Thank you to all the people who gave me names! This chapter is a bit… violent, but only because Lutta wants revenge and she gets mad at Pleek for kind of creating her.

"No!"

A loud whoo echoed in the cave. Lutta spun around. An owl crouched in a corner, shivering. Its eyes met hers, and they widened in fright.

"Get away!" the bird screeched. "It's not my fault!"

Lutta felt recognition flickering in her mind. "You," she whispered.

The single sound made the owl freeze.

"You," Lutta repeated, this time angrily. "You didn't want me! You thought I was a freak! Like, like…" A name came to her mind. "Ygryk!" She spat the word into the freezing air.

"No!" the owl wailed. "What did you do to her!"

"Nothing," snarled Lutta. Her Barn Owl shape faltered, and a crow shaped creature replaced it. Hagsfiend. "I did nothing to her… Pleek."

Pleek whimpered, and Lutta's fury was growing fast. She advanced towards the owl with her talons extended. "It's your fault," she hissed. "You wanted to create me. Kreeth used me to try and kill Hoole. But I couldn't." A single shard of moonlight fell into the cave, and it reflected off the shapeshifter's outstretched claws. "You deserved to be punished. Not me."

The owl screamed as the hagsfiend slashed out. Lutta felt a sense of relief and justification as her talons ripped through feathers to flesh. She hooted as she changed back to a Great Gray, rising into the air as Pleek's blood oozed onto the ground. Beating powerful silvery wings, the shapeshifter swooped out of Kreeth's cave. A cold wind current caught her, and she rode along it, soaring over the sea.

After many wingbeats, Lutta noticed that the air was warmer. She banked to the left and looked down at the water. It was no longer splashing up chilling spray; the few drops that came up were only cool, and not freezing.

Lutta narrowed her eyes as the wind pushed her forward. She hadn't been to the Southern Kingdoms before, and couldn't imagine how it would compare to the Northern Kingdoms.

Suddenly a sharp gust of air blew Lutta out of the current she had been riding. Taken by surprise, she tumbled out of the sky, opening her wings just before hitting the sea. Lutta glanced up. Racdrops, how will I find that flow again? Then her eyes widened.

Ahead was an island. And growing on that was giant tree.

Lutta nearly went yeep. Glaux, is that what I think it is? No, why would Glaux help me?

But the tree was real. Lutta flew towards it, wondering what the owls would think of her. For if she was right, there would be owls there.

It was the Great Ga'Hoole tree.

And the last time she was there, she was posing as Emerilla, Strix Strumajen's daughter.

Strix Strumajen.

The owl who had nearly killed her.