AN: Well here it is! I'll also post up the allegiances for "book 2" as a little preview today. The new story itself will be posted up in maybe a week?

No. Icestar didn't kill him. Oh of course not. It would make him look bad.

But he might as well have done so.

The leader dragged him out of his den instead; for all the clan to see, and dumped him at the base of the meeting point. Many pairs of eyes stared. It looked like most if not all the clan were back from hunting or patrol. In the background thick black smoke rose into the storm clouds from Gustclan territory. The thunder rolled on ominously, the few drops of rain increasing in speed and number.

"Gorseclan!" Icestar declared, calling attention to the scene (as if he needed to). "Just now in my den, Rowanfall attacked me!" The wounds were proof enough. Blood was still oozing from his neck and dripping from his tail, leaving odd drops as he waved it back and forth.

"Because he's a murderer!" Rowanfall snarled defiantly as he crouched in the dirt at Icestar's feet. He figured if this was happening, he wasn't going to sit there in silence. Maybe he could convince them…

"Rowanfall is a traitor to our clan!" Icestar shouted over the top of him and the cats who started to murmur to themselves. Rowanfall could see his fellow apprentices, looking shell-shocked. His father's face was unreadable in the crowd. Nobody went to defend him. "He tried to kill me!"

"Because he killed Kowhaifall!" Threat, threat, threat reverberated in Rowanfall's head. The mood in the camp was tense and sharp. The crowd of cats was pressing in. He saw Horsefoot's face; the black tom looked aghast. Sorrelfur and Spiderstreak were drawing closer to Icestar; their expressions were dark. Longtail was nowhere to be seen. "He's been working with the rouges! He had Rookkit stolen from Gustclan and killed Kowhaifall after she found out to cover it up!"

"Lies!" Icestar roared. "No, my friends, my clanmates! Do not be deceived!" The white tom yelled, shaking his great scarred head. "I believe young Rowanfall has been conspiring with Fernclan; working from within to bring us low, and is complacent in Kowhaifall's death! He is trying to cover his own actions!"

Flowerdust's wail punctuated Icestar's words, but Rowanfall couldn't see her. The sound was bad enough. Surely, she didn't believe Icestar over him…?

Rowanfall was almost speechless at the accusations that it seemed like Icestar had been planning just in case all along, though his deep growl conveyed his thoughts accurately enough. "You filthy…!"

"It's true!" Sorrelfur suddenly broke in with a cry, moving to stand beside Icestar. Rowanfall stared, eyes going wide. Not her too… She was in on it all along? "I saw him let two Fernclan apprentices go the night of the gathering battle!"

"He always has been friendly with that one Fernclan she-cat…" He heard someone else mutter behind him. He didn't even turn to see who. He couldn't believe this.

"Dappledpaw saw it as well..." Spiderstreak prompted. The slimy rouge looked like he was enjoying this. Of course he had been part of the plan; he was likely how Icestar got in contact with the rouge group in the first place. "She told me about it."

Eyes moved to the tortoiseshell, who blinked slowly. For a moment, she looked conflicted and reluctant. For a moment, Rowanfall really thought she wouldn't sell him out. He thought about her picking him up after Kowhaifall's death, in her own way…

Icestar's orange gaze was drilling into her. She met it, and then those ice-like eyes of hers went hard. She looked right through Rowanfall as she turned her head to him. "Yes. He let them escape; one totally unharmed. He went hunting by their border a lot too… Perhaps he's been visiting them."

"Kowhaifall died by the border…"

"He probably worked with Fernclan to kill his mentor, so he could become a warrior faster!"

"All that moping he was doing…"

"Nobody saw what happened but Rowanfall! How can we trust his word?"

"He attacked Icestar!"

The voices of his clanmates doubting him; thinking he was really capable of cold-blooded conspiracy and murder of his own mentor, it was almost torture. The red tom's heart was like a rock weighing down his paws. He wanted to launch at Icestar again and wipe the smug look off his face, but he couldn't move. This couldn't be happening.

"Maybe I did let them go, but do you all really believe I would conspire with Fernclan!?" He appealed, looking around desperately. The expressions on his clanmates faces didn't hold much promise.

