The light did not wake her gently. It was dim, and cooler than normal. Nulled by the grey and black clouds of ash that rushed through the air, Littlescent could have hoped for nothing, anyway.

She slowly lifted her front paws, immediately hacking out everything she had left in her on the ground. Then she dropped back down. Her breathing, while not heavy and rapid, was difficult. Her sides did not burn, only her belly from being empty for so long. She could almost feel another round of vomiting coming on.

What's there left to get out besides more ash, she thought. Can't you just leave me alone, belly?

She knew resisting it was bad so she let it all out in one long, forced heave. Little came up, aside from fur and some black paste. The convulsions wrenched her empty belly, her body began to shiver in pain as she sat back down, looking towards the giant entrance behind her.

I think I should go and see Mousetail again. For what those heartless wildcats did to me last night… not that it mattered anyway. There's no good in any of these cats. The only one who hasn't hurt me, or thought about it, was Mousetail. But I can't really count her, I guess. She's a medicine cat. Unlike that brutal monster Flyfoot who suggests everyone kill each other.

And Horsepelt. I can't forgive him for what's going to happen because of him. That dirt-hearted… I guess he can't take all the blame. His clan demanded he do something like this. And, despite what he says, this can't be in their best interest.

And then there's me… actually, it's a lot of 'me' lately. I was the one who got captured, I was the one who let those cats die under my guidance, and I was the one who didn't speak up at the last meeting. If only I had said something, just something, then maybe it wouldn't come to this. Maybe I could've helped the others—

No. No, this still goes back to Horsepelt. No matter what I want to think. He made the call in the end. He was the one who went back on his word. He doesn't believe in StarClan anymore… he's lost now. I need to forget about the Horsepelt I thought I knew from the past several nights.

Littlescent tried standing once more. Her paws wavered, her heavy breathing returned, and her whole body shivered and struggled to stay upright. She forced the arduous task of walking forward, down the tunnel and towards the debris pile at the end.

It's so frustrating. Frustrating to be this weak. This powerless. I can barely stand straight, let alone swing my claws at anything. I bet I couldn't even catch a weak mouse.

Her vision became clouded with white dots. The burn on her right flank began to painfully throb again. But she forced trembling legs to keep her upright.

She had only taken a few steps forward. But she continued, despite her condition.

Eaglestar, Flyfoot, Horsepelt… all of you. StarClan will make you—

A snap broke her thoughts. She stopped, her ears erect, trying to find the source of the rustling. One of the small stone pieces was shaken from the large pile far in front of her. She walked towards it, searching the debris for a sign.

She sniffed the air, unable to get anything other than dry moss and ash. She continued, turning her head back towards the large entrance, seeing nothing but dim light from outside.

"I'm surprised you didn't find me, blödmann stone cat."

Littlescent whipped her head around and bore her teeth. The dizzying action blurred her vision and finally brought her down. She lay in a heap, huffing for air and blinking rapidly to regain her vision.

"They really got to you, didn't they? What'd they do? Bite and scratch? Threw you off a nest? Just beat you? I see they knocked out a fang. So all three, probably. And that's not even counting that stupid collar you're wearing."

Littlescent, her vision returning to normal, looked into the pair of bright yellow eyes that returned the gesture. The cat's brown fur was covered in bald spots; his face was almost completely furless. He leaned in close to her, sniffing at her limp body.

"Burn… how did you get in here?" Littlescent asked.

"Wow. I don't know much about medicine but your breathing sounds terrible."

"You… you're going to alert them just… just leave."

"Don't worry about that," he said. "There's almost no one here, right?"

"This is LeafClan camp. You can't just… come here."

He continued to smell her fur, moving over her body back and forth. "That's how you got here, wasn't it? You just walked in? But losing so much fur makes me almost scentless. Almost. We're both kind of the same like that. Luckily with how much of this city is burning I don't think I'll have to worry about leafbare—"

Littlescent shoved the brown-patched cat's face away from her body. "How are you here?"

