Bluestar's Prophecy (34 page)

“Where’s the other one?” Oakheart called.

“Dead.” Bluefur stumbled but didn’t look around, not wanting to take her eyes from her kits.

“Bluefur, come back!”

“Where are you going?”

“Are you coming back to get us?”

Unable to bear their desperate cries, she turned and fled into the trees.

She stopped by the clump of ferns. The snow-hole had vanished, but Bluefur dug down, ignoring the pain in her frozen paws, until she reached the tiny body. She carefully lifted Mosskit out—she didn’t even smell like the nursery anymore—and kept digging. There was no way Bluefur was leaving her daughter for foxes when the snow thawed. The ground ripped at her claws and rubbed her pads raw but she kept scraping the frozen earth until the hole was deep enough to protect her
kit. Numb, she laid Mosskit’s body in the hole and covered it over.

She limped back to camp on throbbing, stumbling paws. There was one more thing she had to do.
One more lie to tell my Clanmates
. She slipped in through the dirtplace tunnel and quietly clawed a fox-sized hole in the back of the nursery.

Then she squeezed through the den entrance, checked that White-eye, Mousekit, and Runningkit were asleep, climbed into her nest, and deliberately, loudly called an alarm to her Clan.

“My kits! My kits are gone!”

Adderfang spoke gently. “Bluefur, would you
like to join a hunting patrol today?”

Bluefur gazed at him, trying to focus.

A moon had passed since she’d left her kits with Oakheart. The nursery walls had been fortified with extra brambles. Two warriors sat guard through each freezing night to make sure that no fox or badger would ever steal into the nursery again. The Clan had believed Bluefur’s story—that she’d awoken to find her kits gone. Every cat believed that they had been stolen by an animal that had clawed a hole in the back of the nursery, driven by starvation to venture into the camp for the first time.

They’d searched the forest for days, not knowing where to look, the scent trail killed by freezing snow. Bluefur had scoured the woods with her Clanmates, numb with guilt, reminding herself over and over that she’d done it for her Clan. Meanwhile hunger and sorrow gripped the Clan. They spoke in low voices and huddled in knots, eyeing Bluefur with pity that stabbed her like thorns. She was sick of telling lies. She hardly noticed how empty the fresh-kill pile was these
days. She was too miserable to eat, wishing only to hide in sleep. She felt as though the shard of ice piercing her heart would never melt.

They’ll be safe with Oakheart
.

The thought wasn’t enough to ease her grief.

Was Mosskit watching from StarClan, hating Bluefur for stealing her life? Had Snowfur explained that her life had been sacrificed for the good of her Clan?

“Bluefur.” Adderfang rested his tail on her shoulder and repeated his question. “Do you feel up to hunting?”

“I’ll hunt with you, if you like.” Thrushpelt hurried to join her. Sadness shadowed his gaze. He was grieving as a father would grieve. He’d worked harder than any other cat to reinforce the nursery, and his pelt was still tufted and scratched from the brambles he’d woven tightly into the branches. Bluefur wished she could tell him that two kits lived on, safe and cherished, across the river.

She shrugged off Adderfang’s tail. “I’d rather hunt alone.”

Adderfang nodded. “As you wish.”

Thrushpelt turned away, his eyes clouding.

“Bluefur!” Rosetail caught up to her, pressing close as she padded toward the tunnel. “Are you going to be all right?”

No! Nothing will ever be all right ever again
. Bluefur longed to curl up against her friend’s warm fur and go to sleep for a moon. “I’ll be fine,” she replied, feeling hollow.

She scrambled up the side of the ravine and headed into the forest. As the Owl Tree came into view, a squirrel darted across her path. She froze, her paws burning with cold on
the ice-hardened forest floor. The squirrel had a nut in its jaws and was scrabbling among the roots of an oak. Bluefur dropped into a hunting crouch, tail straight, belly lifted from the forest floor.

Stonekit
. Did he still remember his ThunderClan hunting crouch?

Pushing away the thought, she thrust down with her hind paws and sprang, landing squarely and killing the squirrel with a single bite.

“Nice catch.”

Goosefeather’s rasping mew made her whip around. The squirrel swung from her jaws.

She dropped it. “What are you doing here?” The elders rarely made it up the ravine.

