The Broken Code: Fallen Spirits

by Bilbz

After the events of The Broken Code: Veil of Shadows, the impostor is still a prisioner in the Thunderclan camp. What the clan cats don't know is that despite the body of Bramblestar being a prisioner, the spirit of the impostor is free and is taking control over ghosts of other cats around the lake. No one, living or dead, is safe from the impostor's twisted plans for the clans.

20. Have faith, Shadowsight

What's this? An extra set of text? Was this here before? Did I not notice? I don't think so; then, what is it doing here? I wonder if something else has changed, maybe if I check the Profile of this user, I'll see what this overly-done hidden message is all about. Will it have to do with the conclusion of this story? That, I can only speculate.

---

I literally stood up an went "Finally!" when I managed to get this chapter done. Like, holy... It was a hard chapter. The amount of things that I had to plan, write, re-write, scrap, bring back, patch and methodically lay out in front of me was just more than I expected. There are also so many things to announce.

First, the cannon book which oficially declares this story as an AU came out a few days ago. To those that said that this story would be better than that book... I'll let you draw your own conclusions. BUT (EVERYTHING IN THIS PARAGRAPH THAT IS WRITTEN IN ALL CAPS IS A SPOILER, DO NOT READ UNLESS YOU'VE READ DARKNESS WITHIN) ROOTSPRING DOES SUMMON LOST SPIRITS THAT ARE IN PAIN AND WANTING TO HURT THEIR CLANMATES SOOOO... I'LL DEFINETLY GET HYPED FOR THAT, EVEN THOUGH IT WILL PROBABLY LEAD TO NOTHING BIG.

Second, I've added a change to the events in Bristlefrost's chapter, which is small and only made to make my life easier. Instead of going back to the tree-bridge in the middle of enemy territory, Bristle and Root speak at the border between their clans, just so everything makes more sense.

Third, thanks for the two OC's, will definetly take them into account. Y'all are still on time to add any other if it comes to your head.

Fourth and last (I hope), I cannot believe I actually managed to write this. I swear, it was the toughest piece of writing I've ever done in my life. I wouldn't have managed to keep going if it wasn't for the wise advices of Stephen King and his book "On writing", I whole-heartedly recommend giving it a full read if anyone wants to ever become a serious writer and improve with simple tips given by such a master of writing.

Fifth (Ok, really the last), this chapter might be extremelly confusing to read, but don't worry, it'll all make sense with time. Also, the Dark Forest is slightly different to the original version, as I inspired my view of it from the many parts of the MAP "The angry river" on youtube (Still in progress). So yeah, it's not as bleak and mysterious as the original, it is more oppressing and unnerving in my version.

Now, who's ready for the chapter that was supposed to come out in halloween but my brain went nah man, take two more weeks instead?

I hope these three characters hurry up, it's almost time for the sun to come out.

---

Shadowsight's head was buzzing like a hornet's nest as he stood in front of the spirit that had pulled him into a ghost-like state in his dream. It was hard to understand, but it was only one of the many things that he was struggling to comprehend at that moment.

Many questions piled on his throat, pushing each other as if each one thought itself more important than the other. Some flew out of his mouth, some stayed in his head, but all of them needed answers that Dustpelt was not giving.

How do I free Starclan? How do I even reach them? Why do I have to wait for the gathering to end? Why can I not tell anyone?

Dustpelt was walking away from the medicine den, ignoring Shadowsight's questions as he lowered his head with frustration. The medicine cat took a step closer to the Starclan spirit, not knowing why he refused to answer.

How am I meant to do this? Why does it have to be me?

Rootspring and Bristlefrost were meant to help him, but how? What could they possibly know or do? What could Shadowsight know for that matter? He knew how to reach the Dark Forest, and he remembered the vision that he had while being dragged through the forest by Puddleshine. After that, he had nothing. No clue, no plan, no ideas that could get him closer to finding Starclan, let alone freeing it.

"Please tell me what to do!" Shadowsight pleaded, but to no avail.

What did that spirit mean with "Only you can free them all?"

Now that he thought about it, who was that cat with golden eyes and bright-white pelt? He had come to Rootspring, from what he had heard, but it never explained from where.

Maybe if I can speak to him, he will explain everything.

"Do you know who the spirit from my vi-"

Before Shadowsight could blink, Dustpelt had turned around and placed his brown tail over his mouth. The sudden movement was like a smack to the face for the young medicine cat, and he was about to back away when he noticed something strange in the eyes of the spirit in front of him.

Dustpelt's eyes had looked amber, Shadowsight remembered his relief when he had first noticed this, but now they were different. The brown tom was looking at him with a peaceful expression that showed a wisdom that the spirit had not seemed to possess earlier. He was looking at him with a pair of golden eyes, bright like a pair of suns that shined with a warm light.

The light was nothing like what Shadowsight had seen before, and he felt like he could stare at those golden spheres for the rest of his life. They were brighter than the sun, but they didn't feel like they would hurt his own eyes if the tom were to lose his gaze in them. In fact, they felt like they were demanding his attention and that no matter how much the medicine cat would have tried to look away, he just couldn't bring himself to separate himself from the golden eyes.

The light spoke to him, or maybe it was Dustpelt using his own voice. Wherever the voice was coming from, it felt familiar and wiser than any other cat, and it was calming. It was serene and soothing, yet it had grasped Shadowsight's attention within heartbeats.

"Hush, Shadowsight," The voice said. "All will be answered. For now, you must trust this messenger. It's the only way to save the clans."

Within a heart-beat, the young tom had forgotten about his confusion and questions, trusting the soothing voice coming out of those golden eyes. He was sure that he would find a way to save them all, he just had to have faith in the voice that he was hearing.

"Your faith is what will free them all, young one."

Without realizing, his body began to lose strength as it slowly fell to the ground. His eyelids felt heavy, but they couldn't look away yet. Those eyes were still shining bright, they still looked like suns at their peak, and no cat slept at sunhigh.

Can't… away...

"Sleep."

The eyes finally allowed him to rest.

Shadowsight, feeling all of his strength being pulled away from his body, let himself fall to the ground and closed his eyes. At that moment, the only thing that Shadowsight could only think of were the herbs that surrounded him in the medicine den.

Traveling herbs… Small berries, three of them...

(...)

Shadowsight ran towards the half-bridge on the lakeshore of Shadowclan territory, trying to spot a small and round bundle of leaves hidden behind one of the pillars that held the weight of that strange twoleg structure. Rootspring and Bristlefrost had stayed behind, agreeing to help the medicine cat despite the concerns of their littermates.

He stalked in-between the pebbles and boulders that were packed in the shores of the lake and crouched under the wooden planks over his head. Next to one of the thick pillars and behind a rock covered in moss, two packets made of laurel leaves were hidden from view.

Shadowsight grabbed the two bundles and headed back to the Skyclan and Thunderclan border. Bristlefrost and Rootspring were waiting for him in the distance, and the tabby tom could see the sisters of the warriors hurrying their way into the forest. They would tell Squirrelflight what Shadowsight and the others were going to do that night, just like Dustpelt had told him to do.

The medicine cat reached the two young warriors, who were looking at him with curious eyes. He placed the packets on the ground and unwrapped the one with the strongest scent to show his two companions a mixture of smaller leaves.

"We'll need these," Shadowsight said as he separated the foul-smelling herbs in three portions.

Bristlefrost sniffed the leaves tentatively, only to flinch her head back slightly. "What are these?"

Rootsrping looked at her with the corner of his blue eyes, and with a mutter, he said "I think they were traveling herbs, I'm not that sure."

Shadowsight nodded. "We have to get to the Moonpool, and it's a long way from here. We are gonna need all the strength we can."

And our bodies will need to be as strong as possible.

The three young cats consumed the herbs as fast as they could and in complete silence. Shadowsight quickly licked one of his grey paws to get the strong taste of the leaves out of his throat. Bristlefrost's body cringed slightly in response to the unfamiliar flavour, but she pushed it away as she focused her narrowed-blue eyes on Shadowsight.

"Are we supposed to the Dark Forest through the Moonpool?" She asked him.

"Exactly." The tom replied, surprised by the she-cat's quick thinking. He then tilted his head in the direction of Windclan territory. "But we have to get there before dawn," He said as he began to walk the path to the place where medicine cats gathered every half-moon.

Except for the last one, no one was allowed to go into Windclan territory.

"Wait, we're passing next to the Windclan border?" Rootspring asked him as he catched up to his friend with reluctant steps. "What about the spirits?"

"We can get past them," Shadowsight answered. There was no time to take the long path through Thunderclan, so following the normal path was the only way to get to the Moonpool from there. He pressed his step and hoped that the traveling herbs would be enough to let them reach the star-lighted pool before it was too late.

"But… I don't think I can force them away anymore."

"Well, you can see them. So just warn us about them," Bristlefrost commented, which led to the yellow tom narrowing his eyes.

"I'll try, Bristlefrost," He murmured with an irritated mew. "But I just can't."

"Maybe you just weren't focused enough during the gathering," The she-cat said drily, which made Shadowsight lower his head uncomfortably. However, neither Brisltefrost or Rootsrping seemed to care about the medicine cat's awkward reaction to their argument.

"Maybe you were staring at other things for too long," She added, her teeth now slightly gritted.

"Or maybe that was the only thing that I trusted to help me calm down, turns out it only wanted to make me feel worse with myself." Rootspring turned his head away from the she-cat with a grunt, definitely wanting to end the conversation there.

Shadowsight saw how Bristlefrost stopped on her tracks and narrowed her into a slitted glare. "You…"

She sighed and left her bitter words unfinished with a twitch of her grey tail. She then slowed her pace and stayed behind the two toms. Rootspring looked back at Shadowsight and gave him a frustrated glance that the Shadowclan tom did not know how to respond to.

What is going so wrong between these two?

The three young cats walked along the lakeshore in silence. Rootspring took the lead with pricked ears and looked around every few heartbeats, but he didn't seem to be noticing anything strange in the border with Windclan territory since he stayed silent. Bristlefrost followed his gaze and sighed.

"They're going to battle there…" She murmured to the others, her blue gaze sweeping over the grassy moor where blood would soon be spilled. "All of them."

"Good thing is, they're close to the Moonpool," Shadowsight pointed out. "As soon as we find Starclan, we can end the battle within heartbeats."

"If we haven't lost it already," Rootspring replied grimly.

"Shadowsight, I know you said that you don't know how to get that other moor, but didn't Dustpelt tell you anything that could help?" Bristlefrost asked the medicine cat. "Maybe a clue or something?"

"He didn't give me a chance to ask, he just forced me to wake up and I haven't seen him since then."

"And the vision? The falling tree, the ivy tendrils, the light, doesn't that tell you something?" The she-cat pressed on, but the grey tabby simply didn't know what to answer.

"It has to do with the way to open the barrier that I saw and reach the grey moor, but I just don't know..." His voice sounded doubtful, as Bristlefrost's questions were something that he had not been prepared for.

Why didn't he actually explain it to me?

"Bristlefrost, leave him alone," Rootsrping grunted in defence of his friend. When her gaze met his, he paused for a long moment as he seemed to try to hold his stern expression. But then the yellow tom looked away and muttered "I thought you didn't like to be rushed to give an answer to others."

Bristlefrost snorted, but she also held her temper even though she looked angrier than a wild fox, and didn't say anything. Rootspring didn't add any comments either, leaving the group in a state of silence so tense that it could be cut with a whisker.

Do I really have to free Starclan while having them argue with each other?

"So… which way do we go now?" Bristlefrost asked once the three cats began to get close to the border between Windclan and Thunderclan territory. A stream cut their path, from which the water flowed slowly into the lake between boulders and pebbles.

Rootspring's tail suddenly shot up and he turned his head towards the border.

"Ghosts!" He whispered as he crouched down between the grass to avoid being seen. Shadowsight and Bristlefrost imitated the Skyclan tom and pressed their bellies against the ground. The Shadowclan medicine cat couldn't spot anything strange standing on the stream, but he knew that Rootspring definitely could, so he waited for him to act.

However, the yellow tom kept hiding and looking at the ghosts in the border without saying a word. Bristlefrost was looking around her, so Shadowsight had to catch Rootspring's attention with a swish of his tail.

"What can you see?" He asked the tom.

"They're guarding the border, I don't know how we'll get to the Moonpool through here without being spotted. Maybe they'll leave after a while."

"Or maybe…" Bristlefrost began, "We can walk up that hill and sneak past them."

The grey she-cat angled her ears in the direction of a hill to her left, which was tall but had a slope gentle enough for it to be walked through easily. The three cats could sneak behind a group of bushes on its base and pass right next to the ghosts without being noticed.

"They'll see us if we do that!" Rotspring hissed under his breath.

"Not if we do it carefully." Bristlefrost's mew left no room for debate as she stalked her way up the small hill, leaving the two toms behind.

Rootspring looked back at Shadowsight with blunt irritation in his blue eyes. "Why did you have to choose her to help us?"

That's not really fair for me.

"I didn't choose her," Shadowsight answered as he followed Bristlefrost up the hill. "Dustpelt told me to bring her along."

Rootspring grunted but didn't keep complaining. Both toms climbed up the hill with silent movements, their eyes focused on Bristlefrost as she led the way through the bushes and rocks of the slope. Shadowsight glanced at the Windclan border, pointlessly trying to spot any spirit with hollowed eyes. The only thing that catched his eye was the water of the stream that flowed into the lake with a gentle current, not caring about the battle that would soon stir its calm waters and probably stain them with warm blood.

"Hey, watch out where you step." Bristlefrost briefly looked back at the two toms and warned them with a hushed mew. "If you trip, you could roll down and hit your head on a rock."

Shadowsight nodded, and he heard Rootspring mumble an "Okay" as a reply. Just as he heard that, the medicine cat felt one of the boulders under his paw shift under his weight, and he carefully moved his front leg to a more stiff position. As simple as that shift had been, Shadowsight could feel his heart beat a little faster.

That could have been much worse...

The three cats reached the top of the hill and walked to the other side, stopping to look at the path that led to the Moonpool. The stream was glittering with the light of the moon that had already begun its descent, ready to follow its course until it was time for the sun to take its place in the sky.