"Hey, I wasn't finished," he responded.

"Stop... and answer my question."

"I need to see how easy it is to detect you," he said, continuing his examination from further away. "If you really have no scent. And you don't. Absolutely none. Might be all this ash in the air, but who cares because now I can get you out of here!"

Littlescent looked wide-eyed at the tom, frantically looking around at every entrance.

"You need… to get out of here. Wildcats… will tear you to pieces—"

"Yeah, that's the thing," he said. "There aren't any wildcats around. It's like they're all gone off somewhere… with so many cats you think they'd do better at guarding you. Then again, it looks like a hungry rat could kill you right now."

Littlescent tried to remember the last time she saw one. She remembered passing out when she got back to the camp, and seeing very few wildcats.

"So… what? That doesn't mean… they're all gone."

He shook his head. "Not all, but enough are gone to not care about keeping an eye on you. That's what matters. This is the perfect time to get you out. Now come on, I'll help you stand."

Burn tried to shove his head under the injured she-cat, but she pushed it away. He tried again, pinning her front paws down with his own. She thrashed her body as hard as she could, forcing him to back away.

"I'm not… I'm not going." She hacked out bile and blood as she flopped motionlessly back to the ground, lying completely still once more.

"I don't get you, stone cat. Here I am to rescue you, and it looks like you'd die before you'd let me. What's with you?"

Littlescent couldn't blink fast enough to clear her head of the white stars and take the pain in her belly away. She tightly shut them and curled up as she felt another round of convulsions coming.

"Just… just get out of here… and don't come back. Saving me won't do you any good."

"Like your Stars it won't!" Burn glanced through all the entrances before continuing. "You're the easy way to my group's survival. If I hold you hostage, then I can use you to get my clan some food. I bet Longstar would be more willing to negotiate if it was food rather than his entire clan."

"How… could you know about that? Wildcats… would've caught you."

"Far less wildcats at those meetings of yours mean I can hide somewhere nearby without getting caught, as well as scented out. Now I'm not going to play nice here. You're coming with me if I have to drag you out by your paws! I'm not letting this opportunity go—"

"You don't understand what's happening," she whispered. "I can't leave. They'll kill everyone… everyone if I try and make a move. It doesn't matter to them… whether I'm with them or not. They want to kill us… but know it wouldn't benefit them. So I'm the leverage to the rest of my clan… the burden. If I die or leave, then nothing stops them… from just taking our clan with a fight."

Littlescent opened her eyes again as her belly untwisted. The white stars had left, but she still struggled to sit up and meet Burn's eyes.

"Just leave me, and get your cats as far away from us – from me – as possible. Before it's too late."

The patch-furred tom backed away, glancing back at the entrances. He began to circle the white and grey she-cat, his eyes continually observing her collar and small bald spots.

"Well, by the looks of your body, you don't have much of a choice. You can't stop me from taking you. Not looking like that." He began to paw at the small, silver ball on her collar each time he passed it, being careful not to make it jingle.

Littlescent closed her eyes again and focused on her rapid heartbeat. She tried to control her breathing, letting out long sighs with every attempt. She had only managed to stop her head from throbbing with every beat, weighing her options.

Burn made another attempt at moving her. She tried to smack him away with her paw, but he had pinned her paws before she could. As he positioned his head under her she rolled over, tumbling away and no longer facing him.

Burn sat up again, shaking his head at the resistant clan cat. "I don't see why you're making this so hard. Eventually you'll pass out. Or I'll just make you. Either way, you can't resist forever."

"Longstar wouldn't accept your proposal," Littlescent said.

"Really. And why not, stone cat? Or are you just trying to stall?"

"No, hear me out." Littlescent took another deep breath to keep herself conscious. She rolled back over and stared into Burn's eyes. "The wildcats need my life to get StoneClan to surrender peacefully. If you take me now, the wildcats lose their negotiating power and are forced to attack our clan.