"This can't be right…" Horsefoot said, looking to desperately to Icestar like he was wanting the leader to say it was all a joke.

Windheart, his father, said nothing. "Windheart! You can't believe him? Over your own blood?" Not even when Rowanfall looked to him for support, voice straining. The seal-pointed tom just grit his teeth and looked away.

"This can't be true..." Horsefoot said again, almost to himself, looking between Rowanfall hunched on the ground and his leader standing tall above him.

"Unfortunately, it is." Icestar rumbled like the thunder above. The rain came down even harder, but the cats didn't move. "And so, we must act."

"No!" Flowerdust's cry was heart-breaking. The queen pushed through the other cats, coming up beside her eldest son and crouching over him protectively. Her kits confused mews could be heard in the background from the nursery. "Please spare him; not my Rowanfall! You must have made a mistake! He'd never do something like that!"

Well at least someone believed him. "Flowerdust…" Windheart had moved forward. He still wasn't looking at his son.

"I won't execute your kit, Flowerdust." Icestar said softly. "But he still must be punished." His voice turned hard and raised volume. "In the eyes of our warrior ancestors, I sentence this traitor to exile!"

"No!" Flowerdust's screech was almost as bad as the feeling in Rowanfall's chest.

"Windheart, control your mate… Take her back to her kits." Icestar growled, shoving her towards the tom.

As Windheart half-led, half-dragged Flowerdust to the nursery, not looking back once at his kit, Icestar loomed over Rowanfall. "Run." He growled. "Run far away from here. The next time you are seen on Gorseclan territory, you will be an enemy and treated appropriately."

Rowanfall found himself shakily getting to his paws. Instead of feeling numb, the fury was building up in his body again. He forced Icestar to take a step back by thrusting his snarling muzzle into the other tom's face. "Enjoy your little perfect act while you can, Icestar. I'll avenge Kowhaifall, and that little kit your rouge friends killed…" He hissed, voice full of low threat. He felt so much hatred for this cat he wasn't sure if his body could contain it. "I'll wreck this scheme of yours, no matter what. You're deluded if you think Starclan is on your side."

"I'd like to see you try." Icestar whispered, so quietly no other cat could hear, voice oozing malice. "If you're caught in Gorseclan territory again, I'll be sure to send you to see your mentor..." One would think he might attack him again right there and then, but Rowanfall could feel it in that moment.

Not a threat.

It bolstered his confidence, what little he had left. "Then let the match begin." He echoed how Icestar would often start the mock fighting bouts between the apprentices during training. "I'll drag you down to the Dark Forest myself if I have to."

Rowanfall whipped around and started to pad away, blazing eyes raking over the clan. Some of them backed away. As if they actually thought he'd attack them. It was like being surrounded by strangers, not the clan he grew up with. "You can all keep being complacent; live your lives believing your so-called fine and upstanding leader! Fine!" He yelled to the cats around him. He could see Flowerdust's wide eyes, hear her soft whimper in the darkness of the nursery behind where Windheart stood, blocking her from coming out again. He still wouldn't meet his eye. He looked past him, face set.

He was angry at the clan too. Nobody but his mother seemed to believe him. Not his father. Not his "friends". Longtail was still absent. He found himself not caring if the medicine cat ever came back. His whole life, everything he'd known, had just come crashing down around him. Why should he care about them? All he could feel was angry and betrayed. "But believe me when I say he isn't what he seems, and he's going to lead all of you idiots to ruin! I can't wait to see the looks of regret on your faces when the whole wretched pack of you find out what he really is!"

"Enough Rowanfall. Go." Icestar growled. Spidestreak and Sorrelfur looked ready to forcibly chase him out if need be.

Rowanfall ignored the jeers he earned, the sad and disbelieving looks, the angry spits… He padded out of his camp one last time like there were stones in his paws, fur soaked thoroughly from the rain. He'd lost everything. He was no longer a Gorseclan cat.

His green eyes gleamed ferociously in the gloom of the storm. He was going to make Icestar pay.

As Rowanfall's thick red tail vanished into the exit tunnel, a crack of lightning flashed overhead.