“I still have legs, you know,” he snapped.

It was jarring to hear a Clanmate speak to her in a voice that wasn’t honeyed with sympathy. She straightened and met his gaze. “What do you want?” Did he have another stupid prophecy to ruin her life?

“You did the right thing.”

His words made her bristle. “For whom?”

“For your Clan.” Goosefeather narrowed his eyes. “The prophecy left no room for kits. You must blaze
alone
at the head of your Clan.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” she hissed. She hated the prophecy and hated Goosefeather for telling her about it.

Goosefeather blinked. “It is not your destiny to feel better,
it’s your destiny to save your Clan.”

“And I will,” she growled, her mew as hard as flint. “But I will always regret what I’ve done.”

“The kits were your choice,” Goosefeather pointed out. “StarClan made no provision for them.”

“StarClan made me sacrifice everything I loved.” Bitterness rose like bile in her throat. “My kits—”

Goosefeather cut her off. “They’re alive, aren’t they?”

“Not Mosskit.”

“StarClan will honor her loss.”

“What about
my
loss?”

“It is small compared with the fate of your Clan.”

Bluefur shook her head, trying to clear it. Was she just being selfish? What was one broken heart compared to the safety of her Clanmates? Where was her loyalty? She dipped her head. “I’ll serve my Clan,” she promised.

“Good.” Goosefeather nodded. “Sunstar wants to talk to you.”

He padded away into the trees.

Bluefur met the ThunderClan leader as he was climbing over the top of the ravine.

“Bluefur.” Sunstar greeted her. “I wanted to talk to you away from the camp.” He headed into the forest. “Walk with me.”

Bluefur fell in beside her old mentor, remembering how he had spoken to her after the death of Moonflower and again when she’d been grieving for Snowfur. “Is this another lecture
to tell me to leave the past behind?” she growled.

He shook his head. “It seems you are destined to suffer,” he sighed. Bluefur looked into his eyes and saw how the ThunderClan leader had aged in the last few seasons. Making ThunderClan strong and feared among the other Clans had cost him three lives in battle; sickness had taken another two. Goosefeather had told her to aspire to leadership, but was this how she wanted to spend her days? Fretting and fighting and tired from the weight of responsibility?

I have no choice. StarClan has chosen my path.

The ThunderClan leader ducked under a low-hanging fern. “I can tell you only what I’ve told you before. Life goes on.” They brushed past a bush where tiny green buds had pushed off their brown husks, hazing the branches with green. “Leaf-bare is followed by newleaf and then by greenleaf. The forest doesn’t freeze forever. You must take heart from that, after the loss of your kits. I know that you will be okay—and even stronger than before.”

Would he be so sympathetic if he knew two of them lived on, with RiverClan? The fur pricked along her spine.

“Cold?” Sunstar asked.

“A little.”

They padded farther through the trees. Sunstar seemed to have something on his mind, and Bluefur waited for him to speak first. They jumped over a narrow stream, swift with snowmelt, and pushed through a bramble thicket where the stale scent of rabbit clung to the thorns.

Sunstar led the way through the thicket and held a tendril
out of the way with his tail. “Are you ready to take on the deputyship?” he asked.

Bluefur stopped, half under the brambles. This was it. The moment she’d longed for.
The reward for what I have given up
.

“Tawnyspots won’t get any better,” Sunstar went on. “He’s asked to move to the elders’ den. A new deputy must be found.” He gazed hard into her eyes. “Will you be that deputy?”

Bluefur blinked. “What about Thistleclaw?” She had to know why Sunstar hadn’t chosen the fierce young warrior instead of her.
Does he know about the prophecy?

Sunstar stared into the trees. “Thistleclaw would be a popular choice,” he conceded. “No cat can doubt his courage, or his battle skills, or his pride in his Clan. But I don’t want my Clan to be led into endless fighting. Our borders are strong enough without being marked over and over in blood. ThunderClan deserves to live in peace, and I believe you can give it that.”

Bluefur hesitated, her mind swirling with images of her kits, of Oakheart with moonlight on his fur, and of Thistleclaw glistening with blood.

Sunstar repeated his offer. “Are you ready, Bluefur?”

Bluefur nodded. “I’m ready.”