"How we are now, we could lose to them in just one attack. Everyone could die and we would certainly be driven away. And, for many moons, the only thing keeping the wildcats from killing rouges is your camp being within our borders. Without us, they will take over everything they see. They will patrol our territory to keep stragglers like you from hunting it."

Burn continued to glare into the she-cat's dull, green eyes. His tail dropped to the ground as he looked at all the entrances for wildcats.

"If you're that important," he said, "why aren't they guarding you? I've seen one wildcat since entering wildcat territory. One. And she wasn't even patrolling or anything."

"Look at me," the warrior said. "What you said is true. They've hurt me too much for me to move right now. Even if you forced me, I couldn't make it through the rubble blocking the way you came in. If you want my guess, they're all scouting our territory or out hunting."

The rouge tom let out a deep sigh, sitting close to Littlescent. "So you say they'll kill us if your clan gets pushed out? I wouldn't put it past them. They really hate us… so now what?"

Littlescent couldn't shake the criticism she placed on herself. Think, Littlescent. An opportunity is here. Right here, ready to help. So long as I negotiate right… he can't save me, I can't let him leave me here. I can use this for my benefit. To make up for what happened… the only way I know how.

Littlescent shifted her body towards Burn and sat up as much as she could, ignoring the small group of white dots in her vision. "You… you say you have no scent, right? And you're good at hiding and staying quiet, like me?"

"I've been known for those things," he responded.

"So I need you to do me a favor. In exchange, I'll let your group hunt on StoneClan territory."

"You're not the leader," he scoffed. "I want to hear that from Longstar himself before I go along with your favor."

"I can assure you he will let it happen. Plus this idea can keep both our groups safe from LeafClan." She looked at Burn with as stern a look she could muster through her fatigue. He turned away briefly to think.

"You make sure we get food," he said, still turned away. "These aren't just non-believers and outcasts here. These are cats and kits that are going to starve if you turn out to be a liar. They'll die if I don't do something."

"Bonbon would've never turned away a cat in need. And neither will Longstar. Your cats will eat… if you help me."

He turned to face her. "Okay then. I'll do anything to keep us fed."

Littlescent flopped back down on the rough stone beneath her. Her breathing had slowed back to normal and the white dots had disappeared.

Is this the only way? The only absolute way to solve this? If I don't do anything our clan will perish anyway. And they aren't interested in peace at all… they'll get what they deserve.

"The meeting will happen at moonhigh. The one that will lead to our clan's destruction. Before that happens, I want you to kill Eaglestar, Pineheart… and Horsepelt."

Burn took a few steps away from Littlescent to check the entrances again. The only sound flowing through the tunnel was the echo of the wind from the large entrance some distance away. He then leaned in close again.

"That doesn't sound very possible, you know."

"Let me elaborate," she whispered. "You don't have to kill them now. Wait until they are distracted by the negotiations. Ambushes are hard to react to, even for a clan cat. Take your cats that are hardest to detect and, at my signal, ambush and kill them all. Quickly. And then run away. The rest will be taken care of after that."

Burn glanced at all the entrances, and scratched at his face with his paw. "I know what killing a clan leader could do. But why the other two?"

"Without Eaglestar, Horsepelt becomes leader. Without Horsepelt, they'd probably make Pineheart the leader. But without Pineheart, there's no one with authority left who agreed on attacking. The eldest of them, without Wolfstar, is Mousetail. She doesn't want to see anyone die. They would defiantly listen to her before they listen to Flyfoot, who's too young to convince them to ignore Mousetail on her own."

"So it looks like you've thought this one out more than I would've, stone cat," said Burn as he turned away from her to look at all the entrances again. He then stood and began to circle her once more.

"Okay. I'll do it."

Littlescent's ears perked up. "Just like that?"

"Just like that."

She nodded. "All right then. But I did expect more resistance. I am asking you to kill a clan leader, along with the two best warriors under him. Even as an ambush that's going to be hard."