He glanced at Rootspring and Bristlefrost, who stood to his right, but neither of the two warriors were looking at the Moonpool. One was looking at the descent of the hill, trying to find a way to carefully move forward. The other was trying to pretend to watch over the spirits at the Windclan border, even though the stream could not be seen from that position, and even then that tom couldn't prevent himself from glancing back at the Thunderclan she-cat.

"Are you two alright?" Shadowsight asked abruptly, worried that the strange attitude that Rootspring and Bristlefrost had been having towards each other would make them snap at any moment.

"We're n-" Rootspring sighed heavily after stammering. "I'm fine, Shadowsight." He looked back at his friend with the look of someone who doesn't want to answer any questions.

"Let's just go." Bristlefrost narrowed her eyes and began making her way down the cliff with precise steps on the rocks.

As he saw her get lost in a group of bushes, Rootspring softened his blue gaze and asked "Seriously, why in Starclan does she have to come along?"

The grey tabby looked back at his friend, wanting to know what to reply but also not wanting to ask any unnecessary questions. Rootspring didn't exactly look frustrated when talking about Bristlefrost at that moment, he looked conflicted. It was something that Shadowsight would probably never understand. Whatever had happened between them, it was going to stay between them.

For my own sake as well, probably.

"I really don't know, Rootspring." Shadowsight jumped down to one of the boulders, relieved to know that he had the Windclan border and the spirits covered from his sight by the hill. He headed for the Moonpool, holding his herb packet tightly between his jaws.

(...)

Three young cats stood on a ledge of a stone hollow, watching over the pool of water that lay out at the bottom with awe. The stars of the Silverpelt were reflected against the surface as if they belonged to both the sky and the water alike, and the air around them felt different from the rest of the lake territories. It felt secluded from the scents of the forests, moors and streams, it felt like something that only very few should be allowed to be in the presence of. Even without having Starclan present in it, that pool of water was still sacred on its own.

It was a familiar place for Shadowsight, but that didn't prevent him from being briefly wondered by the sight of the Moonpool. Bristlefrost, who was standing beside the medicine cat, looked at the hollow with wide eyes.

"I don't think I've ever seen something like this," She murmured to the tom, looking back at him while twitching her right ear. "Starclan speaks to you from here?"

"It used to, before all of this." Shadowsight had barely gotten a chance to communicate with his ancestors ever since he had begun his training as a medicine cat apprentice. First the harsh leafbare that had frozen the Moonpool, and then the silence.

That silence was probably why the impostor had managed to fool Shadowsight like a naive kit, but back then his lies didn't seem as mischievous as his true intentions.

Maybe I wanted him to be a Starclan cat, to have it all make sense.

"Let's find a way to bring them back then," Bristlefrost snapped Shadowsight back to his senses as she began to carefully descend the path that had been marked with the pawprints of so many ancient cats in the past.

I doubt that they ever had to go through something like what is happening now.

The three young cats walked down the stone path and stood on the flat ground in front of the Moonpool. Up close, Shadowsight could look into the depths of the water and see something that could not be spotted from the edge of the hollow. Shadows were gathered at the bottom, which were formed by the barrier that would lead him and the others to the Dark Forest.

"So… what now?" Rootspring asked.

Shadowsight lowered his head to place the leaf packet on the ground. "We'll need these as well."

"What are they?"

Shadowsight took a deep breath and unwrapped the leaves, letting the other two see for themselves. The laurel casing moved away to reveal three small berries of an intense red color, which caused both Rootspring and Bristlefrost to look up at the medicine cat, confusion shared within both of their blue eyes.

"Those are…" Rootspring's voice trailed off, but he didn't need to finish his sentence to make his shock clear. "Why did you bring deathberries?"

"Because… we have to eat them."

Rootspring opened his jaws slightly, seeming intimidated by either the truth of what his friend was wanting him to do or by the seriousness in Shadowsight's voice. Bristlefrost instead gave the poisonous herbs a long and reflective look.

"Why?" She asked, sounding confused rather than shocked or scared.

"I did that to rescue Bramblestar from the Dark Forest." Shadowsight glanced back at the Moonpool, squinting his eyes to try to make out the shape of the vines that had dragged him into the place of no stars. He knew they were still there, forming the shadows at the bottom of the pool, he just had to dive into the water.

"The place of no stars is meant for spirits, not living cats. I don't know how to dream of it, so this is the best way to get there."

"You mean, the only way," Bristlefrost corrected him before looking at the medicine cat with a questioning glance. "The only way to find our ancestors, and save all the clans?"

"Well, yes," He replied, thankful that the she-cat seemed to at least understand how important it was for them to eat those berries. "And it's not like we're dying for good, we can still come back to our own bodies after we are done."

Shadowsight hoped that being honest would be enough to convince the other two to follow him. It made sense that they would have their doubts, but the tom couldn't afford to go on without these two cats' help.

"You can't do this alone."

Rootspring had taken a few steps back to better process Shadowsight's plan. The medicine cat could see the hesitation in his eyes, much greater than the one is Bristlefrosts'. He got closer to his friend and spoke with a mew that tried to sound reassuring despite his own uncertainties.

"These deathberries are not as lethal. The effect of the smaller ones takes longer."

Rootspring glanced back at the herb packet that contained the three red berries, their sole presence seeming to be enough to send shivers down the yellow tom's spine. His blue eyes briefly flashed with sorrow, and he turned his head away from the deathberries in a forced manner.

"How much time exactly?" He asked Shadowsight.

"With the traveling herbs, our bodies could last until sunrise. But we have to finish everything quickly."

The tabby remembered the force that he had felt when he had been pulled back to his dying body. It came from both Spiresight and Puddleshine when each of them made an effort to keep him alive, but without them Shadowsight didn't have a guaranteed way to come back.

Maybe he should have warned his sisters, but something within him had told him to not do so, that no cat should know exactly where their bodies would be. He had to do as Dustpelt had said, he didn't know why but he couldn't bring himself to go against his orders.

I just… have to have faith in him, right?.

"The longer that we take to come back to our bodies, the more that our spirits are detached from them. If we don't manage to come back on time, we might never come back."

Seeing Rootspring in front of him opening his eyes wide made Shadowsight regret those last words.

"So we're just gonna leave our bodies dying on the ground?" Rootspring's tail swished to one side and the other with agitation, "What if this goes wrong and we can't leave the Dark Forest? We would all die and never come back!"

"By Starclan, keep you fur on, Rootspring!" Bristlefrost answered with a hiss to make the tom lower his voice. "We are not dying if we do this right."

"We don't even know what we have to do!" The yellow tom was now glaring at the she-cat, despite the pain that it seemed to cause him. "And even if we did, how are we meant to free Starclan from a place that not even they can escape from? "

Shadowsight stood between the two warriors, worried that they might turn even more hostile towards each other, and spoke with a slow and steady mew.

"Starclan gave nine lives to my father long after he had already died, so they can probably send our spirits back to our own bodies," He explained.

"But we have to free them first," Rootspring pointed out. "If not, we're done for."

"Well, yes. But I saw the entrance to the moor, and I know where to find it. If we get rid of the barrier, Starclan should be able to just get out."

Rootspring looked away from the two cats, trying to smooth the pelt that had stood up on his back.

"Still, how are we supposed to open it? You said that you had no idea."

I shouldn't have said that.

"Well, I don't have a clear idea, but with the vision that I had we should be able to figure something out."

"So once we eat the berries, the only option we have is to find and free Starclan from that moor by destroying the barrier..." Bristlefrost, who had remained silent, reasoned from beside Shadowsight.

"Pretty much," The grey tabby answered.

The she-cat took a long look at the Moonpool as she breathed in and out deeply with her shoulders and head dipped. She stayed silent for a few heartbeats, probably trying to make a decision that could end with her death, one way or the other. No cat should have been expected to be willing to do something as dangerous as what Shadowsight was asking her, but when Bristlefrost raised her gaze again, she looked back at Shadowsight with resolve.

"Alright, I'll do it." Her mew lacked any hesitation and her eyes did not let any of the two toms see any of the fear that she was probably hiding from them.

Shadowsight gave her a thankful nod and turned his head towards the Skyclan tom, who was glancing at the small deathberries once again.

"Rootspring?" He asked tentatively.

"I just…" Rootspring's doubtful voice trailed off with uncertainty, but he soon rested his gaze on his friend's eyes. "Violetshine tried to take her own life with those same seeds to be with my father, because the impostor made him convince her to do so. What if I die and then my spirit is forced to do the same to her? What if she decides that she can't live with even more grief?"

Shadowsight saw pain in his friend's eyes, and he couldn't prevent his own head from bowing with pity for Rootspring's loss of his father and almost his mother as well. He didn't know what to say, but Bristlefrost did seem to as she spoke to the yellow tom with a mew that, surprisingly, tried to leave no trace of the previous aggression between the two warriors.

"Do you love Violetshine and Tree?" She asked Rootspring.

The tom looked back at the Thunderclan warrior with a perplexed expression. "Of course I do, they're my parents!"

"Then do this for them. I know Tree can't come back, and it's unfair to have lost someone that you cared about so quickly and have to keep going despite everything that happened. But many warriors are ready to fight their kin with the hope of saving them, we have to be willing to risk ourselves as well"

Rootspring lowered and narrowed his gaze. "Stemleaf wasn't your father… it's not the same," He muttered.

Bristlefrost blinked, surprised by that comment, but she breathed in and out and replied with a slow mew. "It doesn't matter whom exactly we lost, what matters is that we have a chance to fix things."

She let her gaze rest with a heavy sigh. "I shouldn't have trusted the impostor in the first place, but he made me feel like I was such an important warrior, that I was helping my clan… If it wasn't for me, perhaps Stemleaf would still be alive."

Shadowsight jerked his head to glance at the Thunderclan warrior, feeling a sense of familiarity with the guilt that she was expressing. "He tricked me too, even worse. Many cats would be alive if I hadn't believed the lies that he told me. Probably Stemleaf as well..."

Puddleshine's brother...

Bristlefrost turned her gaze towards the medicine cat. Her blue eyes showed apprehension for him, just like he had felt for her struggles. Shadowsight, rather abruptly, remembered that the she-cat that was looking back at him was the daughter of Ivypool, his mother's sister.

Maybe she's here because we're kin?

"I… I also should have been stronger," Rootspring confessed with lowered shoulders, dropping his anxious mew after hearing the two cat's honest words. "The leaders could have believed me when they saw Bramblestar's spirit, and they could have at least done something about it. Tree was right, I should have listened to him if I wanted to know what to do… Now he's gone."

"Well, the least we can all do is take this one chance to free everyone," Bristlefrost said, clearing her throat to make her mew steadier. "It won't bring them back, but at least our friends and kin can get to rest in Starclan, free from the fox-heart controlling them."

"And, not only our our kin," Shadowsight added, feeling a little bit of hope swirling in his belly. "All the other cats that lost their family can find some peace, and we can save many lives if we stop the battle from occurring."

Rootspring looked down at the ground for a few long heartbeats, in which Shadowsight begged to Starclan that his friend would agree to his plan. They were already wasting too much time, but the medicine cat knew that he could not force Rootspring to agree to risk his life.

Your powers have to be important for us. And… I need you. I won't make it out without a friend by my side.

"Plus, the impostor doesn't know what we're doing. Dustpelt was not being controlled by him. Right, Shadowsight?" Bristlefrost nudged the grey tabby, beckoning him to try and support her. "

His eyes weren't grey, they looked...

"Yeah, Dustpelt was not one of them. The impostor can't know about his plan," Shadowsight answered while pushing that thought away from his mind. He had to focus on the now, and that was convincing Rootspring to help.

After a few tense heartbeats, the yellow tom mumbled something to himself before snorting briefly.

"Fine…" Was the only reply that Rootspring gave to his companions. Despite how short and simple it was, it made Shadowsight release the breath that he had unknowingly held in his lungs. "I'll follow you two then."

Quick on his paws, the medicine cat walked back to the bundles made of laurel leaves and separated two of the small deathberries in them as he explained what he and the others had to do.

"Chew them up a few times and swallow them quickly. As soon as you feel something strange in your stomach, touch noses with the Moonpool."

"And then what?" Bristlefrost asked while eyeing the red berry in front of her.

"Our spirits should be pushed into the Dark Forest, but if not then swim down the water as deeply as you can."

The three young cats stood in front of the Moonpool with three deathberries placed in front of their paws. Shadowsight glanced at Bristlefrost, who was lowering her head to take a bite out of the poisonous herb. She took a deep breath when seeing her own face reflected in the star-lighted pool, and closed her eyes to mumble a silent prayer that Shadowsight couldn't catch.

"Here goes everything," Was the only thing that she said out loud before snapping her jaw shut when the berry was next to her mouth. Within heartbeats, her whole body began to tremble with a strong fever as she touched the waters of the Moonpool with her nose. Her breathing slowed down as the poison sent her body into a long sleep that could only end with death.

There's no backing away now.

The young medicine cat looked at Rootspring, who stared at Bristlefrost's body for a few heartbeats. He then turned his blue gaze towards his friend.

"She doesn't even fear…"

"You don't have to be afraid either, we can do this," Shadowsight said as he placed his tail on Rootspring's shoulder.

"I really don't want any of us to die, Shadowsight." The tom gave a long look at his deathberry, cautiously watching the herb that could kill him if everything were to go wrong. "Not like this."

"Me neither, Rootspring. But we won't die." With a lighter mew, he added "Well not permanently, at least. Just have some faith in us, alright?"

The yellow tom seemed to have been reassured by his friend's words, as he nodded and crouched down to take a bite out of the red berry. When Shadowsight made sure that Rootspring had chewed the herb, he lowered his own head.

Without giving himself time to think, he let his teeth grind the deathberry in his mouth, feeling the bitter taste of the poison against his tongue but still swallowing it all as quickly as he could. When his head began to feel like it was spinning in a thousand directions, he took a shivering step forward and carefully touched the cold waters of the Moonpool with his nose.

He took deep breaths, and embraced the heavy darkness that took over his entire body.

(...)