The last melting drifts sparkled in the dying sun, and pink light dappled the clearing. Sunstar stood at the foot of Highrock with Tawnyspots on one side, Bluefur on the other. The ThunderClan deputy’s shoulders were hunched, his haunches
drawn in as though in pain. His ribs pushed against his ragged pelt.

Sunstar dipped his head low. “Tawnyspots, ThunderClan thanks you for your loyalty and your courage. You have served your Clan well, and we hope that your days in the elders’ den are peaceful. Your stories and wisdom will still have a place in the Clan, and we will continue to learn from you.”

Tawnyspots flicked his tail—Bluefur saw pain flash in his eyes—as his Clanmates yowled his name.

“Tawnyspots! Tawnyspots!” Rosetail’s voice rose above the others as she cheered her old mentor. Thistleclaw lifted his muzzle and growled Tawnyspots’s name; Bluefur flinched when she thought about how Thistleclaw must feel about not taking the deputy’s place.

“Bluefur.” Sunstar touched his tail to her shoulders. “You will be ThunderClan deputy from this day forward. May StarClan grant you the courage to help your Clan face whatever lies in its path. And when the time comes for you to take my place, I pray you will shine at the head of our Clan.”

“Bluefur! Bluefur!”

She felt the pale sun warm her pelt and breathed in the scents of the forest, her home. And now her territory, even more than before.

Whitestorm cheered her, pride singing in his yowl. But Thistleclaw drowned him out with a yowl that reached for StarClan. Bluefur shifted her paws. The warrior’s eyes were gleaming with fury, and she guessed his loud call was just a trick to fool the Clan into believing the new deputy had his full support.

If only they had seen him as she had, with his claws at Oakheart’s throat, goading Tigerclaw on to savage a helpless kit, pacing the borders with wild-eyed hunger for revenge. The memories gave Bluefur strength. Whatever it had cost her, she was the only cat who could stand in Thistleclaw’s way. Only she knew what he was capable of.

For the first time in moons, there was enough fresh-kill for a feast. Early newleaf had brought mice from their holes and birds from their secluded leaf-bare nests. As the Clan cats shared what they had, Sunstar beckoned Bluefur to his den.

“I know I’ve made the right choice.” Sunstar swished through the lichen and sat down, a silhouette in the shadowy den. “You still have a lot to learn, but I’m looking forward to mentoring you again.”

Bluefur dipped her head. “I’m ready to learn.”

The Clan leader shook his head. “We must work together if we are to guide the Clan well. Never be afraid of sharing your worries with me. I trust your judgment and will listen to whatever you have to say.”

“Then I can voice my fears about Thistleclaw?” Bluefur risked, with a quick glance at him.

Sunstar nodded. “I share them, believe me. But I believe that he is also a loyal and useful warrior, and we should be proud to have him in our Clan.” The ThunderClan leader glanced at his paws. “While we’re being honest, there is something else you should know. A secret only Featherwhisker and I share.”

Bluefur narrowed her eyes. So she wasn’t the only cat in ThunderClan with secrets.

“I have just three lives left, not four,” Sunstar confessed.

Bluefur blinked. “How did you lose the extra one?”
And why keep it a secret?

“I didn’t. It was never given to me. When Pinestar left, he still had one life as the leader of this Clan. StarClan counted this life against mine. They gave me only eight because Pinestar kept his ninth.”

Bluefur understood. “And you kept it a secret in case the Clan thought you did not have StarClan’s full blessing.” She tipped her head to one side. “But you can be honest now, surely? You have proved over and over that you are a great leader. What cat would doubt it?”

“A cat with ambition might choose to doubt it.”

He means Thistleclaw
. Bluefur returned his steady gaze. “But what about me? I have ambition,” she pointed out.

“Only to serve your Clan,” Sunstar answered. “That is why I chose you. You have suffered much and lost much, and yet you still serve your Clanmates, putting their needs before yours, willing to sacrifice all for the sake of your Clan.”

If only he knew!

“My Clan is all I have now,” Bluefur confessed. “I will give every breath in my body to serve it.” Regret tugged in her belly.

But I am fire. And this is the path I must follow.

“Come!” Featherwhisker called softly from the
shadows inside Mothermouth.

