"It was a mistake," you said. But the cruel thing was, the mistake was mine, for trusting you.
–David Levithan, The Lovers' Dictionary

Recreant.
Do you know what that word means?
The word is very, very old. It came to our language from Middle English, where it was recreaunt, a word for defeated. It came to that language from Old French, where it was recroire, which was the term used for a man who has surrendered in a duel to the death, or a country that has just lost a battle and is swearing allegiance to its conqueror. It came to Old French from Medieval Latin, where it was recredere—to yield or to pledge. And it from there it came from an older Latin language still; credere: to believe.

The word recreant refers to a person that has been unfaithful to a belief, duty or cause; a coward.

—

Hollyleaf yawned as she trailed in the wolf's wake.
The sun beat down uncomfortably on her black pelt and sparkled on the fine lines of grey that edged her ears. She was a young cat, but bitterness, guilt and darkness had taken its toll on her body. Now, though, she felt almost nothing except a dislike of the unnatural heat that radiated from the air, the sky, and the Thunderpath at her paws.
"What will we do if a monster comes, wolf?" Hollyleaf asked mildly.
Matilda glanced briefly over her shoulder at her strange companion. "Move."

"And remind me how exactly do you know that this…" she hesitated, still unsure of the word, "…castle exists, again? I've been wandering for moons, and I've never heard of such a place."
"No matter what you have or have not heard, Hollyleaf, it is real. It is in many wolf tales."
"Ah, but how do you know it's still there? Twolegs change the landscape all the time. Cut down forests, change river courses, grow their blasted stone nests."
"They do not change their castles," was all Matilda would say.

Hollyleaf decided to give up on pretending that Matilda would answer her questions properly. The wolf had always been taciturn even at her best, but she had grown ever more silent since the disastrous skirmish with the Clan cats a half-moon ago. Her pride had been savagely wounded after she had been defeated by beings she had considered utterly inferior, and even more so when Hollyleaf had saved her life. The cats Matilda fought had ingested poison, so that every bite she took of them would kill her faster. Hollyleaf had told her the cure and nursed her back to health, and that was the crux of the matter; Matilda owed her a debt, and it was an unforgivable thing for such a proud beast.

Thinking of that—and the numerous cats who had died—introduced a fresh attack of melancholia. Hollyleaf had decided long ago to stop destroying herself with guilt over actions she had already taken. Whether or not her choices had been good, there was no possible way for her to go back and change things. Their paws were firmly set on paths created long ago.
Now anger flared inside her, because it reminded her of the StarClan prophecy; there will be three, kin of your kin, who hold the power of the stars in their paws. After musing it over, both with herself and Matilda, who despite herself was interested in the religions of other species, Hollyleaf had discovered that the prophecy was disconcertingly vague about what, if anything, was special about the Three. After all, what powers did stars have? Whenever she had come into contact with StarClan, they had been totally incapable of doing anything worthwhile. Real stars were even less useful; if you had a good memory, you could use them to find your way, but Hollyleaf too often found herself near Twolegplaces and their unnaturally bright skies for it to be reliable. She knew her brothers were unusually talented, but not exceptionally so. Jayfeather could walk in dreams and read emotions, and while that was remarkable, many medicine cats could see things in their sleep to a lesser extent, just as any beast with a sharp enough nose could scent emotion. Lionnblaze's power was even more vague—he was supposed to be unbeatable on the battlefield, but Hollyleaf had seen him beaten many times, most recently by Matilda herself which had left him crippled.

Hollyleaf wished him nothing but eternal agony, and had sworn to kill him when she could. He had murdered her mate.
Matilda abruptly turned and headed down a small dirt Thunderpath, causing Hollyleaf to briefly lose her balance as she changed her direction. Quickly regaining it, she hurried to catch up. This Thunderpath began to rise into a steep hill, and her muscles complained very slightly as she transformed her gait into the loping stride of a four-legged beast going up. She ignored them; she knew the limits of her body, and this was not it.
"I always knew Twolegs were mad. Building things on top of a huge hill like this, and they'd find the climb even harder than us." Hollyleaf said. It was more to herself than anything else, but to her surprise Matilda answered.
"They built the castle on high ground to make it more difficult for their enemies to reach them unseen."

"Twolegs had enemies? What kind of animal hunts Twolegs?"
"None. They fought other Twolegs. In the time this castle was built, humans were much more like wolves. They formed packs, and each pack had a territory. The alpha pair of the pack lived in the castle. You will see when we reach the top."
So they walked onwards, and the heat seemed to become more oppressive. At last they rounded the crest and emerged onto the flat surface of the hilltop, and Hollyleaf gasped. She knew at once why Matilda had been so sure the castle still existed.
It was huge. Stone walls, encrusted with moss and ivy, still held their positions firmly on top of the hill. There was no roof or doors of any kind; yet it held a strange magnificence, and as she watched, Hollyleaf gained an insight. Twolegs, they build these structures—not out of true need, but to simply prove to themselves that they can. They are beautiful for no other reason than beauty.

