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“No! There must be some mistake!” The cat looked up from where it crouched by the water’s edge, its fur glowing in the moonlight. “There is still so much I have to do!”
A broad-faced cat with blue-grey fur padded around the pool, her eyes soft with sympathy. “I’m sorry,” she meowed. “I know you expected many more moons with your Clanmates before coming to join us.”
The crouching cat looked down into the water. The moon’s reflection trembled like a floating leaf, and the surface of the pool glimmered with starlight cast by the countless shining shapes that lined the hollow. For a moment the only sound was the waterfall that splashed down the steepest part of the rocks. The cats of StarClan waited in watchful silence, as if each one shared the grief of the cat at the water’s edge.
“You have served your Clan more faithfully than some cats manage in a long lifetime,” the blue-furred cat went on. “It must seem very unfair that you should have to leave them.”
The crouching cat raised luminous eyes to face the starry warrior. “Bluestar, I know this isn’t your fault. There’s no need to apologise.”
Bluestar twitched her tail. “Of course there is. You should know how much your Clan owes to you.”
“All the Clans.” A black and white tom with a long tail rose to his paws and padded round the edge of the pool to stand beside Bluestar. “StarClan too. None of us would have found our new home without your help.” He dipped his head in a gesture of respect, and the starlight on the surface of the pool wavered.
The cat blinked at him. “Thank you, Tallstar. I’ve made mistakes, but I have always tried to do what I believed to be right.”
“StarClan asks no more from its warriors.” A lean, black tomcat began to pick his way over the moss-covered rocks. “If we could change your fate, we would.”
“But remember,” Bluestar warned, “not even StarClan can turn aside the paws of destiny, however much we might want to.”
The cat at the water’s edge nodded. “I understand. And I will try to have courage. Can you tell me when—”
Bluestar shook her head. “No. Even we cannot see the future so clearly. But when the time comes, you will know, and we will be waiting for you.”
A fourth warrior spirit rose from his place further up the slope and padded down between the shimmering ranks of StarClan. He was a light-coloured tabby with a twisted jaw. “Whenever the Clans tell stories of the great journey, your name will be honoured,” he promised.
“Thank you, Crookedstar,” the cat meowed.
All four of the shining warriors gathered around, four who had been Clan leaders when their paws walked the earth.
“Know that the strength of StarClan will be with you,” Bluestar meowed. “We will not leave you to face this alone.”
The cat looked up to meet the intense blue gaze. “StarClan has always been with me.”
“You say that, even though your life has been so hard?” Tallstar’s voice was surprised.
“Of course.” The cat’s eyes glimmered in the starlight. “I have made good friends in all the Clans. I’ve seen kits born and watched elders leave on their final journey to Silverpelt. I’ve made the long journey to the Clans’ new home. Believe me, I wouldn’t change a single day.” The cat paused and looked down into the pool again. “I know it is not in your power to give me longer with my Clan. But I can’t help wanting more.”
Bluestar’s eyes narrowed. “It hurts us all when a young cat is called to join StarClan. I know you would continue serving your Clan loyally for many seasons more.” Her voice rasped with pain, and the cat looked up at her, stretching out one paw in a comforting gesture.
“Don’t grieve, Bluestar. I know my Clan will be well cared for after I am gone.”
A murmur of respect rose up from around the hollow. Bluestar bent her head over the crouching cat, bathing the moon-bright fur with her scent. “We are with you always,” she mewed.
In turn, each of the others bent over and added their scent, filling the air with the tang of stars and ice and the night wind. More warriors followed—a graceful tortoiseshell, a sturdy bracken-coloured tom, a tabby she-cat with a silver-striped pelt—wreathing the cat with the strength and courage of StarClan.
Their voices swelled to a low keening of sorrow that drifted up to the stars. The shimmering forms began to fade one by one, until the hollow was empty.
And the stars shone down on a single cat that crouched unmoving beside the pool.
“Let all cats old enough to catch their own prey join here beneath the Highledge for a Clan meeting.”
Squirrelflight woke with a start as the ThunderClan leader’s yowl rang out across the stone hollow. Cloudtail was already pushing his way out through the thorny branches that screened the warriors’ den. His mate, Brightheart, uncurled herself from their mossy nest and followed him.
“What does Firestar want now?” Dustpelt muttered, pulling himself stiffly to his paws and shaking scraps of moss from his fur. With an irritated flick of his ears, he thrust his way into the open after his Clanmates.
Stretching her jaws in a yawn, Squirrelflight sat up and gave herself a quick grooming. Dustpelt’s temper was even shorter than usual this morning; Squirrelflight could see from his awkward movements that the wound he’d received in the battle against Mudclaw was still painful. Most of the ThunderClan cats still bore the rebels’ clawmarks; Squirrelflight’s side stung from a wound of her own, and she drew her tongue over it in rapid, soothing strokes.
Mudclaw had been deputy of WindClan until the Clans arrived in their new territory around the lake. The previous leader, Tallstar, had appointed Onewhisker to succeed him instead just moments before he died; furious, Mudclaw had led a rebellion against Onewhisker before he had the chance to receive his nine lives from StarClan. And Hawkfrost of RiverClan had helped him. Squirrelflight felt a surge of anger as she remembered how Brambleclaw still insisted on trusting his half-brother, even after he had seen that Hawkfrost was up to his ears in Mudclaw’s treachery.
Thank StarClan, Squirrelflight thought, that ThunderClan had discovered the plot in time, and had joined the battle against Mudclaw and his supporters. StarClan had proved who the true leader was when lightning struck a tree that fell on Mudclaw and killed him.
Giving a last lick to her dark ginger fur, Squirrelflight slid through the branches and padded into the clearing, shivering in the cold air. The pale sun of leaf-bare was just showing above the trees around the stone hollow where ThunderClan had settled at the end of their long journey. Wind rattled in the bare branches, but down here all was still. The air smelled crisp, and frost still edged the grass
