"THIS way! I smell blood!"

A voice carried through the darkening brush, echoing with urgency. Sedgestrike peered through the shadows of the forest, her breath coming ragged from her throat. Her flayed eye saw only red, while the other saw growing shadows and rustling bracken.

"Hurry, this way!" Another voice prompted.

The rustling grew louder, more frantic, and Sedgestrike stumbled as she backed away, tripping back onto her mother's body. She whimpered at the stiffness of it, the coldness she felt to the touch. Getting back to her paws, she glanced fervently in search of an escape, but found only a thickening haze and growing shadows.

By the time the evening patrol arrived, Sedgestrike was too late.

"My stars." When Kiteclaw emerged from the ferns, Sedgestrike felt her heart plummet. The gray and white tabby regarded the scene with wide eyes and a slack jaw. "What—what happened?!"

Behind her, Grayjaw and Foxpaw followed. Shoulders forcing the bushes apart, Grayjaw beheld the scene, gaping, his mangled jaw exaggerating his expression. Foxpaw hopped behind him, tail sticking straight up. Grayjaw quickly knocked his apprentice backwards before he saw the whole of the carnage. The warrior turned to Kiteclaw and looked to Sedgestrike. "The Fallen… they have to be the culprits."

Sedgestrike paused, feeling her heart quicken and take flight in her chest, flapping desperately in her rib cage. No… This was not the Fallen. It was me. She wanted to speak the words, but her mouth was too full of the taste of blood.

Foxpaw was jumping restlessly behind Grayjaw. "What's going on?" he demanded. "Let me see!"

"Go, request Whitestar at once, ask that she bring her best warriors," Grayjaw commanded gruffly. Sedgestrike saw the flash of his large paw whip at the apprentice, connecting with a thud, and Foxpaw left with a squeak.

Kiteclaw was staring at Sedgestrike as if she was a viper. "Explain this…" Her command fell flat as she drank in the scene further, intoxicating her with fear. The vigor in her expression faltered as she was forced to taste the gore.

"I…" Sedgestrike croaked but her voice failed her.

Grayjaw eagerly filled the silence. "Where have they gone?" he bellowed. "I trust you chased them off well, but they need to pay for this. Two MarshClan lives stolen by the Fallen! This is outrageous—"

"Sedgestrike," Kiteclaw began, eyeing her in horror. "This… this is madness."

In Kiteclaw's wide amber eyes, Sedgestrike could see the reflection of herself. Her heart appeared to bleed through her white chest. Her lips were slick and glistening scarlet as if she gorged herself on the entrails of an animal. Her left eye was swollen shut and bleeding still, dripping onto the grass to make red dew droplets. She had scores of scratches down her back and flank, oozing bloody rivers across her sodden pelt. Yes, this is madness, she realized.

"You—you smell of blood," Kiteclaw stammered, lips quivering. Speaking seemed to strike more fear in her than the sight of the mangled cats around her. "You smell of Longscar's blood."

Grayjaw's eyes burned into her now. The tomcat was slow to process Kiteclaw's insinuation, but when he finally stomached sense, he began to heave his breaths. He held the rumbling thunder from above in his shaking body. "It—it can't be… We trusted you!" He spat on the ground before her, nostrils flaring. She could see the silvery glint of his unsheathed claws against the ground. "But it is… It is true." He looked to Longscar's corpse, sadness glinting in his yellow eyes. "He was right about you all along."

Sedgestrike was too weak to deny what she had done. She was too weak to realize what she had done. Shutting her eye, she bowed her head, yielding. If Longscar was dead, why did it still feel like he had won?

"You don't even deny it?" Kiteclaw whispered. The shock and disappointment in her voice hurt more than Grayjaw's rage. "Sedgestrike... How could you…" The warrior hesitated, moving closer to peer behind her at Fernstream. Her amber eyes flashed. "Fernstream… she's…"

"So you killed your own mother too, then?" Grayjaw snapped, bolstering his presence with bristling fur and bared fangs.

Sedgestrike froze, blood running cold. A sound rose from her that she did not recognize, a deep, guttural bellow that rivaled the ferocity of the thunder encroaching on them in the sky above. "I would never kill my mother!" She stood before Fernstream, refusing to budge. "She wasn't killed by me. She was killed by him." Her eye fell on Longscar, pitiless. "She didn't deserve to die." The boom in her voice faded and began to quiver. "She didn't… deserve… to die."

Sobs wracked her body, and she collapsed. Blood continued to drain from her wounds, weakening her. She curled back up against Fernstream as the other warriors regarded her, aghast. Her sobs became uncontrollable as she clung to Fernstream, trembling.

