks, just jagged enough to hold it in place. This is what must happen to keep the oath.

And it does. I try to coax the queen across, offering her warmth and safety and another way to her kits, but she only retreats further into danger, refusing to cross without her kits. More than halfway across to begin with, she nearly makes it back to the midpoint when the log trembles exactly as it should. The rest, I see in slow motion. It splinters, soggy bark crumbling into the raging waters. The kits wail and shriek, their claws snagged in the shifting bridge, unable to release. The queen cries out, too, unable to find purchase.

Cinderfoot acts here. Only I can see him as he explodes out from beneath the log, and I hold my breath as he leaps up, farther than any mortal cat could. He lands at the edge of the break with his usual grace, sparing me a brief glance, and then he jumps, bringing the full force of his weight down. The log snaps clean in two. His end jolts, shifted by his weight and sliding directly into the rocks, where it remains. The other end crashes into the river, soaking the banks with a violent splash. I duck as a wave of silty, minnow-scented water slams into me, throwing me back from the riverside, and when I lift my head, I see the kits on the opposite bank, dripping wet and huddled together, their eyes wide in shock, their mother gone. As was always supposed to be, because their father swore an oath by his father's blood that he would raise them as his heirs, raise them to become the finest warriors his Clan has ever seen.

The skinny black one that was attempting his crossing dangles from Cinderfoot's mouth, eyes glazed with shock. He will not remember his savior, and perhaps he will not remember this moment at all. Or maybe he will. His father will raise him ruthlessly, darkening his heart, and when it comes to war with the other Clans, this kit will choose to lure his enemies to the river, where he can push them in. Drown them. He will be a monster.

There are two tortoiseshells on the bank. One will die tonight, claimed by cold. She stood too close to the river when the log came down and received the worst soaking. The other will die whole seasons later, claimed by natural causes: old age, a fine thing for a warrior to reach. The Clan will whisper that her brother's cruelty cut her short, though, and that she might have lived still longer.

The last kit is black and white, with his mother's long fur. He is beautiful in the same way I imagine she would have been, with round eyes and a petite nose, even though he wails loudest of them all. He will not follow in his father's footsteps. He will refuse to become the warrior that his father demands, and instead, he will make this crossing mere moons in the future, when he has more strength and courage in his bones. He will reach the other side, and he will run towards the moon, never stopping until he gets there. And the moon will greet him gladly, because the moon he chases, the home he seeks, it will be a tom with downy fur, silvered in the moonlight. They will be in love, happy in their peaceful existence, and in the season before he dies, the black-and-white tom will rescue a litter of kits abandoned by their mother on the same riverbank where he lost his. He will be there by chance, he thinks, though it is fate and nothing more, and he will carry them to his birth Clan for care, leaving them in the dead of night.

These cats will be the heirs his father never deserved. Adopted readily on account of their helplessness, they will grow hale, hearty, and old. One will have nine lives, and another will commune with StarClan every half-moon. Their Clan will be reshaped by their will, taking the form of something much more benevolent. Because the black-and-white cat survives and returns to his Clan, if only for a short while, the Clan's prosperity will be ensured for ages. Had his mother completed the crossing with all of her children, then the father would have seized power instead. The other kits would never be found on the riverbank, and before long, there would be nothing left to call a Clan but a few blood-spattered rogues and their hunger for more.

I hate that the queen could not live to see her children blossom. I hate the future that would come to pass if we allowed her such a life.

This is precisely what makes oaths so hard to keep.