"My Clan… I have betrayed you all."

The apprentice tending to her nearly fell over again. There was a chorus of gasps, but no one said anything, although it was clear what they were thinking. She was terribly wounded and likely light-headed. Perhaps something had jumbled in her brain. She couldn't mean what she was saying!

But Violetstar didn't stop there. "You see, there is something I should have told you all long ago, but I was always afraid to do so. Snowstar and I…we are sisters."

Another shock, this one harder still. Hareleap's eyes were as wide as moons as he took this in. Sisters? With my…mother?

By then Fernleaf had finished with Rowanpaw, who appeared to be sleeping but may also have been listening. The medicine cat now stepped towards his leader, his fur tensed and his eyes uncertain. "Violetstar…what do you mean?" he dared to ask. "Why have you not told us this?

Violetstar flinched and looked down again. "I am sorry," she whispered. "I was scared…scared that my Clan wouldn't trust me if they knew I was directly related to that…beast." She flexed her claws and stood up suddenly, cringing again as she did so from a wild burst of pain. She caught her breath and looked back up.

"Please…let me explain." Her pleading tone caused the group to put on a false sense of calm, although anxiety was still humming in the air. Violetstar sat back down. She shut her eyes and seemed to drift back to a time long ago as she moved to speak again.

"As you are all aware, I was born in MeadowClan . But what most of you likely do not remember, however, is that I was not an only child. My mother gave birth to a second kit, a beautiful, snowy white kit with a coat that gleamed. She was named Snowkit.

Despite her appearance, however, Snowkit was a little devil. She kicked and thrashed constantly when she was in our mother's belly, and when she tumbled out at last, the first thing she did was bite the medicine cat who had licked her clean. She may not have grown any teeth yet, but it still stung.

She was always doing that. Biting, and scratching, too. She would approach an innocent victim, act all sweet, and then when they leaned close, deal whatever damage she pleased. She was awful.

But in that first month of our lives, we were a team. I followed her because I admired her. I would gaze at her miraculous white fur and think she was beautiful. I watched and helped her with her little impish acts and thought her clever and wise. She was my life, my soul mate. I never did anything without her.

But when we were two moons old, I started noticing that she never thought the same about me. I would eagerly complement her beauty, and she would grin and strut about, and talk about how right I was, but she never return the compliment. I would help her in one of her many schemes, and she would brag about how great she performed. But she never mentioned me.

She cared only for herself, and demanded constant adoration from everyone around her. But as she grew, she started to yearn for more than just attention.

One night I caught her at the edge of camp, staring intensely at the view of the territory before her. I sat next to her and listened to her explain about this Clan she had heard of, and how great it sounded. Her eyes were gleaming as she spoke, full of greed and lust for power. And when I followed her eager gaze to a dark forest in the distance, I saw only that. A black and distant forest, a stain in the meadow that was our home. That was all I saw.

But Snowkit saw something else entirely.

I quickly forgot about that time, although I did notice that my sister was often missing in the following nights. Everything changed, though, one day.

We were three moons old now. She had been incredibly erotic and fiery recently, and our close bond was being tested constantly. That day, on a whim, she turned to me and demanded that I help her steal herbs from the medicine cat. We were always playing nasty games like these, stealing and hiding in the forest and attacking chosen targets. I wasn't feeling up to playing along with her that day though; I knew that it was bound to end badly, but she wouldn't let me refuse. So I had no choice but to follow her at night into the den. We crept to the back and began tearing at the herbs, eating some, shredding others, and throwing them at each other. We were just sneaking back out with cobwebs all over our ears and shreds of leaves buried in our fur and berries in our mouths, when the medicine cat woke.

Suddenly I was being shoved forward by Snowkit, and I heard a single phrase whispered fiercely in my ear: "I hate you." Then she was out the door in a flash of white. When the medicine cat laid eyes on me and my state, I was blamed, of course. I was punished to a moon of taking care of the elders. But I didn't care; I cared only about the fact that Snowkit had vanished, mysteriously. And about the last thing she said to me.

I have no idea what came over her, and why she chose then to leave. But I knew instantly that she had gone to CreviceClan. She had grown bored of MeadowClan long ago. CreviceClan was a mysterious place that spoke of power and belonging to her. In her mind, I imagined that she thought they wouldn't treat her like the little kit she was there.