Shadowsight opened his eyes and was surprised to not see anything at all. His entire vision was darkened and his surroundings made no sense. His paws were not touching any solid ground, it rather felt as if he was floating in the middle of nowhere. He couldn't feel anything else touching his body either, not even the air entering his lungs as he moved his chest up and down with slight panic.

Why am I not in the Dark Forest? Where am I?

Shadowsight looked around, squinting his eyes to force them to adjust to the darkness. Above him, he saw faint glimmers that looked like swirling stars floating in a wiggly surface. He also spotted three shapes that resembled the bodies of cats, barely touching the surface of that glimmering wall with the tip of their noses.

Wait, those are our bodies, and that's the surface of the Moonpool! It worked!

Shadowsight blinked a few times and finally began to get a good sense of the flat stone walls that made up the underwater surroundings of the Moonpool. From the corner of his eye, he also spotted a grey and transparent shape swimming towards him, Bristlefrost's spirit.

Bristlefrost's mouth moved but no sound came of it, drowned in the deep waters that the two cats were in.

"Did you just speak?" He asked, but his voice was not carried to the she-cat either, as she did not react at all.

The Thunderclan warrior twitched her whiskers, seemingly noticing the lack of sound as well. Her blue eyes travelled around their entire surroundings, until they locked on something above Shadowsight and her.

A bright yellow shape descended from the surface of the Moonpool, sinking down with his eyes closed. Despite his fall, no water was splashed or even rippled and no bubbles of air surrounded the spirit. In a way, the descent of the ghost looked almost graceful, as moonlight bathed the shape that was getting closer and closer to the two other cats.

Well that makes all of us then.

When Rootspring's spirit opened his eyes and woke up, it took a single glance at the water surface for him to start swatting his paws frantically in an attempt to swim upwards.

Bristlefrost started swimming in the direction of the yellow tom, who looked back at her with panic in his blue eyes. However he had acted towards that she-cat before, Rootspring reached out his paw for Bristlefrost to help him.

As a response, the she-cat blutnly placed her paw on the tom's shoulder, which made him take a few breaths to realize that he wasn't actually drowning. Rootspring gave a long look at Bristlefrost's transparent paw, and then at his own body to confirm that everything had worked out well.

Bristlefrost looked back at Shadowsight with a questioning gaze, clearly wanting to know where they should head over to.

So...

Shadowsight looked back at the glittering stars above him. If that was the surface of the Moonpool, then if he looked down he would spot…

There!

He looked down and, sure enough, he could see some strange and darkened shapes that covered the bottom of the pool of water. Around the shadows, there was a cloud of mud and other dark fluids that swirled around with lazy movements.

Shadowsight swam towards the dark bottom of the Moonpool with uncoordinated kicks, since he had no Riverclan-like training. Despite this, his spiritual body seemed to push itself forward regardless of how much effort the medicine cat put into his movements. He went deeper and deeper, thankful to not have to worry about having to reach the surface before he ran out of air.

Soon enough, he floated only a whisker from the shadowy shapes, which up close looked similar to twisting vines. He looked around to see Bristlefrost and Rootspring beside him, having followed him despite being unsure of what exactly they had to do with the tangled plants. Judging by their disgusted expressions, they probably wouldn't be too keen to get closer to the vines.

If they see me dig my way through it they'll-

His thoughts were caught short when, all of a sudden, one of the vines swiftfully wrapped around his front paw. Before Shadowsight could even think about trying to free himself, another vine shot up and circled itself around his neck and began to pull towards the rest of the barrier.

The tom tried raking with his unsheathed claws, but he could barely leave scratches on the vines due to how hard they were. With his front paws completely trapped, the tom didn't have the strength to push away the ivy-like tendrils that began to bury his whole body.

Before he was completely covered by the plants, Shadowsight managed to get a glimpse of Rootspring trying to free him as more vines and tendrils began reaching out to the yellow tom. Bristlefrost was about to warn him, but several tangled roots approached her from behind and wrapped around her chest to pull her away from the Skyclan warrior. Then Shadowsight lost sight of them as the vines finished covering his vision.

He couldn't even lift a paw against the strength of the corrupted vines, but he felt the barrier moving him along its insides, twisting itself to form a path to transport the grey tabby to the other side. The medicine cat felt like prey being dragged along a tunnel by a fox, still alive and wanting to escape but unable to fight back against its captor.

Eventually, the vines let their grip loose from Shadowsight and a faint light allowed him to see again. The barrier unwrapped itself from his paws and let him scramble away from it, as if he was of no value to the vines anymore.

Shadowsight looked around and, once again, he saw that he was in darkened water. This body of water, however, had a more brownish color, like the muddy puddles that formed on the forest floor after days of rain.

He looked back at the vine barrier, which began twisting again to give way for a yellow tom to emerge like Shadowsight had done. Rootspring swam back and hissed at the vines, which were unaffected by his aggression while they recoiled to close the hole that the Skyclan tom had come from. A few moments later, Bristlefrost also appeared from a gap in the barrier, having pulled herself free as well. She janked a small tendril out of the barrier with her jaw to free her tail from its grasp and swam towards the toms.

The three young cats looked at each other, unsure of what to say or even think about the thing that had just happened to them. Unanimously and silently deciding that it was better to keep going, they scanned their surroundings and spotted a red light that bathed the surface of that dirty body of water.

Quick on their paws, the three swam towards the source of that light. The mud in the water clinged to their pelts, weighing the young cats down and making Shadowsight's movements feel heavier. Despite this, he managed to keep up with his companions and reach the unnatural red light over his head with kicks that were neither coordinated or precise, but definitely strong enough to aid his efforts.

As Rootspring and Bristlefrost crossed the water's surface, Shadowsight glanced back at the barrier from which he had arrived. To his surprise, the tangled plants began shrinking and withering away. Despite being underwater, the tendrils dried up and lost all of their dark colors and the vines became thinner than a strip of grass.

Within a heartbeat, the barrier had disappeared from his sight, the only remains being some pitiful vines that had been left floating on the water. The closing of the barrier also left solid ground where the pathway to the living world had once been, effectively trapping the three spirits. Their only escape route, or at least, the only one that Shadowsight knew of, had disappeared.

Alright, just focus on finding the entrance to that moor. We'll find a way out later.

He emerged into a small shore made up of bare dirt and black pebbles, where Rootspring and Bristlefrost had dragged themselves to get away from the muddy water. Shadowsight let his body rest against the ground for a few heartbeats, taking deep breaths despite not feeling any tiredness on his limbs.

A quick glance at his own body let him see that dirty water had covered most of his pelt, dirtying it up and filling it with a stench that made the medicine cat think twice about licking it off. Instead, he stood up and looked at his surroundings with uneasiness.

Trees with glowing-reddish fungi rose from the ground all around Shadowsight, reaching tall into the sky above the medicine cat. The branches over him seemed to block the entire sky from any cat's sight, as they were packed together like the sticks and twigs of a bird's nest, although these branches didn't seem to be trying to keep something safe. They wanted to keep something trapped.

Shadowsight had seen all of that before, and he knew exactly where he had arrived. He and his friends were in the place of no stars, trapped like the many corrupted souls that had been vanished there.

I really hope we don't run into one of them.

"Is this it?" Rootspring asked with intimidation in his mew as he took in his twisted surroundings. "This is the Dark Forest?"

"Yeah," Shadowsight answered bluntly, unsure if he should either feel glad or terrified that they had entered that cursed place.

The yellow tom looked up at the tall trees, gulping down when he seemed to notice their large and impenetrable branches.

"Well this explains why the cats vanished here are so resentful to the clans," Bristlefrost commented as her eyes scanned the great body of muddy water from where the three had arrived. "This place definitely doesn't like a friendly one."

Shadowsight mumbled in agreement as he also looked at the water in front of him. Its surface extended for many fox-lengths, getting lost in the far horizon like the waters of a place that he had once heard off in stories of journeys from his father's mother.

I never managed to remember the names...

"Halfway there then," Bristlefrost announced suddenly to snap both toms out of their own thoughts. "Now let's find that moor's barrier and get out of here."

"Well lead the way then," Rootspring mumbled with a quick flick of his ear.

Bristlefrost rolled her eyes and turned her gaze towards the tabby medicine cat. "So where do we have to go?"

"It's…" He looked around with hesitation, not knowing exactly where he was. How was he supposed to know? That place was probably as big as the territories beyond the lake.

I just stumbled into Bramblestar last time...

Despite this, Shadowsight narrowed his gaze to look confident to the other two cats. He looked at the only path that he could take, the one that went against the body of muddy water. He walked forwards, signaling Rootspring and Bristlefrost to follow him deeper into that forest.

The three walked forwards in silence, constantly looking over their shoulders, expecting to see someone behind them, stalking in silence. Shadowsight had heard enough tales of the Great Battle to fear the malicious cats that had been sent to the Dark Forest as a punishment for their crimes against the warrior code and the clans. He was in the same realm where murderers, tyrants and fox-hearts had been trapped, probably growing mad with resentment.

At least a Dark Forest cat is no worse than a mind-controlled spirit, right?

"Hey Shadowsight, you happen to know what's up with these trees?" Rootspring asked as he gave an unpleasant look at the glowing fungi that littered one of the trees beside the cats.

The medicine cat walked up to the tree to better examine that blight that seemed to have taken over a great part of the Dark Forest. Its crimson glow was pulsating like a beating heart, and a small gust of air littered with spores flowed out of a small hole in the fungi. One sniff of the gas was enough to make Shadowsight's head dizzy, causing him to take a step back. Even a medicine cat would say that he had never seen or imagined something like that.

"It's like this thing is alive, in a way," He said once he took a few breaths to recover from breathing in the spores.

From the corner of his eye, he noticed that one of the irregular branches from the twisted tree had shifted its position ever so slightly. A better look revealed that the branch was rather a vine, which now slowly slid towards the grey tabby.

His back fur rose when he remembered how the vines in the barrier of the Moonpool had easily overpowered him. The fact that Bramblestar had almost been trapped by one of those trees made a little more sense to Shadowsight now, despite the fact that it still didn't make him any more sure of what those things were in the first place. He slowly walked away from the tree, his eyes always focused on the moving vine.

"Let's keep a safe distance from them," Shadowsight mewed to the others.

Neither Rootspring or Bristlefrost objected and they took careful steps in the other direction of the tree. Truth was, the tall and twisted trees were already intimidating enough by themselves, so any incentive to get away from them was well-received by the warriors. They walked forwards, following Shadowsight even though he had no clue on where exactly he was headed.

Please tell me there's some way to guide ourselves.

As if she had read his mind, Bristlefrost stopped on her path as her blue gaze focused on a point in the distance. Both Shadowsigh and Rootspring glanced back at her with confusion.

"Did you see something?" Shadowsight asked.

"That clearing…" She murmured with her eyes narrowed.

"What clearing?" Rootspring asked while looking in the same direction to try to spot whatever she was looking at.

"Follow me," Was all the answer that she gave before running off into the forest.

"Hey, wait for us!" Rootspring called out as both him and Shadowsight tried to catch up to the grey she-cat.

She suddenly came into a halt, and the other two soon stopped as well when they noticed that there was a great ravine cutting the path in front of them. A darkened current flowed in the direction of the giant body of water where the young cats had arrived from. The ravaging waters of the river traveled their unalterable path angrily and violently, splashing the many rocks at the bottom with stinking mud that clung to the brown moss of the stones.

Bristlefrost kept looking past the ravine into the distance, focused on what had caught her attention. "We have to get to the other side."

"Why?!" Rootspring asked loudly to be heard over the ravaging river.

The she-cat glanced back at the Skyclan tom, taking a long moment to answer. She then used her grey tail to point somewhere on the other side of the ravine. "Can you see that lone tree over there? It looks different."

"How so?" Shadowsight asked as he noticed that there was indeed a tree standing in a clearing on the other side of the river, not so far away from the three cats.

"The plants in it, they glow with a different color…" She murmured. "Maybe there's something special about it."

The tabby medicine cat narrowed his eyes and managed to see that the blight sprouting from that tree had a slightly different color. It was a mix of yellow and orange colors, much brighter than the scarlet ones of the other trees. It didn't look like something worth risking to get lost for, but Bristlefrost's commitment to reach that tree proved otherwise.

"I don't get why that makes it important." Rootspring was eyeing the river at the bottom of the ravine, definitely caring more about the possibility of falling in and getting lost in the violent current instead of that peculiar tree. "It's just different."

"Just trust me on this, it has to mean something," Bristlefrost answered without looking at Rootspring, instead she turned her head towards Shadowsight. "Would we reach the barrier if we went through here?"

The tree that almost trapped Bramblestar did have yellow sprouts in it.

"We could, yeah," He answered with honesty, despite the doubtful glances that Rootspring gave him.

"But, we can't just jump over this," The Skyclan tom reasoned.

"Then let's climb down and find a path through the rocks." Bristlefrost crouched down next to the edge of the ravine's long cliff and prepared to drop to the many stones on the wall. "I doubt that there's a way around."

Shadowsight measured the distance between the two cliffs, relieved to see that it was only of a few fox-lengths. "Actually, we can-"

"With that current? We'll be lucky if we don't fall in." Rootspring ignored Shadowsight as he argued against Bristlefrost's idea.

"Can you have a little more faith in me?" Bristlefrost grunted and tried to place her weight on a flat rock, only for it to roll down the ravine and into the river.

With a scoff, Rootspring mumbled something loudly enough for Shadowsight to hear. "Says the cat that lied to me to make herself feel better."

The medicine cat opened his eyes wide because Bristlefrost pricked her ears and seemed to completely forget about the ravine, the Dark Forest and everything else around her. She looked back at Rootspring with fire in her gaze and a growl in her throat.

"At least I'm trying to give solutions, that's more than what you are doing." The she-cat miffed at Rootspring with her back fur beginning to stand on its end.

Oh no...

Both toms were taken aback by that reaction, especially Rootspring after realizing that he had spoken too loudly. Shadowsight tried speaking again with a hesitant mew. "But... seriously-"

"I am offering one! You're just not great at choosing the right solutions for things!" Rootspring mewed with his teeth gritted.

She looked at him with perplexity and anger mixed in her expression. The grey she-cat slightly shook her head, or rather had it trembling with rage, as she said "Again with that? What part of 'I made a mistake' did you not get?!"

