She padded through the slender pine trees, lost in whirling thoughts.
“Spottedpaw, is that you?” Thrushpelt stuck his head out from behind a tree. “Where did you go?”
“Oh, I . . . er . . . followed a scent trail back there.” Spottedpaw gestured vaguely with her tail. “It didn’t lead to any prey, though.”
Thrushpelt snorted. “Well, I don’t want to go back to the camp empty-pawed. Let’s try nearer to Snakerocks.”
He turned and trotted along a narrow path that led into the brambles. Spottedpaw followed more slowly, the screech of the terrified kittypet still echoing in her ears. She made an easy catch of an old, slow mouse, while Thrushpelt pounced on a blackbird that was wrestling a worm out of the ground. They carried their prey back to the camp, Spottedpaw trying hard not to limp under the weight of her fresh-kill. Her shoulder ached all the way from her toes to the tip of her ear.
Thrushpelt must have noticed, because he told her to take some prey for herself and find somewhere to rest. Spottedpaw dragged half a sparrow into the shade cast by the nursery bush. The brambles were a little overgrown and untidy because the nursery was currently empty; as soon as it was needed by an expecting queen, Fuzzypelt and Swiftbreeze would trim and weave the branches back into place, making a sheltered and watertight den.
“Mind if I join you?”
A shadow fell across Spottedpaw and she looked up to see Thistleclaw holding a baby vole in his mouth.
“Of course!” Spottedpaw shifted sideways to make room for him on the softest patch of grass.
They ate in silence for a while, Spottedpaw enjoying the feel of his warm flank against hers. But she couldn’t shake her memories of Tigerpaw attacking the little kittypet, and Thistleclaw’s encouragement.
“I . . . I saw what happened today,” she began. “With the kittypet, and Tigerpaw.”
Thistleclaw looked at her in surprise. “Really? I didn’t see you there.”
“I was stalking something.” Spottedpaw felt hot underneath her fur. “Tigerpaw was kind of brutal, wasn’t he? I mean, it was only a kit.”
Thistleclaw’s amber eyes narrowed. “Are we supposed to make allowances for different kinds of intruder? Should we welcome the kits, then change our minds when they are six moons old? Or twelve moons? Or elders?”
Spottedpaw twitched the tip of her tail. “I guess not. But Bluefur seemed pretty angry with how Tigerpaw reacted.” As soon as she spoke, she wished she could take the words back. Thistleclaw’s ears flattened and the fur on his neck spiked.
“Bluefur is not training my apprentice,” he growled.
“I just think Bluefur did the right thing, stopping Tigerpaw. He was going to hurt that kit really badly, even though it was trying to run away!” Spottedpaw tried to swallow the lump of sparrow that seemed to be stuck halfway down. “Tigerpaw is so angry all the time. I . . . I think he’s trying to prove to us that he’s nothing like his father, that he’d never leave ThunderClan to become a kittypet.”
Above her, Thistleclaw’s nostrils flared and his amber eyes blazed. “Is there something wrong with wanting to be the best, the strongest, the most fearless in your Clan? Do you think we should all be medicine cats, mincing around with herbs and feathers and avoiding so much as a nip from a mouse?”
“No, of course not. I . . .”
“Tigerpaw has more courage than any apprentice I’ve ever known! I’m disappointed in you, Spottedpaw. I thought you were ambitious, too. Is Thrushpelt training you to be an ‘okay’ warrior? Just good enough to catch mice and renew scent markers?” There was a challenge in his voice, and Spottedpaw jumped up.
“Don’t say that! Thrushpelt is a good mentor! I thought Tigerpaw crossed a line today, and I was glad when Bluefur stopped him. And I am ambitious! I just know there are worthier enemies than a helpless kit!”
Blazing with fury, Spottedpaw jumped up and raced across the clearing. She pushed through the gorse tunnel, not caring that thorns ripped at her fur. She charged up the ravine without knowing where she was going; she just wanted to be far away from Thistleclaw’s scorn and disappointment.
She thrust blindly through the cool green ferns, past a startled patrol, until she felt warmth on her muzzle and a gentle breeze against her ears. She looked around. She had run all the way to the edge of the forest, and Sunningrocks loomed over her, gray and solid and echoing with the sound of the river just beyond. Spottedpaw scrambled up to her favorite basking place, halfway to the top with a clear view upriver to WindClan on the moor. She sat down and tried to empty her mind.