I'm still surprised today that she even made it there alive. And that they brought her in at all, although I am sure their greeting was anything but pleasant. Most likely it was hard for her to achieve such status there. Very hard. But she did, somehow, and you are all only too aware of that."

Violetstar took a moment to look at her audience, breathing heavily from the effort of her words. Everyone was listening attentively, hanging onto her every word. Hareleap found that he had been staring intensely as though in a trance.

"And after her final words to me, I grew to despise her as well. I didn't want anything to do with her; I wanted to vanquish her and her Clan and prove to her my worth." Violetstar sighed deeply. "I still do."

"Eventually I became leader and so did she, and with two dueling siblings leading the two conflicted Clans, the tension between the us was especially high-strung.

Then came that fateful day…it was raining and MeadowClan was holed up in its dens. It was the perfect time for CreviceClan to strike, and strike they did, soundlessly and effortlessly. We were unprepared. They slipped into the dens like liquid shadows and picked us off one by one. And in that dark, hopeless night, Snowstar …she came to me.

She wasn't the pretty little imp of a sister that I remembered from my childhood. Gone was the powerful longing in her eyes to belong; instead, I saw nothing but the flames of hate. She may have said that she hated me before, but…she didn't then. She was just a kit, she didn't know what she was saying. She didn't know. Whatever innocence she may have once had within her was shattered in CreviceClan. They had crafted her into something unrecognizable. She was…a monster.

In my den that night, she beat me. Terribly. She slashed at me from all sides, tearing, tearing, until I was a bloody mess on the floor, crying and pitiful. And then she leaned in all close with a red stained smile and told me about this son of hers who had apparently escaped from her Clan. She seemed to leave out a lot of information, but she made it very clear what she wanted me to do. He would come to my Clan, she told me with absolute confidence. I was to accept him and then create three different plots of murder, all of which she demanded had to appear as if they were from natural causes. She would post several guards to make sure I followed her commands. She said they had plenty of "ideas" should I need any help. I was not to tell anyone.

It made no sense to me at all. Her plan was nothing but madness. Why did she want to kill this son of hers? And why have me devise elusive plots to do so? She had gone insane. I managed to lift my head and I looked at her and saw a maniac.

But I had no choice in the matter. I was an inch away from death and my Clan was hers to do with as she pleased. So I agreed and I did as she demanded.

I housed my heart somewhere far away and set misfortune on a poor cat's life. And somehow he managed to survive every time. Then suddenly the CreviceClan guards were telling me that I had to do one final act: kidnap his sister so they could take her away. I blindly confronted her with one of the guards but something in me finally cracked. I rebelled, but it was to no use. I have done terrible, unforgivable things and I couldn't redeem myself."
Violetstar was shaking from frailty. "I'm sorry. Now go and save her." She wavered and fell to the earth.

"Violetstar!" Fernleaf leaped forward instinctively and held his leader's head up, but she had lost consciousness again.

The ground beneath Hareleap's paws was shaking. His heart thumped against his ribcage and he shivered all over. Slowly, gradually, all the recent weights, all the questions and demands and pain that had been cutting deep into him released their grip, and he gasped as if drawing air for the first time in forever. Suddenly he knew why he had been put through so much upon arriving in MeadowClan. He did not blame Violetstar. He gazed at her battered, still frame and tightly shut eyes and felt only sorrow. And, too, he felt a deep-rooted guilt, a thorn in his side that hinted to him darkly that it was all his fault she had suffered the way she did. But he cast it aside and all the other haunting specters of thoughts still creeping in his mind, and focused on only one thing: saving Fishsplash.

Fernleaf and his apprentice managed to lift Violetstar and Rowanpaw, both unmoving but showing signs of life, and carried them back to camp. Petalbreeze watched them go, and then turned to her group of warriors, all silent and grim as Violetstar's words echoed in their heads.

"Well, come on! Let's get going. We have some rescuing to do." She strode forward into the direction of CreviceClan, and everyone else had no choice but to follow.

As he walked, Hareleap knew in his heart that although Violetstar had indeed committed many crimes, she did in fact redeem herself by admitting to the truth, and her Clan recognized this and could never lose faith in their honorable leader.