"And… what about the part where you said that you wanted to fix your mistakes?" Rootspring asked with a little more doubt than before, but still furious at the she-cat for reasons that Shadowsight could not get.

"Please, stop!" The Shadowclan tabby tried to say, but his voice was drowned by both the violent current of the stream and the growls of the two warriors.

The she-cat opened her eyes wide, as if water had just splashed her face.

"What in Starclan's name is your problem?!" She spat at Rootspring with a mew that even made Shadowsight pity her. She sounded both in pain and in great anger at the words said by the yellow tom. "I was speaking about saving the clans and you were still thinking about what happened between us?"

"So what?! I-It doesn't matter anymore?!" Rootspring, hopefully without realizing, had unsheathed his claws and was scraping the ground beneath him. Bristlefrost did notice this and took a sudden step back with a gasp, as shocked as Shadowsight to see that the yellow tom was so close to losing it completely.

Alright, this has gone too far!

"Enough!" Shadowsight screamed, thankfully catching the attention of the two cats. They looked at him and seemed to realize how they had both lost their temper at the worst possible time.

Taking advantage of the silence from the two cats, Shadowsight spoke to them with a more calm mew. "Bristlefrost is right, we need to worry about working together, we can't be fighting like this! Our friends and families depend on us, Starclan depends on us! Can you two maybe push whatever happened aside just this one night?"

He glanced at Rootspring and lowered his gaze towards the yellow tom's still-unsheathed claws. "Please?"

The Skyclan warrior followed his friend's amber gaze and realization struck his own eyes. He pulled back his claws and looked back at Bristlefrost with regret. "I-I didn't mean-"

"I don't want to hear it," She answered curtly, turning around to face the ravine. "Let's just climb down."

"Actually, we can over jump it." Shadowsight began to run towards the border of the stone cliff. When he reached the edge, he leaped forward.

Both Rootspring and Bristlefrost shared a gasp, expecting Shadowsight to fall into the river. Instead, the grey tabby floated forwards, ignoring the untouchable force that bounds a living cat to the earth on the ground. He landed on the other side of the ravine almost perfectly, as if he had just dropped on a mouse, and turned around to face the surprised warriors.

"The rules for ghosts are different," He explained to the others.

"And you tell this to us now?" Rootspring asked from the other side, eyeing Bristlefrost with an apologetic glance.

I tried to!

"Just jump and let your bodies go forward, it's easy." Shadowsight decided that it was better to ignore Bristlefrost and Rootspring's recent bickering, for the sake of the three of them.

Bristlefrost glanced at the other side of the ravine and, taking a few steps back, sprinted towards the cliff. She jumped when she was one heartbeat away from falling into the river and, with a suppressed yelp, floated to the other side.

She landed with a grunt as she crashed against the ground. Despite the rough fall, she got up between a few pants. Shadowsight turned to look at Rootspring, seeing that the tom looked more unsure about making it across the ravine.

"You can do this!" The medicine cat encouraged Rootspring. "Don't think about it too much!"

The Skyclan tom took a deep breath and leaped forwards, his hind legs kicking off some of the rocks on the cliff's edge which got lost in the currents of the river. Rootspring's paws moved around indecisively, trying to find a spot to step in and balance themselves. However, those movements only served to make the floating spirits shift its route. From his side of the cliff, Shadowsight could tell that Rootspring's spiritual body was floating too low to make the jump.

He's going to fall!

The yellow tom seemed to realize this as well, as he extended his front paws in an attempt to hook himself to the approaching stones. He landed against the wall of the cliff with a thud, his hind legs hanging in the air and his head barely at the same level as the edge where Shadowsight and Bristlefrost stood.

By Starclan!

Shadowsight rushed forward and pressed his body against the edge of the cliff as he clung with his paws to his friend's back, who yelled in protest. The grey tabby tried to pull Rootspring back up, but Shadowsight himself soon began slipping as well, his hind legs unable to hold on to anything.

Before the grey tabby and Rootspring fell to the treacherous waters beneath them, Bristlefrost shot to her paws and grabbed the Shadowclan tom's scurf with her jaws. With a few grunts and huffs, she pulled both toms up and Rootspring was able to get a grip of the stones and climb up to solid ground.

The three cats panted for a few heartbeats. Bristlefrost eyed the yellow tom with a cold gaze. "You... owe me another save now," She barely muttered.

Rootspring looked back at her with a spark of what looked like hope in his eyes. "Bris-"

"Come on then, let's get to the clearing." The she-cat ordered, leaving Rootspring with his jaw opened and Shadowsight with a slight relief as he got up and followed the Thunderclan warrior. Behind him, he could hear Rootspring's slow paw-steps.

They reached the clearing where the lone tree stood. Its twisted shape wasn't any different from the others, having many branches that intertwined to the point that it was hard to recognize where one ended and the other started.

The only odd thing about the tree was the color that its fungi had, as Bristlefrost had noticed from afar. It glowed with a yellowish light, appearing bigger and healthier than the reddish ones from other trees.

Shadowsight took a careful step closer to the yellow infestation with Rootspring behind him, but their cautious approachs were halted by Bristlefrost's mew.

"Hey uh, you two watch out…" She said with her voice trailing off.

"For what?" Rootspring asked her.

She blinked and shook her head. "Just try to be careful."

Shadowsight nodded and began to inspect one of the many sprouts on the tree's trunk. It acted the same as the reddish ones, except for making a low wail-like sound. The medicine cat looked around the tree, but he couldn't find the thorn barrier or the pool of water that he had seen when he rescued Bramblestar.

Now what?

Rootspring pricked his ears and twitched his whiskers. "Did you hear that? "

"It's just the sprouts," Shadowsight mumbled with disappointment.

"Are you sure? I could swear it sounded like a voice."

"I don't think-" Shadowsight suddenly stopped, feeling something click on his own head so fast that he could barely process it. He looked back at the tree and focused on the gaps and turns of the trunk.

Bramblestar was almost trapped by one of these…

He noticed one small hole in the wooden surface, from which he could spot part of the inside of the tree. It was too small to make anything out, so he pressed his head against the trunk and focused on listening to the sounds coming from the tree's insides. He could hear the wailing again, this time louder.

"What are you doing?" Bristlefrost asked the medicine cat.

"I think there's someone here," He explained as he began to scratch the bark of the blighted tree.

"You mean, inside the trunk?"

"Y-yes, help me pull this out," He muttered, his head barely being able to focus on what the she-cat was asking him.

With the help of the two warriors, Shadowsight managed to use his claws to detach a pawfull of tree bark. Under it, instead of seeing wood, he saw a wall made out of sticky vines and tendrils. The barrier spread a strong odor that made Shadowsight's eyes water and forced him to take a few deep breaths to be able to breathe in properly.

"What the…?" Rootspring mumbled.

"This just keeps getting better," Bristlefrost added, choking back the stench from the tree's insides.

When he heard the whimpers from the inside growing louder, Shadowsight made an effort to ignore the fluids that stuck to his pelt and used his front paw to tear the weak structure open. To his surprise, the inside of the trunk was hollow, forming a tiny cave in which the grey tom could see a shape in the shadows. The grey tabby pushed back his fear and got his head inside the trunk to better see the figure.

"Hey, wait!" Rootspring exclaimed. "What are you doing?"

"That cat might be injured," He mewed briefly as he got deeper into the trunk. Droplets of some stinking material dropped into his scurf and tiny vines swished back and forth in the corner of his eyes, not big or strong enough to hurt him. The weak wailing continued coming from the other side, and Shadowsight began to recognize the shape of a cat floating a few whiskers over the ground, its entire body shrunken and barely twitching to emit the pained whimpers

"So, can you see anything?" Brisltefrost asked from outside the trunk.

"I think I see someone, I'll get closer."

"Don't do anything mouse-brained," She added.

I'll try.

Shadowsight got closer to the wailing figure and noticed that it was circled by some sort of sticky sack, like the one that a kit is secured in when they are born. He unsheathed his claws and sliced them across the sap, which was surprisingly weak. To his surprise, a cat dropped to the ground in front of the medicine cat, as well as more of that sticky fluid that was dripping from the entire trunk. Shadowsight coughed against the stench, which was worse than the most stinking mouse-bile that he had ever smelled.

"What happened?!" Rootspring asked.

"There's someone in here, pull me away!" Shadowsight said. He grabbed the cat with his jaws right when he began to feel the two warriors pulling him by his tail. The tabby pushed away to slight pain from being pulled like that by holding tightly to the cat that he was carrying. It felt lighter than a piece of prey as his weight was almost non-existent.

When he was dragged out of the tree's trunk, the first thing that Shadowsight heard were the astonished mews from Rootspring and Bristlefrost.

"Who is this?"

"Is he dead?"

"I don't know, I just saw-" Shadowsight had begun, but his words stammered into a very sudden halt when he got a better look at the cat that he had dragged out of the tree.

He was a dark gray tom, with a shaggy and ragged fur that was sticky with the fluids from the infested tree that he had been trapped in. He was coughing and wheezing, all the ribs in his chest very visible as it moved up and down with heavy pants. His blue eyes had very few traces of life, as they looked glassy and extremely tired. Looking at his state, Shadowisght could only compare that tom to an animal being flattened by a twoleg monster.

What surprised Shadowsight the most, was that the tom's body looked very transparent, as if he was made of thin lines of fog rather than flesh and fur. He also also had a few white dots that dimly glittered along his entire pelt, like the falling snow from leaf-bare.

Whatever the tree was doing to this cat, it left him so damaged...

The medicine cat instinctively crouched down next to the tom's head and talked to him with a gentle mew. "Can you hear me?"

The transparent cat didn't answer, instead he raised his head and gave a long look at the three warriors. His blue eyes, however glassy, looked wise and somber, with few glints of white speckles that looked like stars.

"Where's Sorreltail?" He asked them with a weak voice. "Where's my sister…?

Shadowsight twitched his whisker, having no clue on who that name belonged to. By the look of Rootspring's confused expression, he had no ideas either.

"Brackenfur's mate?" Bristlefrost asked, sounding as surprised as the other two cats despite knowing who that she-cat was.

"Please set her free…" The weakened tom said with a groan, his body barely strong enough to grit his teeth.

"She's dead..." Bristlefrost looked at the others, not knowing what else to say to the whimpering tom.

Free her?

Shadowsight opened his eyes wide, realizing what the weakened tom was asking them. How did he not realize it? Would a cat from the place of no stars have such wisdom in his gaze? Would his pelt look so bright? Would it be filled with white splotches that looked like small stars?

He turned his head towards the dark-grey tom. "Are you a cat from Starclan?

"I'm... Rainwhisker," He answered slowly. "From... Thundercl-"

The tom suddenly began coughing violently, and a bile consisting of a mix of the disgusting fluids from the tree and a darkened liquid similar to blood blurted out of his throat like a vomit. His eyes were sealed shut and the effort of letting that putrid mix flow through his mouth made his entire body shake and roll on the ground. When doing so, Shadowsight managed to catch a glimpse of what looked to be a large gash on Rainwhisker's side, except that it looked unnaturally reddish and swollen, infected by the fluids that he had been exposed when inside his twisted entrapment.

I have to treat him; but how?!

Shadowsight looked at the other two cats, feeling panic forcing his mind into saving that transparent tom, "We have to help him! You two try and look for-"

"No!" Rainwhsker said with a pained moan. He panted in an attempt to recover from his outburst, but he soon gave that up as well. "Too late… just let me go…"

Rainwhisker let his head rest against the ground beneath him, as if he was going to sleep while his gaze got lost in the distance. He murmured something that the three cats barely managed to understand. "Follow the roots… they'll take you to Sorrelstripe..."

His voice trailed off and he closed his eyes, letting his chest finally stop moving.

To Shadowsight's surprise, the body of the weakened cat faded away almost instantly, leaving a small puddle on the ground where he had laid down. Neither Rootspring, Bristlefrost or Shadowsight had any idea on what to say or what to do after seeing that strange cat disappear as if he had never been there.

This could have happened to Bramblestar? Thank Starclan I saved him…

"Is he gone?" Rootspring's voice came out as a whisper.

Shadowsight sighed heavily. "Rainwhisker is one with eternity," He said to his friend, remembering the stories of spirits in the Great Battle disappearing forever after being fatally wounded by both ghosts and living cats.

Bristlefrost bowed her head with respect for the vanished Starclan warrior, with Shadowsight and Rootspring soon imitating her quiet mourning, despite none of the three cats ever knowing that tom before that moment.

"We'll find Sorrelstripe," Bristlefrost promised, the two toms beside her nodding in agreement.

A few heartbeats of silence passed before Shadowsight heard a hissing sound. He opened his eyes and noticed that the sprouts on the tree had dried up completely, losing their pulsating glow and shrinking into withered balls that looked no bigger than the moss ones that kits played with.

As a result, the tree had its vines tremble before falling to the ground with quiet thuds, followed by the many twisted branches that had once reached high into the red sky. Everything on the tree fell apart, including the tree itself as its hollow trunk simply dropped to the side without any life left, shaking the ground as it crashed against it. Soon enough, the tall tree had been reduced to mere dried and withered remains, almost impossible to recognize as a tree.

The three cats stepped away from the fallen tree with perplexed expressions.

"Shadowsight, this has to be a dream," Rootspring said. "There's no way that any of that just actually happened."

"I know this is real," He answered while looking back at his clearly confused friend. "It doesn't make any of this have any more sense, but it is real."

"All will be explained."

"Look!" Bristlefrost suddenly exclaimed as she walked forward.

Shadowsight followed her gaze and saw that, although the tree had dried up completely, the remains of the blighted sprouts on them emitted one final flash of glowing yellow light, like a dying breath. That light traveled through the entire trunk and the roots of the tree, having the fungi glow with intensity before turning into dust that was carried away through the air. Even in the tree's roots, the light was still visible to the three cats despite being covered by the earth under their paws. It flowed in many directions, until it reached the tips pf the roots and finally died down.

However, there was one that kept going. The brightest light illuminated part of the surface of the ground as it flowed through a thick root, leading away from the clearing with a hasty advance.

