Prologue
The sky was dark, almost black, and the full moon, as well as the brightly shining stars, was the only sources of light that provided the creatures of the night to see through the shadowy figures that got every animal looking over their shoulder.
In the midst of the ignorance of every bird or land prey was a hidden camp surrounded by a thick wall of trees masking its existence from any searching eyes. But that night a single yowl of pain broke through the silence that had become dominant when the sun had disappeared below the horizon.
The entrance to the camp, a tunnel consisting of tightly wound bramble tendrils, rustled almost violently as a patrol thundered into the camp, led by a large tom with a dark ginger pelt. His green eyes were wide and narrowed as he bounded across the clearing filled with the cats of LeafClan watching him with gleaming eyes.
Before he could enter the nursery, where his mate was currently giving birth to their kits, a young tortoiseshell she-cat barred his way with her tail. "I'm sorry, Blazestar, but I can't allow you to go in there. Lightclover told me to keep you from going in," she meowed, her mew soft and blue eyes shimmering with sympathy for her leader.
Blazestar lashed his tail, knowing that it was useless to argue with the elderly medicine cat that he has known since he was a kit. Instead of pushing past the apprentice and forcing himself into the den he launched into a series of pacing back and forth in front of the nursery.
A small black and white queen approached him, her whiskers twitched in amusement at the anxious nature of the expectant father. Situating herself in front of him, she touched the tip of her tail to his shoulder.
"Bluefeather will be fine," she soothed, her warm voice comforting. "She is a strong she-cat and I have no doubt in my mind that your kits will be just as tough as Bluefeather is and always will be."
Blazestar sighed. His ears flattened to his skull as another yowl sounded from the nursery entrance and he flinched. "I hope you're right, Ravensky."
"As do I," Blazestar turned and Ravensky craned her neck to peer over her leader's shoulder at the gray tabby tom sitting there. It was Ashwind, Bluefeather's brother. "It would be a great loss to LeafClan if Bluefeather died."
"Blazestar," the croak of the LeafClan medicine cat, Lightclover, made Blazestar's heart skip a beat. His breath caught and he turned stiffly to her.
"Is Bluefeather alright?" he asked, almost hesitantly.
Sorrelpaw joined her mentor with a delighted gleam in her eyes that betrayed the truth. "She is perfectly fine, Blazestar. You have a beautiful daughter," Lightclover meowed. She flicked the tip of her tail to the entrance of the den she had just surfaced from. "Go and see for yourself."
Breathing a sigh of immense relief, Blazestar padded hurriedly past the she-cats and slid into the nursery. The warm milky scents of the den filled his senses and in the faint light, Blazestar could just make out the outline of Bluefeather lying curled up in a nest of moss and white feathers.
"Blazestar," she murmured, lifting her head off her paws and blinking wearily up at him. Shifting her gaze after a few heartbeats down to her belly, she shifted her fluffy tail away from her body. Blazestar crouched next to her, peering down at the small bundle of damp golden fur, his daughter.
"Lightclover was right; she is beautiful," Blazestar murmured, leaning forward to touch his nose to his daughter's pelt. Glancing up at Bluefeather, he added, "Just like her mother."
Bluefeather purred and she flicked her tail over her mate's ears. "And I was right when I said that there would only be one kit. I won the bet so you are stuck with tending to the elders."
Blazestar grimaced, knowing his mother's temper and sharp tongue. "Alright," he sighed. "I'll start tomorrow after I get some rest."
Bluefeather nodded and then she looked down at her kit again. "Wait. I want to know what you would like to name her. I have nothing picked out for her so far."
Blazestar followed her gaze and studied the kit. After several heartbeats of silence his ears flicked and he blinked at his mate. "Honeykit, it's perfect for her."
Tilting her head to the side slightly, Bluefeather pondered the name suggestion. Finally, she looked up at Blazestar with a glow in her eyes. "I love it."
With a purr, Blazestar got to his paws and flicked her cheek lovingly and he turned. With a glance back over his shoulder in the direction of his mate and kit, he left the den, leaving the other queens to enter and be awed by the new arrival.
Across the wide river, separating the LeafClan forest territory and the RockClan territory forbidding to the cats that lived there, in the RockClan camp was a young brown tabby kit, emerging from a clump of thorny bushes.
His curious amber eyes surveyed the camp. The walls were made of rock, formed long before cats inhabited the land. Most of the dens were nestled in the rock, hidden by the foliage recovered from the few trees in their territory covering the openings.
But he spotted the cat he had been looking for: Froststar, his mother. However young he was, he still recognized the stiffness in her pale shoulders and he could just make out the gleam of her claws in the moonlight, piercing the dry ground and barely leaving a mark.
A thunder of paws brought his attention to the hole in the rock that was the camp entrance. Crouching low and pressing his belly close to the ground, the kit watched with attentive eyes.
Two cats, skinnier than the well-fed LeafClan cats, entered the camp at a run. They skidded to a stop in front of Froststar and the white she-cat pricked her eyes, expecting the news of her former Clan.
"Well?" her voice, what used to be soft and comforting moons ago, was tight and cold. Her son, who had never known what his mother used to be like before being exiled from LeafClan along with the rest of the cats that made up RockClan, found it perfectly normal. But the two warriors flinched visibly.
"We saw everything," the ginger and white she-cat meowed breathlessly. "And the mousebrained forest cats didn't suspect a thing."
"Would you mind telling me what the 'everything' is?" Froststar mewed with an edge to her tone.
The black tom cast his panting companion a worried glance and then shifted his gaze back to Froststar. "Bluefeather gave birth to a daughter, Blazestar's kit."
"Only one?" Froststar admonished with a twitch of her tail. She gave a snort of contempt. "Then again, Blazestar had no littermates either."
Her son, hardly old enough to understand the seriousness of this, jumped as a tail wrapped around him, pulling him back to the nursery. A warm breath tickled his ear, "You shouldn't be up so late. Your mother will be back soon."
The kit looked up at the dark gray queen and nodded. He slipped from her grasp and trotted back into the nursery. The queen, her belly swollen with her unborn kits, glanced back in the direction of her leader and sighed softly.
"Froststar?" the black tom mewed hesitantly. "Can Blossomheart move to the nursery? Tawnythorn said her kits were due in a moon."
Froststar narrowed her eyes at the ginger and white she-cat, the roundness of her belly also suggested she was expecting kits. "Alright, she will sleep in the warriors' den tonight. Tomorrow she will move to the nursery."
The tom dipped his head to his leader and he pressed her side against his mate and led her in the direction of the warriors' den, entwining their tails as they went.
Froststar watched her warriors disappear into their den and then lifted her face to the star-filled sky, and breathed in deeply as a breeze tugged at her fur with a fierceness that nearly made her balance waver. But the only thing she thought about was the small kit that was sure to be sleeping, curled up beside her mother. Her mind was full of only one thought: revenge on the cat who had killed her mate and leader she had looked up to.
With one last glance around the clearing, Froststar turned and she padded in the direction of the nursery, where her kits were waiting for her to return.