Was Goosefeather right? Was she the only one who could save her Clan? He had been wrong before. His Clanmates had stopped listening to his dark warnings long before he’d retired to the elders’ den. Did he really know what their warrior ancestors had planned for the Clans? Heart quickening, she glanced at the sky.
Snow slumped from the gorse barrier as a hunting patrol pushed through the entrance tunnel. Whitestorm, Lionheart, and Goldenflower padded into the camp, tails down. Whitestorm clutched one scrawny sparrow in his jaws.
“Is that it?” Sunstar demanded, bounding over to inspect the catch.
“We’ve been everywhere,” Lionheart reported. “The forest is empty.”
“Did you try digging?” Sunstar pressed.
“The prey is too well hidden.” Goldenflower sighed.
Sunstar scanned the camp, his gaze flitting over his Clanmates, all as thin as bones. “The queens must be fed first,” he decided.
Whitestorm carried the sparrow to the nursery entrance and laid it at White-eye’s paws. The half-sighted queen glanced at Bluefur. “You have first bite,” she offered.
Gratefully Bluefur bit into the sparrow. She’d been hungry for days, and she knew from the way her kits paddled their little feet against her belly that she wasn’t producing enough milk for them. She wrinkled her nose as she tasted the dry flesh, stiff and sour as bark.
Featherwhisker wove his way through the drifts from the fallen tree, the branches dropping snow on his pelt. “Is that fresh-kill?” he called. He stared, disappointed, at the half-chewed sparrow. “The elders are starving,” he sighed.
“They can have a bite of this,” White-eye offered.
Featherwhisker shook his head.
“What about Tawnyspots?” Bluefur suggested. “He needs to keep his strength up.” The ThunderClan deputy no longer even left the medicine clearing to use the dirtplace.
She picked up the sparrow, ready to take it to him. Featherwhisker stopped her with a paw. “He won’t eat it,” he murmured. “He hasn’t been able to keep anything down for days.”
Bluefur froze. “Is he dying?”
Featherwhisker steadily met her gaze. “He’s not getting better.”
Bluefur hardly heard him. She was staring at Thistleclaw. The dark brown warrior was watching Featherwhisker with pricked ears. His eyes gleamed.
Bluefur blinked. Thistleclaw’s spiky pelt was glistening. Was he
Thistleclaw was drenched with blood. It oozed from his fur and dripped from his whiskers, staining the snow around him scarlet.
Horrified, Bluefur backed away.
“What is it?” Featherwhisker mewed. “Bluefur?”
When she felt the medicine cat’s tail touch her shoulder, Bluefur blinked and the blood disappeared. Thistleclaw was glaring at her, his tabby pelt once more brown and tufty.
She caught Goosefeather’s eye, and he nodded. He’d seen it too. A vision of ThunderClan’s path if Thistleclaw was to lead them.
Shaking, Bluefur stared at her kits.
“I’m hungry!” Mistykit complained, trotting up with her tail sticking out.
“Let’s go inside.” The words stuck in Bluefur’s throat.
A full moon hung above Fourtrees. The clouds had cleared though snow still smothered the forest.
The Gathering had begun.
Bluefur stared around the clearing, blind to the cats mingling around her. She saw the roots where she made a nest with Oakheart; the branches they had climbed to look at the sky. She wished she were high up there now, closer to the stars than to the problems of her Clan, far from the grief that tore at her heart.
The hollow was noisy, full of chatter, swirling with cats. Sunstar had let her come to the Gathering even though she was a nursing queen; she wondered if something in her eyes had persuaded him. She pictured her kits now, safe and warm beside White-eye’s belly.
She spotted his tawny pelt swimming through the crowd. Shouldering her way through a cluster of ShadowClan warriors, she headed for him, keeping her gaze fixed on his pelt in case she lost sight of him.
“Oakheart,” she hissed as soon as he was close enough to hear.
He spun around, his eyes lighting up when he saw her.
“We need to talk.”
He nodded and darted away, beckoning Bluefur with his tail. She followed as he weaved out of the crowd and slid behind one of the great oaks.
“I heard about the kits,” he whispered. “How are they? What do they look like?” His eyes were glowing with pride and, for a moment, Bluefur forgot what she had come to tell him. If only he could see their kits, curled like sleepy dormice in the nursery.
“They’re beautiful,” she breathed. “I named them Stonekit, Mistykit, and Mosskit.”