Bristlefrost noticed this and began to follow the light with hurried steps. "Wait- the root! I think it's leading somewhere! Just like Rainwhisker said!"

Knowing that he had no sense on where to go next, Shadowsight decided that it was best to try and follow the advice of the grey tom and see where it would lead them. He began to run to catch up to the underground glow that was slowly beginning to get lost between the other trees.

Bristlefrost took the lead as she guided the two toms over fallen trees and puddles of mud to catch up to the dying light. Shadowsight ran close behind her with Rootspring at the back, occasionally looking back to check that they were still not being followed.

The saw the traveling glow heading away from the trees that surrounded his path. He pressed harder on his paws to catch up to Bristlefrost and soon enough he emerged into a more open space surrounded by two giant walls made of stone. They grew twice as tall as the ones that he had seen in the Thunderclan camp. Many thick tendrils grew on the rocks and stone edges, which looked like dark-silver claws looming ominously over the three young cats.

At the top of both cliffs, a group of trees grew towards each other, hanging from the edges and reaching out to the other side with branches that wrapped around the neighbouring ones. Yellowish fungi, instead of a reddish one, littered the trunks of these trees. Yellow sprouts that indicated a cat trapped deep within the trunk. A cat suffering, like the grey one that Shadowsight had freed.

Who trapped them all in there?

The blighted roots of the trees grew along the entire wall, leading all the way down into the ground. From there, shorter vines grew out of them to reach out to the center of the cannon's bottom.

The dying glow that the cats had been following flowed in the same direction as many of the other vines, having the thick root from the faraway tree emerge from the ground and lead into the centre of that strange location.

"Those trees… do they…?" Rootspring asked with his neck craned upwards. He didn't manage to finish his question but it was clear what he wanted to ask.

Before Shadowsight could even answer, a low hissing sound caught the three cats' attention. They turned their heads in the direction of that unexpected noise, which came from the root that they had followed before. The root shook for a moment and then it began to finally wither away like the twisted tree that it had been connected to. It shrunk into chunks that looked no bigger than a scrawny mouse.

The glow passed into a group of multiple vine that were connected to that root. Following the small plant, Shadowsight saw how it led to a group of tangled tendrils and more vines with thorns, all of which formed a surface for him to stand on. The glow that the three young cats had followed suddenly sunk deep into the tangled mess under their paws.

They waited for a few heartbeats, but nothing else happened. No sign, no explanation, no path, nothing...

Shadowsight and his friends had chased a single spot of yellow light into a dead-end, and now they were even more lost than before. Althought, the tom knew that finding his way back to the giant lake of muddy water wouldn't help at all, since the passage to the living world had been closed.

I'm trapped here, and I don't know where to go next.

Rootspring had been right, this was all like some twisted dream, one that he couldn't wake up from. He wished that he could just open his eyes and see himself in front of Dustpelt again, so that he would actually answer his questions and tell him what to do.

What had Dustpelt said to make him trust this plan? To have faith?

Faith in what? In him? In myself? In those eyes? I had faith in the impostor and he used me to kill Bramblestar!

The impostor had tricked him, because he knew that he would believe anything. He knew that he wanted to understand everything...

Was this all a trap as well…?

"Shadowsight!" Both Rootspring and Bristlefrost loudly hissed at the tom, noticing that he had gotten distracted with his own thoughts.

The grey tabby blinked a few times and looked back at them, "I'm sorry, I don't kn-"

"Hush, look!" Bristlefrost interrupted him while turning her head towards the barrier.

Shadowsight followed her gaze and noticed that a small part of the vine from which the dying glow had come from now began to shift on its own. Within heartbeats, it lost its colors and strength and became as withered as the tree that had trapped Rainwhisker. As a response to having one of its vines dried up, the entire surface that the cats were standing on trembled slightly.

"You saw that, right?" Rootspring asked.

"One of the vines, it's all dried up and broken," Shadowsight muttered, unsure of what to make out of that.

A rattling sound came out of the surface under the three cats, followed by a muffled voice. It was impossible to make out what it was saying, but the mew sounded urgent and even terrified. Mixed with what sounded like faraway screams, the sound of the voice was enough for Shadowsight to feel a cold-frgithened tinge traveling across his whole body.

Then, as if it knew that it could not be heard, the voice got louder to the point of sounding like a screech from a dying elder.

"Set us free!"

Then the voice went quiet, leaving Shadowsight with his chest bumping aggressively. He couldn't tell if it was because of the excitement, fear, surprise or all of them mixed together. A cat begging to be freed, trapped under what now looked like an impenetrable wall made of vines made to cover an entrance…

"I think we've found it" He breathed out. It was not the same as the one that he had seen when he had to rescue Bramblestar, but it still had to be where Starclan had been trapped. Why else would the strange blight lead directly towards that place?

"Found what?" Rootspring asked.

"The barrier!"

"Wait, really?"

"I-I think…"

He lowered his head to try to see through the tiny gaps in the vine surface that he was standing on, which weren't big enough for even a kit to squeeze through. Squinting his eyes, he spotted a single dot of something grey. When the image rippled slightly, Shadowsight opened his jaw wide.

A grey pool of water!

"There's water under these vines, it's like the Moonpool!" He explained to the others, relieved to have been lucky enough to find what they were meant to encounter in the Dark Forest.

"Starclan is on the other side?" Rootspring asked him, clearly surprised that the three had stumbled into their destination seemingly by accident.

When Shadowsight nodded, Bristlefrost narrowed her gaze and focused it on the barrier of vines and tendrils under her. Faint screams and hisses could still be heard coming from the other side.

"Then… we have to destroy it."

The she-cat pulled the withered vine out of the barrier with her teeth, which revealed the surface of the grey waters that the three young cats were meant to swim through. To his dismay, Shadowsight saw that the vine was immediately replaced by stronger and thicker tendrils that sprouted from the other roots.

The two toms tried to imitate the she-cat's attempt, but as much as they tried to rake at the tendrils, none of them gave away. After a few pitiful attempts, Rootspring flinched back due to one of his paws getting stung by a thorny vine.

"Fox-dung!" He snarled, picking a thorn out of the tip of his paw-pad with his teeth and then spitting it out angrily. "These things are harder than rocks, how are we supposed to destroy them?"

Bristlefrost narrowed her blue gaze and looked down at the barrier once again. "The one I pulled out wasn't that strong…"

"Yeah, I've noticed," Rootspring muttered while lapping at his paw with frustrated licks.

She looked at him and sighed briefly. "What I'm trying to say is that maybe the glow that we followed had something to do. The tree that trapped Rainwhisker dried to its core, and then the vine that was connected to it withered away as well."

The she-cat looked at Shadowsight, searching for support for her reasoning. "It has to mean something."

The grey tabby looked up at the trees on top of the stone walls, which still had pulsating-yellow glows on their trunks. He then followed the path marked by the roots that led all the way back to the surface that they were standing on, meant to trap Starclan in the strange moor.

The vines are strong because of the trees…

"It...It could be that the trees are using the spirits that they trap to make the barrier stronger," He said to Rootspring and Bristlefrost, baffled at the thought that something like that could even be possible.

"Are you saying that the trees are… feeding on souls?" Rootspring asked back, his eyes wide.

The grey tabby didn't respond, but he didn't need to in order for shock to descend on the three young cats, like a squirrel falling off a tree into their faces. They all shared a brief moment of silent fear and sorrow, probably trying and failing to imagine the pain and horror that Rainwhisker and whoever else that was trapped in those trees had been suffering. The stench of the disgusting bile coming out of the Starclan tom's weakened mouth still lingered at the back of Shadowsight's throat.

Maybe it was a relief for him when he got to fade away…

"Without a cat to draw energy from, the trees die..." Shadowsight reflected, as he tried to piece together what had happened to Rainwhisker. "Just like any kit if they lose their mother."

Rootspring's tongue stopped licking his paw right as he heard those words. His eyes traveled from his injury, then to the barrier, to his paw-pad again, and finally to the other two cats.

"The roots are stronger when the trees are alive" He commented, pointing with his tail at the vine that grew after Bristlefrost pulled the withered one. "What if the trees die because they can't feed on any cat? These vines would and die, and then-"

"Then the barrier will be weakened!" Bristlefrost concluded with an exclamation. She then turned around and got closer to the stone walls, carefully observing each ledge and rock that led all the way to the hanging trees at the top of the cliffs. "We could climb up to reach those trees, and from there we can free the other cats that are trapped."

"That could work…" Shadowsight commented.

He eyed the cliff, noticing the many places that the three cats could jump to in order to reach the tall edges of the walls. It was risky, but there was no visible point where the walls were any lower for them to walk their way to the top.

"And what about the other cliff?" He asked Bristlefrost.

"You two go to the other wall and I'll climb this one." Before any of the other two could object, she leaped at one of the cliff's rocks as if she was as light as a wind-carried feather.

"But what if you lose your grip?" Rootspring said with a hint of fear in his mew.

"I was born around huge rock walls, I can handle this." Was the only response that Bristlefrost gave the yellow tom, although she casted a worried glance at the two tom for a few heartbeats. Shaking her head briefly, she continued to jump and climb her way up the rocks.

"Come on." Shadowsight ushered his friend to follow him to the other side of the cannon, where the other wall of stone stood. The grey tabby looked up at the pointy rocks that almost reached the skies, intimidated by the shadows that they casted over Rootspring and him.

"Have you ever climbed a rocky wall before?" Shadowsight asked.

The Skyclan tom scoffed. "If Bristlefrost can climb them, then so can we." He jumped up and hooked his claws on a root over his head, his hind legs pressing against the stone surface to push him up.

Shadowsight soon followed with a ghostly leap that landed him on a rock a few tail-lengths under Rootspring, who was looking back at Bristlefrost on the other side of the cannon to try to catch up.

The toms jumped higher and higher, the trees at the top getting ever closer to them as the barrier at the bottom shrunk to the size of a small leaf. At one point, they came into a halt and saw that the only ledge that they could reach was many tail-lengths away from them. It would need for them to take an unnatural leap that only ghosts could do.

Shadowsight glanced at his friend, remembering his previous experience in the ravine. "You think you can make that jump?"

"Yeah, no problem at all," He mumbled as a reply.

Rootspring braced himself on his haunches and took a deep breath. Before jumping, he casted a glance at Bristlefrost, who had coincidentally stopped to look back at the two toms on the other side. The two warriors locked eyes and, after a short moment, Bristlefrost nodded with her blue gaze narrowed.

Rootspring jumped, letting his body float all the way up to the rock. He managed to get high enough for his four paws to land on the stone surface.

"Nice jump!" Shadowsight mewed. The grey tabby glanced back at Bristlefrost, who let her stern expression rest and continued jumping upwards.

Maybe there was a reason Dustpelt chose her…

The relief in Rootspring's eyes suddenly turned to fear when he looked at the bottom of the cliff.

"There's someone there!" He hissed as he laid down against the surface of the rock.

Shadowsight followed his gaze and felt his own fur bristle when he noticed two shapes standing next to the barrier of vines. The tabby crouched down to cover the rest of his body and peaked his head from the edge of his rock to watch over those cats.

They walked towards the barrier, their voices impossible to hear, and sat down beside it. The ragged hairs of those cats were completely covered in mud, making it difficult to tell the color of their pelts from such great distance. They were looking around them, as if the two cats were guarding the entrance to the grey moor.

Guarding the entrance…

Shadowsight opened his eyes wide and looked back at Rootspring, feeling his own heart beat faster.

"They're Dark Forest cats!" He said with a hushed mew.

"Great, just what we needed."

In their distraction, the two younger toms didn't realize that Bristlefrost had not seen those cats. She jumped up, making tiny rocks in the cliff fall from her weight. Before Shadowsight could warn her, the two shapes at the bottom of the cannon had raised their heads to look for the source of the falling rubble. They spotted the she-cat that was climbing the stone walls, and emitted a loud battle cry that echoed on the cliff, resonating across the entire forest.

"Intruder!"

Bristlefrost jumped in place with fright, and Shadowsight could almost taste her fear scent when she saw that the two Dark Forest spirits had begun to climb up to the stone cliff where she was. Behind those cats, a patrol of more ragged and muddy warriors emerged from the shadows.

"They're going to kill her!" Rootspring said with his panicked blue eyes looking back at the she-cat. She was climbing faster to reach the top before the other spirits reached her.

Bristlefrost looked back at the two toms and raised her head towards the top of the cliff behind them, not giving their position away while indicating them to keep going.

"Get to the top!" Shadowsight said before making the same jump that Rootspring had done, his paws landing unevenly but ready to keep going.

"We have to do something." The yellow tom had not separated his gaze from Bristlefrost. "She can't fight that many cats!"

"We'll figure that out, but we have to move!"

Shadowsight pushed Rootsrping away from the edge of the rock and jumped to the next ledge that he could find. Thankfully for him, the Skyclan warrior soon followed on his tracks.

What exactly will you figure out?

He focused on jumping, floating and climbing to push his own doubts away. He could hear the yowls and snarls of the Dark Forest cats on the other side of the cannon, but there was nothing that he could do to stop them at that moment. Maybe he was just trying to reach the top to distract his mind from the danger that Bristlefrost was in, or to not just stand still while she got captured by her malicious aggressors.

No time to think, he just had to get to the top and weaken the barrier.

Eventually, the ledge of the clifftop was right over Shadowsight's head. With a grunt, he used his front legs to grab a root and pulled himself up. His panting when he finally managed to lay down on the flat earth was short-lived due to Rootspring, who had climbed right behind him, and his anxious voice.

"Alright, we're at the top. Now what?" He said.

Shadowsight got up on his paws and gave a quick look around him. The blighted trees were right next to them, hanging from the cliff's edge at a dangerous angle. The nauseous smell of the yellow sprouts was clinging in the air, strong enough to make both toms squint their eyes.

Shadowsight counted the infested trees. Four on their side of the cannon, and when looking at the other side the same amount was repeated. Shadowsight could also see Bristlefrost already raking at one of the trees to free whoever was trapped inside. A few fox-lengths under her, five Dark Forest cats were making their way towards her.

She may have time to free two or three cats, if she's lucky, but not all of them.