Bluefur breathed the cold, mineral air flooding from the dark opening. It reminded her of her trip there many seasons before, with Pinestar. Now she had come to receive her nine lives. When she returned to her Clan she would be Bluestar, leader of ThunderClan.

She remembered Sunstar’s death with a pang. Weakened by illness, he’d been unable to outrun a Twoleg dog that was roaming loose in the forest. It had killed him before the patrol could drive it off. Bluefur mourned his loss deeply, regretting that he had not been able to share words with her before dying. But she took comfort in knowing that he had never wanted to suffer a slow death as Tawnyspots had, joining StarClan only after days of agony that even Featherwhisker’s herbs could not ease.

Featherwhisker led her down to the cave of the Moonstone. The darkness pressing around her still made Bluefur uncomfortable. It felt as though she were drowning in thick black water that she could taste but not feel. At the end of the tunnel, the cave was filled with shadows. Watery starlight filtered
through the hole in the roof, scarcely penetrating the dark.

“Not long till moonhigh,” Featherwhisker promised.

Bluefur padded across the rough cave floor and lay at the foot of the Moonstone. It stood solid and dull in the center of the cave, untouched by moonlight. But as Bluefur rested her nose between her paws, the moon began to slip across the hole in the arching roof and the crystals began to shimmer like tiny trapped suns.

Dazzled, Bluefur flinched away.

“Press your nose against it,” Featherwhisker urged.

Screwing up her eyes, Bluefur leaned forward and touched the Moonstone. It was cold and smelled of darkness and old, old rock. Instantly the cave rushed away and Bluefur felt herself being swept through blackness, darker than night, tossed and swirled on an invisible river. Panic seized her and she struggled, flailing her paws, until suddenly she felt soft grass beneath them.

Blinking open her eyes, she saw the Great Rock rising above her and the four great oaks marking each corner of the clearing. She was at Fourtrees. Alone. She glanced up at the crow-black sky, speckled with stars.

Why were there no cats there to receive her? Didn’t StarClan want her to be the leader of ThunderClan? Perhaps the sacrifices she’d made were unforgivable.

Then the stars began to swirl like leaves caught in an eddy. They gathered speed until they blurred together in a silvery spiral, down, down, down toward the forest, toward Fourtrees, toward her.

Bluefur waited, her heart in her throat.

The spiral of starlight slowed, and the cats of StarClan stalked from the sky. Frost sparkled at their paws and glittered in their eyes. Their pelts shone like ice, and they carried the scent of all the seasons on their fur: the tang of leaf-bare snow mingled with the green scent of newleaf, the musk of leaf-fall, and the sweet blossom of greenleaf.

Countless cats lined the hollow—bodies shimmering, eyes blazing—and filled the slopes in silence. Bluefur crouched at the center. She forced herself to lift her head and look at the cats, and stretched her eyes wide when she realized that some faces were familiar. She recognized Mumblefoot and Weedwhisker, and beside them Larksong, who looked pleased to be with her denmates again. Goosefeather was with them; he’d died exactly as he’d predicted, on the first snow of leaf-bare.

And
Pinestar
! StarClan had accepted him after his ninth life, despite his betrayal. Bluefur felt a rush of joy to see the red-brown warrior sitting among his Clan, where he truly belonged. She met his eyes, and he nodded.

There were several cats Bluefur wanted to see more than any others. First she searched the ranks for a splash of white pelt.
Snowfur
! Her starry pelt dazzling, she gazed at Bluefur, eyes sparking with pride. Then a warm, familiar scent bathed Bluefur’s tongue. Moonflower was next to Snowfur, with her tail tucked over her paws, and pressed close to her pelt was Mosskit.

Bluefur sprang forward to nuzzle her daughter, but a warning glance from Moonflower halted her. Bluefur couldn’t bear
to be so near and yet unable to touch the precious kit she’d grieved over for so long. She searched her daughter’s bright blue gaze, looking for reproach, but saw nothing but love. Mosskit was safe with Snowfur and Moonflower. There were no leaf-bare chills to hurt her where she was now.

“Welcome, Bluefur.” One clear mew seemed to ring with every voice she had known and loved.

She dipped her head, her mouth dry.

Pinestar stepped forward and touched his nose to Bluefur’s head. It scorched her fur like frost and flame, but she could not flinch away. Her paws were weighted like stones, her body frozen.