“Okay, I’m a squirrel-brained fool who doesn’t deserve your company,” murmured a voice behind her. “But you left your sparrow, and I thought you might be hungry, so I’ll just put it here. Then I’ll leave you alone, I promise.”
Spottedpaw turned to see Thistleclaw crouched at the edge of the flat rock. Her half-eaten fresh-kill lay beside him, and his ears were comically flattened like a scolded kit’s. He looked up at her with huge eyes, then down again.
“I don’t blame you for hating me,” he mewed in a small voice. “You’re twice the cat Tigerpaw will ever be. I could never be disappointed in you.”
Spottedpaw purred. “I don’t hate you, Thistleclaw. Come over here, you look as if you’re about to fall off.” She beckoned him with her tail, and he crawled toward her, his belly fur brushing the warm stone.
“I’m sorry,” he mewed. “I was really rude to you. It won’t happen again.”
Spottedpaw touched his shoulder with her front paw. “I’m sorry too. I should never have doubted you. I know you have trained Tigerpaw to be the bravest, most loyal warrior that ThunderClan could wish for. It wasn’t my place to judge him.”
The pale-furred warrior blinked at her, his expression earnest. “But it was, Spottedpaw! I value your opinion, don’t you know that? I want to know what you think about everything! Tigerpaw, Sunstar, Tawnyspots, StarClan, the fresh-kill pile, whether the elders should deal with their own ticks . . .”
He glanced sideways at her and Spottedpaw let out a purr of laughter. “Now you’re being silly! But . . . thank you. That means a lot, to know that you think so much of me.”
Thistleclaw leaned toward her until their cheeks brushed. “I think a very great deal of you, Spottedpaw. Wherever I am, in my nest, in the forest, patrolling the borders . . . you are always beside me.”
Spottedpaw couldn’t breathe. Her heart was beating so hard, she thought Thistleclaw must be able to hear it. This wasn’t like a warrior talking to an apprentice about her ambitions; this was completely different. Thistleclaw was talking to her as if she was his equal. And she felt different, too. Am I falling in love?
“What about you?” Thistleclaw prompted softly. “Do you think about me too?”
Spottedpaw nodded. “Yes,” she whispered. “But you’re a warrior, and I’m only an apprentice. . . .”
“You won’t be an apprentice forever! I’ve watched you train, and I know you’ll pass your assessment with no trouble at all.” Thistleclaw straightened up. “There is no harm in thinking about the future. Our future.”
“Really?” Spottedpaw felt her heart flip over. I must be dreaming!
“Of course.” Thistleclaw nodded solemnly. “Look around you. You believe in StarClan, don’t you? We are surrounded by omens that tell us we should be together.”
Spottedpaw stared at him. “Are . . . are you sure?”
Thistleclaw gestured with his tail. “Look at those two clouds, side by side. And those crows flying over the trees—how many of them are there? That’s right, two! Down there beside the river, do you see those two dark stones? We’re meant to be a pair, Spottedpaw. StarClan says so.” He glanced at her, and there was a mischievous gleam in his eyes.
Spottedpaw cuffed him lightly with her paw. “Don’t tease! Omens are very serious. I don’t think Featherwhisker would see things the same way.”
“Ah, Featherwhisker! Our mighty medicine cat!” Thistleclaw’s voice to
ok on a sharper tone. “We wouldn’t want to contradict him, would we?”
“What do you mean? I think Featherwhisker has done an incredible thing, giving up his life to serve our Clan. He knows so much, yet he never acts as if he is better than the rest of us. I can’t imagine a better medicine cat!”
Thistleclaw bristled. “You sound as if you like him more than me! If he’s so precious, why don’t you go hang out in the medicine den for a few more moons?”
“Don’t be such a mouse-brain!” Spottedpaw forced her fur to lie flat and rested her tail on Thistleclaw’s flank. “I want to be with you.”
Thistleclaw’s amber eyes burned into hers. “Prove it,” he whispered.
Spottedpaw blinked. “What do you mean?”
“Prove how much I mean to you. Come with me tonight.”
“Where? Are we going to cross the border?”
Thistleclaw twitched his tail. “You’ll see. Go to your nest as usual, and I will fetch you. Tell no other cat that you’ll be with me. Do you trust me?”
“Of course,” Spottedpaw mewed.