Beyond the castle, at the foot of the hill, a lake shimmered in exquisite blue, as though to outshine the artificial construction above it.
Matilda had been quietly observing the castle as well. She breathed out sharply and walked towards the ruin.
If there had been an original entrance, it had been lost to time; they simply stepped through the largest, most accessible hole in the wall. The wolf and the cat strode through derelict hallways where once knights and maidens had walked. There were newer scents, too—scents of humans who had explored the ruin, wishing wistfully for the days of chivalry and adventure to return, and scents of somewhat wiser people who knew that in truth the Feudal Ages were times of poverty, war and disease, with very few adventures at all.

"Matilda," said Hollyleaf, keeping her voice low so as not to disturb the dreamy silence, "why are we here?"
"There is a thing I wish to see."
"This place smells of Twolegs. Do they come here?"
"Yes, for the same reason we are here. But there are none at this time." She stopped. "In here, I think."
'Here' was the largest room they had seen yet. There were no furnishings, no rich fabrics displaying wealth, but there was an aura of authority and power echoing through the stones and Hollyleaf knew at once that this would have been where the Twoleg leader would have addressed his Clan. As if to prove it, a stone throne awaited them across the room, but neither of them glanced at it.
The hall was lined with stones. Five stones. The largest was the centrepiece of the room; the two beasts stepped up to examine it.

Hollyleaf was overcome with awe. Somehow, a Twoleg had managed to shape the stone into a strange but recognizable figure. A Twoleg, tall and powerfully built, wearing a strange pelt, was mounted on a rearing horse and thrusting a stick down into the side of a strange and horrible beast. It resembled a serpent, only with four short yet powerful legs clasping the ground. Sheets of stone formed wings sprouting from its back, and its monstrous head writhed with an expression somewhere between fury, terror, and agony.
"What is it?" breathed Hollyleaf.

"A human legend," replied Matilda in the same soft voice. "Once upon a time, a town was being ravaged by this beast. At first the humans fed it on sheep, but the sheep ran out, so they began feeding it their children instead through a method of choosing. One day the choosing method picked out the daughter of their alpha pair. The humans warned their alphas that they would rebel if the alphas refused to give up their daughter, and at last they agreed and delivered their daughter to the beast. Just as she was about to be eaten, a new human on horseback galloped up and battled the beast. It took many hours, as the beast had impenetrable scales and could spit poison and its breath was hotter than flame, but at last he thrust his weapon into a space between its side and its wing, where there were no scales. The warrior took the daughter as his mate and they travelled away."
Hollyleaf shivered. "Are there beasts like that still around?"

"No. It was the last of its kind. My people's legends say that is why this was made—to remind humans that once a creature is gone, it is gone forever."
Matilda's pack was hauntingly close to the truth; and if either of them had been able to read, they would have seen the scripture etched into the base of the stone form.
Stand far from the Sow Bear and Her cubs
Keep distance from the Lion and His kill
Walk away from the Hawk, and Her nest on the ledge;
Come not between the Dragon and His wrath.

Hollyleaf then grasped something that her kind had never held a word for; pilgrimage. She sensed that there was an importance to this stone, and that merely by seeing it, she had given something to it and taken another thing away. She understood why one would travel many miles merely to see it with their own eyes.
"Over here, too," Matilda called, and Hollyleaf remembered the other stones. She turned.
The other stones were not as exquisitely carved as the first, but they were lovely in their own way. She saw a small deer, peering nervously into the distance, and an owl, perched in a tree of stone, a curious wisdom echoing in his eyes. Most chillingly, though, was a cat—a sleek, muscular beast with an expression somewhere between determination and sorrow. The carver of these stone forms had shaped them especially so that focus would go to their eyes, and Hollyleaf wondered why that was so.

The last stone was tucked away, almost but not quite out of sight. It was a wolf, and unlike the other forms with their poetic, gentle expressions, this beast had a snarling savagery. Matilda stepped close to this stone, and bent down to touch the etchings in the base with her nose. They were incomprehensible to her, but her legends had told her that they were the humans' equivalent of scent marks, and that they contained clues about the beasts they were supposed to represent. This time, their speculation was right on the mark. Underneath the little hind's statue was The Hunter. Beneath the owl's was The Seeker. At the base of the cat statue rested The Warden. And lastly the wolf's read The Beginning.

"Why are these here?" Hollyleaf asked.
"It is tied in with a prophecy. I do not know what it is, but I have a sense that we will find out, soon."
"Prophecies!" Hollyleaf said with a rush of bitterness. "They cause nothing but pain."
"Prophecies cause nothing, Hollyleaf—they merely foretell it." Matilda turned away from the statues and padded to the hole they had entered through. "Come. I do not like to be closed in like this."