“With this life I give you compassion,” Pinestar murmured. “Judge as much with your heart as with your mind.”

A bolt of energy, fierce as lightning, seared through Bluefur. She stiffened against the pain, but it melted into a soft warmth that filled her from nose to tail-tip. She was left trembling as the warmth drained from her, and she braced herself for the next one.

As Pinestar turned away, another cat rose from the ranks of StarClan.
Mumblefoot
. He pressed his nose to her head. “With this life I give you endurance. Use it to keep going, even when you feel as though all hope and strength have left you.”

Her body was seized by a dull agony that stiffened her muscles and made her clench her jaw. “Endure it,” Mumblefoot whispered to her. “Have faith in your own strength.”

Bluefur let out her breath, and felt the pain ebb away. She felt as if she were plunging out of water, her fur tingling, her
paws ready to run all the way back to the forest.
Thank you, Mumblefoot
.

Larksong was beside her now, touching her nose to Bluefur’s head. “With this life I give you humor. Use it to lighten the burdens of your Clan and to lift the spirits of your Clanmates when despair threatens.”

Something dazzling and flickering passed through her, making every hair on her pelt stand on end. “You will know when to use humor to help you,” Larksong told her, and Bluefur blinked gratefully.

Another cat was weaving through the ranks and toward her, a familiar face she hadn’t spotted before.

Sweetpaw!

The apprentice’s eyes shone like stars. Bluefur wanted to greet her but she couldn’t move or speak. Her heart ached with joy as Sweetpaw stretched up to rest her muzzle on the top of Bluefur’s head. “With this life I give you hope,” she announced solemnly. “Even on the darkest night, it will be there, waiting for you.”

Energy fired through Bluefur. She was running through the forest, her paws skimming the ground, with a bright light shining ahead of her.
Is that hope? I will never lose sight of it, I promise.

Sweetpaw padded away, and Sunstar took her place. “With this life, I give you courage. You will know how to use it.” His gaze, filled with warmth and gratitude, locked with hers, and Bluefur felt satisfaction shimmer through her body, knowing she had served him well.

“With this life I give you patience.” It was Goosefeather’s turn. His gaze was lucid, his voice gentle. “You will need it.” As his nose brushed against her ears, peace flooded through her. Everything would happen in its turn; she just had to be ready to embrace it. Was this why Goosefeather had so rarely talked about the prophecy while she was growing up? Even after her kits were born, had he known everything would turn out as it should?

Which cat would give her a seventh life? She scanned the ranks and purred when she saw that Mosskit was padding forward, her tiny paws sending up sparks of starlight where they touched the ground. She had to rear up on her hind paws to touch Bluefur’s head. “With this life I give you trust. Believe in your Clan and in yourself. Never doubt that you know the right path to take.”

“Mosskit.” Bluefur managed to find her voice. “I…I’m so sorry.”

“I understand,” Mosskit mewed simply. “But I miss you.”

Moonflower came next. Bluefur’s heart ached as she felt her mother’s nose touch her head as gently as she’d done when she had lived. “With this life I give you love. Cherish your Clan as you cherished your kits, for now they all are your kin.”

The anxious faces of her Clanmates swarmed through Bluefur’s mind, and her body suddenly felt as if it were being crushed beneath the Moonstone. Bluefur fought for breath, feeling suffocated until light seemed to explode from her heart, spreading through her body and burning behind her eyes. It left her gasping, trembling on her paws.

Bluefur knew that her last life would come from Snowfur. Her sister had watched the ceremony through gentle, glowing eyes. Now she stepped forward.

“You have sacrificed so much,” Snowfur meowed. “And our Clan walks a safer path now.” Bluefur felt her breath stir her fur as her sister touched her head and went on. “With this life I give you pride, so that you may know your own worth and the worth of your Clan.”

Heat seared Bluefur’s pelt, until she glanced down at her body, convinced she must be on fire. It vanished with a hiss. Would she ever have that much faith in herself?

“Thank you for raising Whitestorm,” her sister purred. “It was easier to leave him, knowing he had you. Use all your nine lives for your Clan. We will be with you at every step. If you need us, we will come. You were chosen long ago, and StarClan has never regretted its choice.”