“Then you have nothing to fear.” The warrior sprang down from the rock and vanished into the ferns, leaving nothing but a few quivering fronds to show where he had been.
Spottedpaw sat back on her haunches. Where in the name of StarClan was Thistleclaw planning to take her?
CHAPTER FIVE
The sun had never set more slowly. Twitching with impatience, Spottedpaw watched the orange disc as it finally sank below the trees. Would it seem odd if she went to her nest now? The other apprentices were playing a complicated game of chase that seemed to involve circling the tree stump twice and jumping over one of the elders basking in the last dregs of warmth outside their den.
“Get off me, you ridiculous kit!” snapped Larksong, striking out with her foreleg as Willowpaw zoomed over her rump.
“Leave us alone,” growled Mumblefoot.
Willowpaw yowled in triumph as she skidded around the tree stump and leaped on top. “I win!”
Spottedpaw trotted over to the elders. She felt bad for them, having their peace disturbed by her crazy denmates. “Don’t worry, they’ll be going to their nests soon,” she mewed. She licked a patch of ruffled fur on Mumblefoot’s shoulder, trying not to wrinkle her nose at his musty smell.
She lifted her head to find Goosefeather staring at her with his rheumy blue eyes. “Come closer,” he rasped. Spottedpaw edged nearer as the old cat peered at her. “I know who you are,” he muttered. “You’re the one who loves foolishly.”
Spottedpaw blinked. “What do you mean?”
Goosefeather turned away from her, wriggling to find a more comfortable place on the hard earth. “Your heart is blind, Spottedpaw,” he murmured, so quietly she could hardly hear. “That’s a lesson you will never learn.”
“What are you talking about? What lesson?” Spottedpaw spoke sharply, feeling a jolt of panic rise inside her.
Goosefeather let out a faint snore and Spottedpaw resisted the urge to prod him awake.
“Ignore him, little one,” rasped Mumblefoot. “He doesn’t know what he’s saying half the time. Most of us stopped listening to him moons ago.”
Spottedpaw twitched her ears. Goosefeather was still a medicine cat. He knew things no ordinary cat could imagine. Had StarClan sent him a message about her?
She jumped as warm breath tickled the back of her neck. “You look sleepy,” murmured a familiar voice. “Don’t you think you should be heading to your nest?”
Spottedpaw looked up into Thistleclaw’s warm amber eyes. “I was just going,” she whispered.
“I’ll see you later,” he whispered back.
Spottedpaw padded over to the apprentices’ den, waiting for some cat to ask why she was going to her nest so early. But no cat seemed to notice as she slipped through the branches into the shadowy, peaceful den. She curled into her nest and tucked her nose under her tail. Her heart was pounding and she didn’t feel the tiniest bit sleepy, but she closed her eyes and forced herself to take slow and steady breaths, emptying her mind and letting it fill with swaths of green and black and soft, pale gray. . . .
There was a sharp crack, as if something had stepped on a twig. Spottedpaw looked around and felt a moment of terror as she realized she had no idea where she was. She was surrounded by huge tree trunks, the tops lost in drifting mist. It was night and the stars were hidden behind branches, yet there was a strange gray light that seemed to be coming from clumps of fungus that grew on the trees and beneath the limp, half-dead ferns. The air smelled of damp earth and rotten wood.
There was a rapid thud of paws and Thistleclaw bounded out of the undergrowth, his pelt slick from the mist. “You made it!”
Spottedpaw blinked in relief. She leaned close to inhale his scent, but somehow he didn’t smell of anything; the stench of earth and woodrot was too strong. “Am I dreaming?” she whispered.
“Oh no,” Thistleclaw meowed. His eyes were shining and his fur crackled with tension. “This is real. Follow me!”
He whirled around and bounded along a narrow path between the trees. Spottedpaw raced after him, trying not to slip on the cold, wet earth. Something slimy seeped between her pads and she wondered if she had time to stop and lick it off. But Thistleclaw kept running so she gathered her haunches under her and kept going. The trees loomed on either side, dark and somehow threatening, as if they were watching Spottedpaw with unseen eyes. Where was this place? It wasn’t anywhere in ThunderClan territory, she knew that. Had they crossed the border into ShadowClan?
A tree root caught Spottedpaw’s foot and she stumbled to her knees. “Help!” she gasped.
In a flash Thistleclaw was beside her, nosing her up to her paws.