Burn stopped his pacing right in front of the she-cat. "It's not like I have a choice. I trust you to get us food. And there are others among us, just like me, who have burns that they use to cross borders undetected. But I can't guarantee you anything. No cat in our group has ever fought a wildcat and lived."

"It doesn't matter," she responded. "Even if only one of them goes down it will still be a heavy blow to them. I don't believe Eaglestar has StarClan's blessing of nine lives. But if you can only kill one… I actually prefer it to be Horsepelt."

"Don't you worry," he said. "I intend to get all three of them. They die, it helps us. And if what you say is true, we'll end up having to face them sooner or later. Might as well act now, especially since they won't suspect rouges."

Littlescent waved a paw in the air; all she could muster as a gesture of appreciation. "Thank you for doing this. I will make sure your cats are fed if I have to hunt all the mice myself."

"Yeah… just make sure you're alive to keep your promise." He pointed to the small puddle of bile and blood Littlescent had hacked out earlier. "Give me a signal when you want us to pounce. We'll be hiding near Eaglestar by the time this all goes down. And no one will know we're there. Not even Longstar. So make your signal obvious, okay?"

She stared at the puddle. Her ears dropped back down and her tail shifted back and forth through her hind legs. Littlescent kept herself from tensing up as she responded to the tom.

"I should rest now," she said. "I'll make sure I'm fine when this all happens."

Burn looked around before facing the pile of rubble he had snuck in through. "Well then, we'll be waiting. And don't break your promise. Or I might turn this plan of yours on StoneClan."

Littlescent watched the brown-patched tom pad away from her and back into the rubble. She tried to find his scent, realizing she wouldn't be able to even if she could smell anything.

She let out a deep breath, letting her body sulk back to the ground. She relaxed her muscles and let her limbs spread out as they wanted. She finally felt her stomach untwist, replaced by an unsettling weakness and calm as she stared at the pile of blood Burn had pointed to.

I'm still weak, she thought. I still need to make up for what happened on that day. I may have started all this, but now I can finish it. I can't let my clan sit back and be driven away because I made a mistake. And now, I don't have to. StarClan or not, we will continue what Bonbon started.

Horsepelt… you're keeping all this going, aren't you? You're making this easier for Eaglestar. You made it so easy for him, so beneficial to LeafClan. At our expense. You were close to doing what we both agreed on, and you turned away at the last moment.

Littlescent's ears twitched as the breeze began to pick up again. What little light was coming through the partly open entrances was fading away. She could hear the scratching of the thick ash particles against the walls around her. For once, she was glad to be kept inside.

She closed her eyes, keeping her breathing regular and trying to calm her erratic heartbeat.

You used to be so good, too. Those times we spoke. When we first met… was it all a trick? Was it all a way to just learn about our clan's intentions? Our resolve to fight? Our plans to avoid your clan? Or did you just single me out, make me your target. Was I stupid enough to believe a wildcat truly wanted to leave our clan alone, after a prophecy like Mousetail's?

You spoke so honestly when you addressed your clan, the moments before I was captured. Those savages rejected you and your plan. And you just accepted it as a failure. And joined them. I can see you haven't become one… yet. But you're helping them so well to bring our clan down.

You say it's for the safety of our clan. You say it's to keep them from killing us while we're weak. But you don't know a thing about us. You don't know where we have to go if you push us out of our camp. We'll end up like your clan, starving but unable to fight for more territory. I say that's even worse than letting us go out with a fight. Leading us off to badlands and letting us starve to death slowly while you watch… that's beyond cruel.

I don't have to worry about that now. I really don't want to see you dead, I really don't. You are the only wildcat I've ever been able to understand. But now that you're the force behind your clan, you must be dealt with. You've lost your way, Horsepelt. The only one of you with the Stars on mind now is Mousetail.

Littlescent felt her body grow weary from her previous conversation. It drove her to the fringes of sleep.

I don't care what the Stars think. I don't care what my clan thinks. I don't know how this will affect everything that's happening. I just want to see our clan safe, to see a future for StoneClan.

And if that means getting rid of you in such a way, so be it.