"Free whoever's trapped," Shadowsight told Rootspring as he ran to the nearest tree that he could find. He reached a small one that had a surprisingly low amount of sprouts and branches, which grew a little farther from the others.

The tabby easily pulled away the thin bark of the trunk and sliced the sap that protected the hollow insides. He squeezed through the hole and located the sack where a cat should be trapped. Coming from within the disgusting bag, the medicine cat could hear high-pitched whimpers, and see a shape that was much smaller than the one of a normal cat.

He sliced it open and a small kit rolled out, the stars in her short grey-white pelt covered in sap and stenching with the brownish fluids that had surrounded her. The tabby held his breath, lifted the she-kit by her scurf and walked out of the hollow trunk with the light body hanging from his jaws.

Rootspring got closer to him, carrying an unconscious black tom that already had bile rushing out of his mouth. Shadowsight laid the kit down and raised his head to speak to his friend.

"You keep going, I'll see if these two are alright."

"What about Bristlefrost?"

The medicine cat looked back at the she-cat. She had two cats lying close to her on the ground and she was running towards another tree. The Dark Forest cats snarled and screeched at Bristlefrost, as they had almost reached the top of the cliff.

Shadowsight glanced at the branches of the trees that were hanging from each side of the cannon, reaching and intertwining with each other to form a sort-of bridge that Shadowsight a cat could cross.

"Rescue one more cat and then use those branches to get to the other side," He said while tilting his head to indicate Rootspring on how to cross. "And hurry!"

Hesitating for a moment, Rootspring ran to a third tree. Shadowsight looked down at the tom and she-kit on the ground. They were hardly breathing, and even though their pelts looked ruffled and their bellies thin they certainly were in a better state than Rainwhisker had been.

The medicine cat pressed his ear against the kit's chest, relieved to hear the beating of her heart. Despite this, he placed his paws against her lungs and began pressing with regular intervals. She coughed the darkened bile from the tree out of her mouth. Her eyes remained closed, but her chest now raised up and down properly.

Not even giving himself time to feel relief, Shadowsight moved to the black tom. He repeated the same process with a similar result, except that this time the tom opened his orange eyes and immediately curbed himself around the small kit. He didn't seem strong enough to talk, as he was trembling weakly, but he still gritted his teeth to protect the white-and-grey she-kit.

Maybe he was her father…

Rootspring appeared again, this time with a small pale-ginger she-cat that had her leaf-green eyes opened and was struggling to breath in. Shadowsight began pressing her chest like he did with the others, when he heard his friend yell at the top of his lungs.

"Bristlefrost!"

He looked at the other clifftop and saw that the Dark Forest cats had finally reached the grey she-cat.

The first attacker was pushed back into the rocks, the second one managed to dodge the Thunderclan she-cat's attack and swiped back at her side. Then a third, fourth and fifth cat slowly began to surround her. She was heavily outnumbered, and she wouldn't last any longer.

"Hold on, I'm coming!" Rootspring yelled. He then focused on the distance between the two clifftops, as if measuring the length of the cannon.

"Go through the branches!" Shadowsight told him.

"I won't make it in time, they'll kill her!"

Without even taking a breath to think twice, the Skyclan tom rushed to the edge and leaped forwards.

"No!" Shadowsight screeched.

The yellow tom's spirit floated towards Bristlefrost with a ferocious roar, catching the attention of the Dark Forest cats before they could attack the Thunderclan cat. For a moment that felt stretched to last for seasons, Rootspring glided through the air like an eagle, descending until he safely fell on one of the muddy cats that were trying to attack his friend.

Thank Starclan.

Left alone on that side of the cannon, Shadowsight focused back on the weakened she-cat under his paws, who was gargling to try to breathe in. She was finally able to cough out a splash of the tree's fluids from her mouth after a few pumps to her chest. Shadowsight looked at her in her yellow eyes, trying for his own gaze to appear calm.

"Can you hear me?" He asked. "What's your name?"

"Y-yes…" She answered, her mew out of breath. "I'm Sand… Sandstorm."

Wait... Wasn't that the name of Firestar's mate? How did she, out of all cats, end up here?

"Alright. Sandstorm, everything will be alright. Can you get up?"

"I think…" Supported by Shadowsight, the she-cat lifted herself up with her paws to stand up. She gritted her teeth and her eyes winced when pressing her right hind leg against the ground, but she didn't complain out loud.

"Could you get these cats out of here safely?" The medicine cat asked while pointing at the two other cats that he and Rootspring had rescued from the blighted tree. "Don't worry, I'll find Starclan and free them as well."

She nodded and crouched down to speak to the black tom. "Blackclaw, get up. We have to leave."

The tom, hearing that she-cat's voice, opened his orange eyes and nodded slowly. With a grunt, he stood up and let Sandstorm carry the tiny she-kit by her scurf. She opened her eyes and mumbled "Where's Bluestar…?"

"Don't worry, Mosskit." Blackclaw answered with a raspy mew. "We'll find her…"

As the three Starclan cats began to walk away into the cover of the shadows, the tabby tom turned his head towards the fourth and last tree with yellow-pulsating sprouts. He repeated the process of removing the bark and slicing the hole filled with sap.

I'll send this cat with the others as well.

This time, he didn't take any moment to look around before locating the sack that had the shape of a cat inside. He used his unsheathed claws and felt the already-familiar stench of the fluids hit his face. Without re-thinking it, he dragged a snow-white tom out of the tree.

Once he was out, Shadowsight lowered his head and let go of the cat. The medicine cat then turned the tom's body around so that his chest would face upwards. In doing so, he noticed that this cat had a very peculiar scar that travelled from his belly to the tip of his ear. It was strange, but he didn't pay too much attention to it and started pressing his paws against the white tom's lungs.

When the tom opened his eyes, he used his hind legs to push the medicine cat away from him. This sent Shadowsight stumbling back in surprise right as the other cat began to growl at him.

"Who are you?!" He snarled while getting up on his paws.

"I-I'm just Shadowsight, from Shadowclan." The tom couldn't think of a better or smarter answer against the sudden aggression from that cat.

"Shadowsight..." He murmured with his eyes narrowed. "So you're the one Dustpelt was looking for?"

"You know him?"

"Oh, I do." The scared tom's lips were pulled back, revealing his long and sharp fangs to the tabby in front of him. Droplets of bile dripped from his teeth into the stone ground, and he pointed at the tree where that fluid had come from. "And your death will serve as punishment for what he did to me!"

He leaped towards the young tom with his claws unsheathed and a fiery hatred in his eyes. For some reason, that was when Shadowsight noticed that his aggressor didn't have any stars on his pelt.

He managed to jump back to prevent the white tom from pinning him down, but he still landed close enough to swipe at the Shadowsight's face with his long claws. The hard impact made the tabby stumble to his side and, to his surprise, he felt a burning sensation on his left cheek. Blood didn't pour out, since ghosts didn't bleed, but the tabby tom could feel like a small part of his strength was leaving his body through the open wound.

Shadowsight scrambled his paws on the ground as he walked backwards with fear. The white tom walked forward menacingly, grinning at the medicine cat with a wicker grin.

"Nowhere to run now, you're in my territory."

Come on, think!

The medicine cat thought of calling for his friends, but he could see that their blurry images were still struggling to beat the other cats. There was no time for them to reach him, even if they tried to jump over the cannon like Rootspring had done.

Shadowsight suddenly opened his eyes wide just as the scarred tom began charging towards him. Instead of running away, the medicine cat rushed in the direction of his aggressor, waiting for the perfect moment.

If this doesn't work, I'm dead for good.

When the white tom was only a tail-length away, Shadowsight jumped and let himself float in the air as a spirit. He felt a claw slice the tip of his tail fur, but apart from that he managed to pass over the white tom unharmed.

He landed on the trunk of the tree from which he had freed his aggressor, who was now glaring at him hissing with dissatisfaction. Using his claws, the young tom managed to run up the trunk and head for the thick branches that hung towards the other side of the cannon, hearing the pawsteps of the snow-white tom not so far behind.

Shadowsight looked at the other clifftop, and he saw a Dark Forest tom being flung past the stone edge by both Rootspring and Bristlefrost. His fall was highlighted with a long and terrified scream that was finally silenced with an abrupt thump.

As he balanced himself on the shaky branch, Shadowsight gazed down to see that the barrier covering the path to the moor had a noticeable change of color. Instead of being darkened, many of its vines and tendrils looked pale brown-ish, withered after the blighted trees had lost the cats that they were being fed by.

The barrier is weakened, we can finally get in!

To his dismay, he also saw how there were many Dark Forest cats littering the bottom of the cannon and both stone walls, ready to catch the three trespassers and feed them to the blighted trees.

Where do they even come from?!

He heard a yelp coming from the direction of Rootspring and Bristlefrost, and when he looked there he saw that they were still being attacked by three more stinking warriors, all of them with open wounds. A few tail-lengths away, there were a total of four cats with star-lighted pelts dragging themselves away from the fight, too weak to fight anyone. As a result of those Starclan cats being rescued from them, there were three withered trees that surrounded the one that was closest to Shadowsight, which he had planned to jump to.

Rootspring and Bristlefrost were forced to retreat to that same tree by the three Dark Forest cats that they had been fighting. The yellow tom was limping as he walked backwards while the she-cat hissed and snarled at the cats to protect her injured ally.

The three young cats were trapped by both the white tom behind Shadowsight and those other Dark Forest cats that were forcing the warriors to retreat. There was no escape.

No, not when we made it this far! There has to be a way to get out of this.

His two friends approached him from the many intertwined branches between the two opposite trees. The Dark Forest cats were hissing and mocking the warriors from their positions near the tree's trunks, relishing on the fact that none of the three clan cats could run away anymore.

"Death to your code!"

"Come back here, I was starting to have fun!"

"Mouse-hearts!"

"We're surrounded!" Rootspring hissed, resting on his right side due to the injury in his left shoulder.

"Alright calm down, there has to be another way," Bristlefrost responded, looking at the approaching Dark Forest cats with her fur standing on its end. "Shadowsight, any plans?"

"Did you two free all of the Starclan cats from the trees?" He asked Rootspring.

"Yeah, barely."

"Well, then we could float down." Shadowsight looked at the barrier of withered vines, which was precisely under the three young cats. Surrounding it, dozens of eyes glinted as they gazed upwards towards their future prisoners. "But I don't think we'll have time to open the barrier before those cats catch us."

Could we fight our way out of this?

He glanced back at the white tom that was slowly approaching him, knowing that the clan cats had no way out. Shadowsight never had any warrior training, and that cat seemed very familiar with fighting and even murdering others. No, a young medicine cat couldn't overpower that white-pelted tom.

Wait…

A cat with a purely white pelt... Why did that sound so familiar to him?

Rootspring spoke from beside the medicine cat with agitation making words come out with haste. "We need a plan right about now, these trees are going to wither away at any moment."

The yellow tom's words were confirmed by the brownish color that the branches under the cats' paws had adopted. The thickness that they had would prevent them from drying up immediately, but they wouldn't last long.

"Wait, wait!" Bristlefrost suddenly said with her eyes opening wide. "Shadowsight, your vision!"

"My what?" He asked with perplexity.

"The one you told us about! You said that something chased you into a tree and it fell down, making you feel free."

The images of the vision from the white-pelted spirit with golden eyes came back to him. He had told him that it was the way to free Starclan, that he was the one meant to do it.

"This tree is about to wither away," Bristlefrost explained, silently encouraged by the realization within Shadowsight's amber eyes. "But its trunk and branches should be strong enough to fall with a lot of weight."

"So?" Rootspring asked.

She pointed at the bottom of the cannon with his tail. The barrier was precisely under the tree-branch that the three were standing on, as well as the trunks that were about to fall.

"Are you insane?!" The Skyclan tom asked with a mix of perplexity and anxiety in his mew. "There's no way we'll survive something like that, it's impossible!"

"I think it might work," Shadowsight intervened. "All of the other visions that I had turned out to be true, they never lied."

Bristlefrost looked at the yellow tom in the eyes and added "Besides, Rootspring, you jumped over an entire cliff as if it was just a puddle. I don't think we can say that anything is impossible by now."

"Well yes, but…" He glanced back at the grey she-cat. Her confidence seemed to spread to Rootspring as well, as he sighed and said "Shadowsight, you don't have a plan that is any less crazy than this, right?

"Well this entire plan was crazy from the start, I don't think we have any reason to stop being so now. This is probably our only option."

If it doesn't work, then everything will be lost.

A mumble escaped Rootspring's mouth, although no other cat could catch it. He looked down at the barrier under his paws and asked "So how exactly do we do this?"

"Get closer to the trunks, they'll be weak and they'll fall more easily. When I tell you, try to jump on the branches." Bristlefrost told Rootspring as well as Shadowsight. "And by Starclan hold on to them."

Both toms nodded and the cats separated, each walking their way back to their sides of the cannon. It only took a few heartbeats for Shadowsight to see himself face to face with the white Dark Forest tom, who stood on top of a thick branch, his head raised with pride.

"Tired of running, huh?" He taunted the grey tabby.

Shadowsight could feel the wood under his paws slowly lose strength and become dry. Behind him, the branches where he and his friends had stood had begun to drop like dead flies, their strength gone. He didn't have much time.

"Tired of… being a disgrace to the clans?" Shadowsight taunted back.

"The clans and their code can go rot and fade away, like you will in a moment."

Like this tree as well.

"Well yes, but my rotten body would be mourned for, what about yours?" The tabby could see a glint of anger spark in the eyes of that white tom, and he continued spitting insults that he hoped would hit a nerve in that cat. "I bet nobody bothered burying you when you died."

"Mourning is for the weak!" He spat, even though Shadowsight could feel the impact that his words had on the tom. "And so is protecting those that are weak!"

"Didn't you have anybody to protect you when you were a weak kit?"

The scarred tom dropped the little remains that he had left of his confident expression and took a menacing step towards the medicine cat. "Silence, you flea-pelt!"

"Is that how you got that ugly and disgusting scar of yours?"

Please let this tree fall now, before I get shredded to pieces!

The white tom's eyes shot open and he unsheathed his long claws. "Oh, you're dead now!" He roared as he leaped at Shadowsight.