“I’m scared,” Spottedpaw confessed. “It’s so dark and quiet here.”
“You’re safe with me, I promise,” Thistleclaw murmured. He rested his muzzle briefly on top of her head, then took off again. “Come on, there’s someone I want you to meet.”
Up ahead Spottedpaw saw the bracken quiver and a tortoiseshell-and-white cat stepped onto the path. Her thick fur was ragged as if she hadn’t groomed herself in moons, and scars crisscrossed her broad muzzle. She walked stiffly as if old wounds troubled her, but her amber eyes burned like fire.
“What is she doing here?” the cat snarled, glaring at Spottedpaw.
“This is Spottedpaw,” Thistleclaw mewed. “She’s with me. Spottedpaw, this is Mapleshade.”
Spottedpaw stared at the she-cat, unable to speak. Her whole body was trembling with fear, and her paws seemed frozen to the ground. It’s only a cat! she told herself.
“She doesn’t say much, does she?” growled the ragged cat. “Good.” She turned and stomped along the path. “Come on, you’re late.”
Thistleclaw trotted after her, his tail held high and his ears pricked. Spottedpaw finally unfroze her paws and stumbled after them. If this was ShadowClan, what were they doing here? Her belly flipped over. Was Thistleclaw a traitor?
The cats ahead of her stopped abruptly and Spottedpaw almost bumped into them. They had reached the edge of a clearing filled with scrubby grass and divided in half by a crumbling, half-rotten tree trunk. Mapleshade jumped on top of the trunk with more grace than Spottedpaw would have imagined.
“Who will fight first?” she yowled, her voice echoing around the trees. “Come on, you fox-hearted cowards!”
To Spottedpaw’s astonishment, cats started creeping out of the bracken. Five or six of them, all different colors and sizes. She sniffed the air, trying to identify them by scent, but all she could smell was decaying wood and sodden leaves.
Mapleshade jerked her tail toward Thistleclaw. “You go first,” she ordered. “Houndleap, you too.”
A scrawny black cat slunk into the center of the clearing. Spottedpaw could see his ribs, and her instinct was to run off and catch him something to eat. Yet she hadn’t smelled a single trace of prey.
Thistleclaw bounced forward
to meet the black cat. “Any particular moves you’d like to see, Mapleshade?” he called.
The she-cat bared her teeth. “Ones that work,” she hissed. “Nothing else matters.”
Thistleclaw bowed his head. “Of course.”
Spottedpaw blinked in surprise. Thistleclaw was acting like a humble apprentice! What was this place? The more she saw, the less she thought they were in ShadowClan. Houndleap looked like a WindClan cat, for starters, with his thin frame and hungry expression. There was a light brown tabby sitting beside the tree trunk that must have been a RiverClan cat, judging by her glossy fur and rounded belly. These cats were warriors, for sure, but where would they meet together like this? This definitely wasn’t Fourtrees!
At a yowl from Mapleshade, Thistleclaw launched himself at the black cat. Houndleap thudded to the ground but wriggled free with a hiss and leaped onto Thistleclaw’s back. In horror, Spottedpaw saw that the black cat’s teeth were bared and his claws gleamed long and silver as he sank them into Thistleclaw’s pelt. “Watch out!” she cried. Surely this was just a mock battle? There had been nothing to suggest that these cats were enemies.
Thistleclaw didn’t seem to hear her. He flexed his broad shoulders and flicked Houndleap onto the grass. Spottedpaw winced as he curled his lip and bit down hard into the black cat’s neck. Houndleap batted at Thistleclaw’s belly with his hind paws, ripping the soft fur. Thistleclaw flinched and Houndleap reached up with his front paws, clawing at the ThunderClan warrior’s eyes. Thistleclaw shoved him away, sending his opponent rolling over and over until he slammed into the fallen tree.
“No, stop!” cried Spottedpaw, but on the tree trunk Mapleshade paced excitedly, her tail fluffed up.
“That’s it!” she screeched. “No mercy! I want this forest running with blood! It’s a shame you didn’t fight like this when you were in WindClan, Houndleap!”
Spottedpaw stared at the black cat who had staggered to his feet and was glaring at Thistleclaw, flanks heaving and stained with blood. If Houndleap used to be in WindClan, did that mean he was somewhere else now? Somewhere with RiverClan cats as well? Somewhere like . . .