Prologue;

A dark tabby she-cat crept along the dusty ground until she found the thorn barrier. "Sister, sister!" The tabby hissed. The young she-cat guarding the entrance pricked her ears and slowly, cautiously, crept forward. "Who- who's there?" She hissed, uncertainty clouding her gaze.

"It's me!" Her amber eyes gleamed in the darkness. "Sister!" The green-eyed tabby meowed joyfully. "Oh, I can't believe-"

"Shhh! You must take these two kits. I will keep the third. I must keep the third. To remind me of you. I cannot keep all three, as they will not be safe where I live. One kit is enough. He may not even survive this leaf-bare." As the cat said this, she suppressed a shiver.

"But I do not have milk!" The other cat exclaimed. "I could not suckle them successfully! And what's more, it's too soon for me to have kits! I only just have a mate!"

"Just tell them your milk has dried up." The cat said calmly. The kits dangling from the amber eyed she-cats mouth mewed hungrily. "Come on, you'd better get them inside. They have already drunk enough to get them through the night. I must go now. Goodbye, sister. I have given them names already, and I expect you to give them good lives, for one day I will return, in eight moons, when they have been apprenticed or maybe even have become warriors."

The amber-eyed tabby hissed the kits names in her sister's ear. With those words, she dropped two of her kits at her sister's paws. She turned, still carrying the tom, and scampered away into the darkness. The tabby looked down at the two mewling kits and nosed them inside. Curious stares and voices met her as she bounded into the clearing. But one voice rose above the rest.
"You didn't tell me you were carrying kits!" A dark gray tom meowed, his voice shaking with shock and hurt.

The dark tabby looked at her paws.
"I'm sorry, my darling. I didn't know until moments before they were born." Thinking quickly, she added, "I tried feeding them but my milk would not come. I suspect it has dried up. They are so hungry, please, someone feed them."

"Bring them in here," A voice meowed from the nursery. "I'll feed them!"

"Thank you, thank you so much!" The cat said. The secret of the kits was safe, for now.