Right as he jumped, a bright-yellowish glow flowed from within the trunk into the branch that Shadowsight was standing on, as well as through the roots that led to the vine barrier at the bottom of the cannon.

The dying glow of a dying tree.

"Jump!" The Shadowclan cat heard Bristlefrost yowl, just in time for the scared tom to fall on top of the branch with all of his weight. Shadowsight crouched down like a kit to prevent his neck from being exposed to his aggressor's opened jaws.

When a huge weight landed on him, the grey tabby felt the entire tree that he was standing on shake and crack. He buried his claws deep into the withered bark of the tree and screamed against the strong feeling of motion as the giant tree lost its grasp on the cliff's earth and fell down the cannon.

The weight of the white tom disappeared from his back, probably after being sent flying through the air, and he could hear yells and shouts coming from all around him. He recognized Rootspring and Bristlefrost's voices, screeching words that Shadowsight could not make out. The other screams were either coming from his own voice echoed by the wind's roar or the terrified voices of the Dark Forest cats as the giant trees where Starclan cats had been trapped fell down on them.

Shadowsight closed his eyes to push away the blurring images and dizzying colors that flooded his vision. He felt a great impact on his chest that knocked the air out of his lungs, followed immediately by a loud hissing sound. The branch that he was holding snapped violently and then a strong force collided against his head, forcing him to let his grip loose and fall down into a pit of grey darkness.

(...)

Shadowsight opened his eyes

The dark-grey tabby felt something brushing against the tip of his nose, tickling it ever so slightly as the strange sensation swished across the face. For some reason, it felt comforting. It reminded him of Dovewing and how her grey fur used to get in his nose and make him sneeze when he rested his very young body against her.

"Shadowsight…" She called him, using his medicine cat name and not the one of a kit.

Mother?

"Shadowsight, wake up!" A much deeper voice yelled at him.

The tom opened his eyes to see darkened grass swaying in all directions with thrashing motions that swatted at his face. Between the tips of the grass, he saw a grey cat watching over him with blue eyes.

But Dovewing has green eyes… what's happ-

Before Shadowsight could even process what he was seeing, the grey cat used its paw to nudge him awake. A surge of pain rushed to the back of the tabby's head, as if a rock had fallen on it, and he groaned in protest.

"Oh, sorry," The cat blurted out while helping Shadowsight get up. It then looked around and yelled at some other cat, causing the medicine cat to wince with the loud noise. "He woke up!"

Shadowsight had to blink a few times to be able to understand what was happening. His head was buzzing as if every bee in the lake was flying around it, and the roaring wind that surrounded him didn't help that chaotic feeling wash away, instead making it drown his senses in the unstoppable noise.

Why is everything so loud?!

Another shockwave of pain to his head. Why in Starclan's name did it hurt so bad? Wasn't he a ghost? How could he feel any pain?

He shook his head, pushing everything away from his mind. The withered tree, he hit his head, that was it. His brain was just stirred up from the impact. He took one long and deep breath, letting his muscles and mind relax. Beside him, he could still hear the voice of the cat that had woken him up, screaming to be heard over the loud wind.

"Can you hear me?"

Shadowsight looked at the cat that had supported him, relieved to finally realize whom that grey pelt and blue eyes belonged to.

"Bristlefrost…" He mumbled, his head still numb.

"No, I'm Rootspring." The cat answered, with a voice that surprised Shadowsight for how it sounded so unlike the one of a she-cat. "My pelt is just grey here, for some reason."

The only reaction from Shadowsight to that comment was to check over his own body, but it didn't seem any different from normal. Granted, his pelt already was grey and black, so maybe he had also lost his colors but it wasn't as noticeable as in the case of Rootspring.

Another cat approached him, whose long fur and neat ears matched Bristlefrost's appearance. Looking at how different she looked from Rootspring, Shadowsight couldn't understand how his mind had gotten the two confused so easily.

"Shadowsight, where's Starclan?" Bristlefrost asked.

"I uh… what?"

"We're in the moor, where do we go now?" She pressed on.

Wait, we made it?

He looked around and what he managed to see immediately confused him. There was just grass, dark grass that swayed in all directions and nothing else. No trees, no streams, no rocks, no moon, no sun, just a moor clouded by dark shapes in the sky.

A moor… an endless-the grey moor! We found it.

In the distance, he could see nothing but the grass blown by the wind that hit Shadowsight's face. The only other thing that he could barely spot were a few dark-grey clouds swirling around several fox-lengths to his right.

"We made it," Shadowsight mumbled out loud, trying to feel some form of excitement for his words. After all, he and his friend had escaped from the Dark Forest without being captured. But it was hard to feel any kind of sensation in his head that wasn't just pain and the swooshing of the howling wind.

"Yeah, we know," Rootspring mewed, hurrying his aimless steps despite the injury on his shoulder making him limp. "Now where is Starclan supposed to be?"

"Uhh."

He scanned the dull moor, once again spotting no shape except for the swirling clouds to his right. To his left, Shadowsight managed to spot a round shape on the ground, barely a few steps in size.

"Wha-what is that?" Shadowsight asked weakly.

"Some sort of pool of water... I don't know," Rootspring replied.

"It's not a way out of here," Bristlefrost added. "But… I think I saw the lake when I touched the water."

"The lake..." Shadowsight echoed with a mumble, feeling something nag at the back of his buzzing mind. The battle. He and his friends had to stop it. That's why they were in that place.

"Is it dawn yet?" He asked.

"No, but I think I saw the first rays of light in the sky."

We're running out of time.

"Is it me, or are those clouds getting closer?" Rootspring asked.

Shadowsight looked back at the misty clouds to his right, which had indeed approached the three cats, who all took instinctive steps to the other side. However, the distance between them and the smoke didn't seem to get any longer, it looked even closer than before.

Then suddenly, the shadows within those barriers of smoke began to take the form of cats. One, two, five, ten, hundreds of cats looking back at Shadowsight. He couldn't see their eyes but he felt their gazes, like the imperceptible shine of a fox's glare before it leaps at an unsettled kit.

Those shapes took one step forward, their limbs twitching with what appeared to be sudden spasms. They stayed within the border of the dark-misty clouds that were now only a few-tail lengths ahead of Shadowsight, but he already felt them too close.

He stumbled back. Panic began to rise up to his throat. The sight of those darkened cats mixed with the roaring wind made him shiver as if he had fallen into frozen water.

"You two are seeing those cats… Right?" He asked.

Bristlefrost, in response, arched her back and stood in front of her two injured allies, which struggled to make an escape from the cats creeping towards them.

Slowly, part of the mist moved back, dissipating the cover that it had given to the stalking shapes to let them become clearer to see. The pelts of those cats were all as dark and greyed as the thick fog that had surrounded them, and their eyes were the only thing that still had a hint of color left. They were opened wide, frozen in anguished and terrified expressions. Traces that resembled veins criss-crossed all over their gazes, covering their natural colors with a dark-red tint.

Droplets of blood dripped down from those cats' eyes, the sight of them making Shadowsight's breath cut short.

They're in pain…

"Who in Starclan's name are you?!" Bristlefrost said with a forced growl.

None of them seemed intimidated in the slightest by the she-cat. Instead, one of them took a trembling step forward. He looked at the young cats with his dark-colored eyes and, after a violet twitch of his head, spoke in-between hoarse pants.

"These... are your ancestors!" He groaned, as if the mere act of speaking took him unbearable efforts. "They are nothing… no match for my powers. Starclan, The Dark Forest, the clans… the ancients… they'll all belong to me!"

"You are too late!" All of the cats roared at the same time, their voices joined into a cacophony of agonizing mews. Instead of being muffled by the loud wind surrounding them, the screams of the Starclan cats became stronger, carried by the blasting gusts that hit the three young cats in the face.

Seeing the vein-eyed cats with their jaws wide-opened, Shadowsight saw that the dark grey mist was flowing into their mouths, into their bodies, and into their minds. The smoke barrier looked as dark as the eyes of the mindless spirits that would soon battle with living cats.

"No…" Shadowsigth breathed out, finally realizing that the spirits in front of him were the ones that he had been meant to find. Starclan had been lost to the impostor as well.

It couldn't be possible, those cats were meant to be more powerful than any living cat or wandering spirit. But their minds had been taken over before Shadowsight, Rootspring and Bristlefrost could even try to free them.

The cats began dispersing to two separate sides, with the mist following them in every step. They arched around the three young cats, and before they could even think about escaping, they had been surrounded by the fog.

"Shadowsight…" Rootspring said, his eyes following the spirits as they then began taking menacing steps towards the three clan cats. "You said that the impostor wouldn't know about us being here!"

"N-no, this wasn't meant to happen," He said. "Dustpelt would have warned me!"

"Dustpelt is gone!" Screeched a she-cat from within the clouds of smoke. "His spirit disappeared forever! Not even he could escape me."

"Besides," A younger voice groaned. "Did you seriously believe the word of a spirit that spoke only to you, again?! I didn't think you were this naive, Shadowsight."

Shadowsight stepped back, whether it was due to the shock of learning Dustpelt's fate or for the other thing said by the corrupted cats, not even he could tell. Even if he took a thousand more steps back, Shadowsight knew that he wasn't getting any farther from the corrupted spirits of his ancestors.

He would have warned you.

He pushed that thought away, because it wasn't true. It couldn't be true, after all that he and the others had been through. There had to be a way out. A way to fix everything.

Rootspring stumbled back and narrowed his eyes into pained slits. "You won, you took over Starclan. What more do you want?!"

"Controlling Starclan was never my goal, it's just another step of my plan."

A grey-and-white she-cat emerge from the mist beside the young cats. "But you out of all cats should be thankful that I'm doing all of this, Rootspring. My code won't deny true love to anyone, because no rule should prevent a cat from being happy with those that they care for."

The Skyclan tom gave an almost imperceptible glance to the Thunderclan she-cat beside him. His blue eyes met Bristlefrost's, and she turned her head to the left, and then to the right, her gaze leaving Rootspring's. Shadowsight twitched his whiskers, feeling a slight sense of realization in the back of his head.

He… loves her?

Rootspringand looked back at the mist with fury in his eyes.

"What about the rest of the cats that died? Don't they matter as well?" He gritted his teeth and unsheathed his claws. "You killed my father, and then come to talk to me about being with those that we love? Who do you think you are to tell anyone what's fair?!"

The voices didn't answer. Instead, cats emerged from the smoke barrier with their claws unsheathed and ready for battle. The spirits jerked and twiched their bodies every step they took, but that didn't stop their mew from obeying the command that the impostor had given them and speak to the Skyclan tom.

"In the end, it wasn't so necessary to have you killed when you were by Tree's side," The spirits growled. "Your actions changed nothing, and in the end, you came back to me anyways."

Before Rootspring could even lift a paw to fend off his aggressors, Bristlefrost shoved him back with her shoulder and placed herself between the corrupted spirits and her two companions.

"Pick a fight with someone that isn't weakened, fox-heart!" She snarled while fluffling out her long fur to appear bigger while catching the attention of the corrupted spirits.

"Oh, Bristlefrost," A young tabby with green, red-tinted, eyes mocked her. "I've been waiting for this for a long time."

The sleek tom jumped at the Thunderclan warrior with his front paws stretched out and his jaws ready to deal a killing blow. Bristlefrost, however, had been ready because she dodged to her side and, when the small tabby landed on the grass, she jumped and placed her body on top of him. With her claws unsheathed, the grey she-cat began raking at the tabby's spine, causing him to shriek in both pain and surprise.

Another spirit jumped at the warrior, but Bristlefrost used the impact to roll on the ground and send her startled opponent flying in the air with a powerful kick of her hind legs. She then got up and looked at the spirits that began surrounding her. Shadowsight couldn't help but to feel respect for that warrior, as she didn't let herself appear afraid to the impostor's ghosts.

Rootspring tried to walk towards the battling she-cat, but his left shoulder didn't manage to support his weight and he stumbled to the ground. Shadowsight, seeing that the mist was closing in on them and that the spirits were stalking towards them from all directions, crouched down and helped the Skyclan tom to get up on his paws.

Rootspring, as soon as he was up, looked back at the Thunderclan she-cat and gasped. Following his gaze, Shadowsight saw that Bristlefrost had been pinned to the ground by a tabby she-cat who was placing her paw against her face and forcing it to look in the direction of the approaching mist.

The grey she-cat screamed and squirmed in an attempt to free herself from the grasp of the other spirit, but it only ended up helping the fumes that reached Bristlefrost's face and began pushing themselves into her exposed mouth, nostrils and ears. In a heartbeat, the warrior's howling body had been engulfed by the wall of smoke, which kept following the blood-eyed cats that advanced relentlessly towards Shadowsight and Rootspring.

"Without strength, they won't open a path. Without a path, they won't be freed." The spirits chanted with ominous voices, despite neither tom knowing what those words meant.

The Skyclan tom pushed his friend back and tried to run towards the place where Bristlefrost had just been, but it was cut short by the hissing spirits that blocked his path. Shadowsight, despite knowing that trying to back away served no purpose, attempted to push Rootspring away from the other cats, which was received by a snarl from the tom followed by a sudden slash to the face.

"Get off me!" He growled at his friend.

Shadowsight fell on his back, the shock from the attack making him unable to land on his paws. As he hit the hard ground under him, Shadowsight felt cold water splash against his fur.

For a brief moment, his head was under a body of water that was completely grey. The tabby then raised himself up and saw that he had landed on the grey pool of water that he had seen earlier.

He looked at his own reflection, seeing that the side of his face had a dark liquid dripping from it, which was like the blood that flowed out of the eyes of the corrupted spirits. The wound extended from the side of his nose all the way up to his golden eyes.

His mind went blank.

My eyes aren't golden…

Every sound around him seemed to disappear, muffled by some other, stronger call. He heard a deep and soothing voice, one that calmed his terrified mind like the sight of a flower growing after a harsh leaf-bare.

"Shadowsight, you are almost there." The words seemed to come from the tabby's reflection, as it opened his mouth and spoke gently to Shadowsight. "Bring Rootspring to the water, he is the only one that can stop this now. Don't fear for Bristlefrost, she has already done enough."

"Have faith, Shadowsight. Cling to it deeply, and everything will be fixed."

When the tabby blinked, the eyes in his reflection turned amber, like they had been since the day he was born. He raised his head and saw that Rootspring and the spirits had not moved a single whisker from where they had stood. One small whisper lingered in his mind.

"Bring Rootspring."

Shadowsight took a deep breath and stretched his head to grasp his teeth around his friend's tail. Without giving him time to react, the tabby pulled Rootspring to the pool of water that he had fallen in.

With a yelp, the Skyclan tom also fell on the water. The spirits chuckled mockingly as the mist got closer and closer.

"It's not a way out, you know?"

Rootspring stood up in the shallow waters, glancing at Shadowsight with the same erratic look than the one he'd had a few heartbeats ago.

"Why did you do that?!" He snarled.

"I…" Shadwosight casted a second glance at the water, hoping to see his reflection looking back at him with the golden eyes. Instead, his voice trailed off when he noticed that something else was different.

The water around Rootspring's paws had lost its dark-grey colors. Instead, it shone with a much brighter light, one that looked as pale as the fallen snow that littered the forest floor during leaf-bare seasons. The luminous glimmer seemed to emanate from the Skyclan tom's paws as they came in contact with the water, and it flowed out of his body like mud being washed away from his pelt.

Rootspring noticed this as well, since he lowered his head and the rapid movements of his panicked chest stopped abruptly. His eyes focused on the gleam under his paws and, to Shadowsight's surprise, the blue eyes of the tom lightened up as well.

The spirits now completely surrounded the pool of water, making it impossible to take a more than one step away from the middle without being clawed in the face. The fog had covered the sky, forming a dome around the toms from which there was no escape. Despite having the two clan cats surrounded, neither the spirits or the mist got any closer.

When the medicine cat glanced back at Rootspring, he was perplexed to see that the eyes of his friend were being taken over by a white glow, shining against the darkness that surrounded everything. The lightened husk of water under his paws had grown wider, taking over the colorless liquid bit by bit. The spirits that stood on the border of the pool also noticed this, and they began growling and snarling at Rootspring. However, none of them placed a paw on the lightened surface.

"Shadowsight," Rootspring said, his voice sounding no louder than a whisper. "Someone is calling to me…"

"Who is it?"

"I don't… I don't know. It says that I that... I can free Starclan." His breath grew quicker, and the bright husk under his paws began to dissipate. "But… I can't, he's too strong."

He can't stop, not when we're almost there!

Shadowsight walked up to his friend and rested his tail on his injured shoulder while gently pressing his muscle against his side, letting his slow breaths pass over to the Skyclan tom to calm him down.

"You can do this," He said, knowing that whatever fight Rootspring was going through needed to be won. "Think about Tree, about Violetshine, about your sister, your clan."

Each word seemed to fuel Rootspring's spirit, as his breath began to steady and the glow under his paws grew larger again. So did the brightness in his blue eyes, which were slowly being taken over like the eyes of the mindless spirits had been, except Rootspring didn't seem to lose his mind to anything. He was still talking, he was still commanding his movements, he still had his will.

Then suddenly, the cry of a she-cat echoed from the mist.

"Rootspring!"

Both toms turned their heads to see Bristlefrost collapsing on the border of the pool, her whole body trembling in anguish. The grey fur that she had tried to intimidate the corrupted spirits with now lay flat against her chest, which was moving up and down with pants of exhaustion. Her eyes were sealed shut, small crimson droplets sliding down her cheek, passing by her gritted teeth, and dripping into the dark grass that she had rested her head against.

She lifted her head and opened her eyes to look at the Skyclan tom. The confidence and bravery in them had been replaced by fear, complete and absolute terror that blinded her blue gaze with darkened veins. When Rootspring's white eyes focused on her, she opened her mouth to speak with a raspy groan.

"Help me, please," She begged.

"Bristlefrost, I-I won't let him take you," He answered. "Just hold on."

"Rootspring, no…"

The light within Rootspring's eyes was slightly dissipated. "What?"

"Please, don't do it," She added.

"Why… why not?"

"Because… I love you."

What?

The edges of the glimmering circle around Rootsrping's paws were taken over by the grey waters of the pool.

"You… what?" The yellow tom mumbled in disbelief.

"I love you," She repeated with a soft mew. "I always loved you, Rootspring."

"But… that's not what you told me," Despite that dubious comment, the tom took a slow step towards the suffering she-cat.

"I know. I was just so afraid of the clans, of the code, of Ivypool, of myself… I didn't want to admit that I had feelings for you, not after everything that I did wrong." She coughed violently, sounding like a cat infected with greencough. "I thought I didn't deserve your love, but you still loved me and it confused me.

She then coughed again, causing clouds of mist to fly out of her mouth. The fog that came out of Bristlefrost's lungs swirled around the border of the waters, as if trying to reach Rootspring but being unnable to get past the glow under his paws. "I shouldn't have said any of the things I said, they were all a mistake."

As Rootspring's glowing eyes lost even more of their glimmering sparks, the corrupted spirits beside Bristlefrost began approaching her slowly. All of their vein-covered eyes were focused on the Skyclan tom with malice.

Shadowsight opened his eyes wide and hurried to his friend's side.

"Rootspring, don't listen to her. The impostor is using her to get us out of the water."

The Skyclan tom looked back at him and then at the pleading she-cat. Rootspring's gaze was indiscernible to Shadowsight, and he couldn't tell whether his friend had listened to what he said or not.

"Rootspring, let's just forget about all of this," Bristlefrost said with a sad moan that pretended to sound warm. "We can just run away and… and I want to have kits with you! Nothing would make me happier."

"Run away from our clans?" The tom repeated, standing only a paw-step away from the border of the water. "

"We don't need clans, we don't need a code to tell us that we're wrong, we don't need anyone but each other."

The Thunderclan she-cat stretched out one of her front paws towards the Skyclan tom, beckoning him to get out of the water. "Just… help me get up. We'll find our way back and fend off whoever attacks us. Together, we're unstoppable. Our love is unstoppable."

Rootspring spent many heartbeats looking at Bristlefrost's grey paw. During that long moment, the glimmering of the water was reduced to only a whisker of size, which made more than one spirit try placing a front leg on the surface. To Shadowsight's dismay, they grinned and began approaching him.

"Rootspring, that isn't Bristlefrost!"

The tabby turned his head and saw Rootspring gently placing his paw over Bristlefrost's.

"So… you do love me?"

"With all my heart," She answered.

The yellow tom dipped his head and sighed. "Bristlefrost, that's all I ever wanted to hear you say."

Shadowsight felt his heart drop to the shallow bottoms of the water. So close to making it, so close to finally being able to end the nightmare, and all wasted. He lowered his own head, accepting his end as the cursed spirits stood only a paw-step away from him.

I tried, I swear by the real Starclan that I tried…

Then, he heard Rootspring's voice speak to the Thunderclan she-cat once again. "That is all I ever wished..." He paused, taking a long-deep breath and holding it in his lungs for a few heartbeats.

When he let it go, he looked at the she-cat in her blood-dripping eyes. "But it was never what you would have wanted."

Closing his eyes, Rootspring shoved Bristlefrost's paw into the waters of the pool. In an instant, the Skyclan tom's eyes became completely white once again, with the glimmering around his paws growing larger once again. Bristlefrost, at first, tried to release Rootspring's grip by snarling at him, as she was unable to move any part of her body due to the pure light that touched her corrupted body.

"Stop, it burns!" She begged.

"I'm sorry," He answered.

"Rootspring, let me go!"

"I can't, not yet."

"Please, I love you..." Her voice came out as a whimper.

"Don't make her say that!" Rootspring screamed at the impostor manipulating his friend's spirit.

"Then give up, you pathetic rat!" Bristlefrost snarled with a voice that became twisted and dark, like the essence cat forcing her to speak.

Rootspring didn't answer, instead he narrowed his light-filled gaze, causing Bristlefrost's body to jerk with a sudden burst of energy.

"I can be yours... I can be in love with you, for all eternity," The impostor made her say, although the she-cat's corrupted voice sounded tired and weakened. "But, if you do this... you'll never have me as your mate... You know this."

"I... I know," Rootsrping looked at the Thunderclan warrior in her vein-filled eyes, sadness filling his white eyes with a brief flash. However, he didn't let go of Bristlefrost paw. "But it's not my choice to make."

He gritted his teeth and Shadowsight, who had been frozen in place listening to the two young warriors, heard a growl coming from the Skyclan tom's throat.

"And you won't make that choice either!" Rootspring screamed. His angered mew seemed to shift the entirerity of the wind surrounding him, as it hit Shadowsight in the face like a bear charging at him, shocking him with its mighty strength.

"Rootspring, no!" Bristlefrost tried to say, but the strength from Rootspring's spirit forced her to shoot her head up to the cloudy sky with her eyes sealed shut in an attempt to resist. Then her voice trailed off and she opened her eyes wide. The vein-like markings that had swished across her gaze were gone, instead replaced by the same white glow that was shining bright in Rootspring's eyes. She stood up and let herself be guided by her friend into the brightening pool of water.

Shadowsight couldn't believe what he was seeing. The spirits that had tried to attack him were now retreating to the safety of the grass surrounding the pool of white water with hisses. They yelled and shrieked at Rootspring, but his luminous gaze was lost somewhere else, probably in whatever that different vision allowed him and Bristlefrost to see.

Then the parts of the water that still had their grey tints began twisting and shattering into the barrier of light coming from Rootspring's paws. They swirled in the direction of one of the Skyclan tom's front legs and, when they finally reached him, both Rootspring and Bristlefrost shot their heads up and cried out in pain.

"Shadowsight, help!" The tom begged his friend.

The tabby stood next to the two warriors and saw the darkness that was trying to rise through their legs and into their gazes, which were both beginning to be crossed by deep-reddish lines of blood.

Bracing himself, Shadowsight extended his right paw and placed it firmly against Bristlefrost and Rootspring's. At first he didn't feel anything weird, instead hearing a sort of faraway whisper coming from somewhere behind his ears.

But then suddenly, a burning sensation spread all the way from his paw to his head, reaching his mind and filling it with bright light that flooded the dark mists around him. He began to hear a familiar voice talking to him.

"Shadowsight, do you let me in?"

What?

Despite his hesitation, Shadowsight could feel his head letting the voice enter, like a kit asking for permission to visit a den for the first time, but running in anyways. He could feel his mind, the mind of Bristlefrost and the mind of Rootspring becoming connected, hearing each other as they slowly took over the pool of water and its darkness.

His voice, he's everywhere.

We won't let him take you.

What is happening?

I… have control over this place, like the white spirit said.

But why?

I don't know, I just feel it…

Shadowsight could also feel that power, in some way. He felt it in the pricking of Rootspring's fur, in his excitement mixed with doubt and in the instinctive sound of an ancient and mysterious call for freedom. He could feel all of that as if it was his own, just as he could also feel a dark presence within Bristlefrost's spirit, trying to make him submit, to make him hurt those that he had fought so hard to save. The presence of the impostor... it needed to be cleansed from existence.

He knew as well that his friends would share his strange feeling that in this moment, in this place, with these cats, was how it was all meant to be. Maybe they could even feel the mysterious and intriguing glow of the golden eyes that had given faith to the young medicine cat.

A surge of power coursed through Shadowsight's veins, and with a scream that was shared with his two friends, he felt the waters around him burst out with violent splashes. From the glimmering pool, a gust of pure-white smoke formed a triumphant cloud that quickly hovered over the mist and possessed cats of Starclan.

Before the impostor could even think about forcing those spirits to run away, the cloud descended on the cats and filled their minds with light. Shadowsight could feel the sensation of freedom in every fiber of his body, as more and more voices joined him with relieved, surprised and excited thoughts.

"It worked!"

"Get this badger-face out of my head!"

"I'm coming, Squirrelflight, just hold on."

"Finchpaw, I have to find Finchpaw!"

"He will pay for what he did!"

All of Shadowsight's energy seemed to have been transferred to forming that beautiful cloud of white mist, because as soon as it surrounded him, his body lost all strength and he collapsed to the ground, drawing a tired breath before closing his light-filled eyes.

(...)

Perhaps because he had fallen on one of the pools that allowed spirits to watch over living cats, or because has was having one of his visions, Shadowsight saw himself standing in the middle of one of the moors on Windclan territory, watching the sun that had just begun to rise.

All around him, he began to hear screams. Yowls, roars, cries, shrieks, they all mixed up in a strange chorus that accompanied every battle, as Shadowsight's father had once described.

"It's like a call that silences our fears and doubts, and it focuses our mind into finding the next enemy to fight."

The moor began to be flooded by cats, hundreds of them. Some were living cats, and others looked transparent and with grey eyes, lost to the powers of the impostor and forced to do his twisted bidding.

Then blood began spilling the floor, splashing every patch of grass, tiny rock or battling cat in that moor. Shadowsight saw a tom getting pinned to the ground and, in a heartbeat, having his neck snapped by a mindless spirit. A she-cat flinged a much younger tom away from her, accidentally or intentionally sending him flying down a steep hill from which a loud thump could be heard moments later. Not so much farther than that, a black tom shrieked a disgusting and unnatural screech that made the medicine cat flinch.

But what caused Shadowsight's breath to shorten was to look in the direction of a hill to see the shape of a large and muscular tabby with grey eyes pin a smaller, dark-ginger she-cat to the ground.

A few tail-lengths farther from Squirrelflight, Tigerstar was limping on two of his legs, protected by Cloverfoot as he tried to battle off Harestar's impostor, who was not-so-valiantly attacking Shadowsight's father and deputy along with five of his mindless servants.

Bodies littered the moor, and from many of them, spirits rose up only to turn on their former clanmates and bring even more death and devastation to the lake.

We have to stop this, we have to save them!

When he felt something nudge his side, Shadowsight shot his amber eyes open.

"The battle," He breathed out to the blurry shapes of cats that he could see surrounding him. "It's a massacre!"

---

So make your sirens call

And sing all you want

I will not hear

What you have to say

Cause' I need freedom now

And I need to know how

To live my life as it's meant

To be...

(The Cave, Mumford & Sons)