"She didn't deserve this—this is my fault. This—this is my fault," she wailed, shrill and pitiful.

"There needs to be an investigation." Sedgestrike could barely hear Kiteclaw's mew over her own deranged cries, for once they came, she was powerless to stop them. "I've known Sedgestrike since she was a kit… she grew up with my daughter. This isn't her."

"Longscar's blood is on her paws," Grayjaw growled. "And look at him! He's been savaged like he was attacked by a fox."

"But—" Kiteclaw's protest was cut off by the clear, cold peal of another voice.

"There will be no investigation here."

Sedgestrike's sobs failed her. That voice. Her good eye glanced back to see the tall, pale figure and burning amber eyes of her leader: Whitestar. She was flanked on either side by shadows, Batface and Spiderfang, and to the rear of them was Zinniablossom, Snakefang, and Claytooth. The Order of the Destined Paragons had arrived.

Zinniablossom's cry rang out and shook the surrounding pine trees to their roots. "Longscar!"

She made a move to lunge for his decrepit body, only for Batface to snarl and pin her down. The tortoiseshell cried out as if she was being disemboweled, flailing and scratching at Batface. "He's my mate! Let me go! I must see to him!"

"There's nothing you can do now," Batface grunted. His amber eyes were locked on Sedgestrike as he spoke. "He's dead."

Sedgestrike met his gaze, clenching her teeth. She found no blame or accusation in her old mentor's gaze. Instead she saw… was it acceptance? A resignation? The old warrior shook his head and curled his lip at Zinniablossom as she continued to struggle against him.

Unlike Zinniablossom, Whitestar did not spare Longscar a passing glance. Instead, she came straight for Sedgestrike. She left no impression in the soft earth as she walked. Sedgestrike watched her leader, shivering.

"What have you done?" Her words crashed down on Sedgestrike like an icicle; they were quiet, meant only to be heard by her.

Whitestar's eyes found Fernstream and flashed. "MarshClan endures a great disservice today," she observed. "A paragon... murdered."

"No!" Sedgestrike protested, shakily rising to her paws. "No, he killed Fernstream!"

"So, this is a crime of vengeance then?" Whitestar mused, disgesting the scene with hungry eyes. "An eye for an eye?"

Lightning flashed as fast as Whitestar's strike, and Sedgestrike failed to see her make a move until she felt the sting and was rendered back to the ground beside her dead mother. Her leader glared down on her, lips twisted in disgust.

"Fool!" Whitestar hissed. "Remain there, or I will strike you again."

The pain of the blow did well to keep Sedgestrike grudgingly staring at the blood-soaked earth.

"Longscar was one of our own." Whitestar paid her homage with a bowed head, weighed down by heavy words. She turned to the Order then, staring through them as they twitched and shuffled restlessly like hounds itching for the hunt. "The one keeper of his fate is also one of our own." She craned her head back around to stare down at Sedgestrike coldly. "She decided to take justice into her own paws. She chose usurp me in favor of her own biased desire. How can we lay Longscar to the arms of the Eternal Night without first giving him justice?"

Zinniablossom's sobs echoed the booming thunder. Corpulent rain drops began to fall, slipping off the waxy reed stalks to drop onto the bleeding earth. Sedgestrike watched the rain fall with her one eye, catching a slight relief at the splashes of water that graced her aching face. Yet, no amount of water could wash her mounting regret. Lathered in fear and dirtied with guilt, Sedgestrike could scrub her paws for a lifetime, and she knew she would never be clean of this feeling…

"As for Fernstream." Whitestar's eyes never left Sedgestrike. "We can never know the truth behind her fate so long as Longscar is dead. This heinous lack of witnesses, this destruction of evidence… why, it'll only serve to disturb and confuse our Clanmates back in camp."

"Whitestar!" Kiteclaw's strangled protest resonated with the boom of thunder. The gray and white tabby was by her side, amber eyes glinting with a silent plea. "My liege, my leader," she murmured imploringly. "We must not turn a blind eye to what happened here today. Fernstream deserves as much justice as Longscar does. She was never given trial—"

"Enough!" Whitestar snapped, turning on Kiteclaw with a hiss. Sedgestrike watched, trembling, as her leader's eyes narrowed into slits. "Fernstream lost her chance at justice and redemption" Her voice was chilling, sapped of emotion and frozen into ice. "May the Night have mercy on her soul."

"Whitestar," Kiteclaw continued, moving to follow her leader as she whisked away back to the cats of the Order. "I entreat you reconsider."

"And I entreat you to hold your tongue, Kiteclaw," Whitestar snapped, turning on her with the quickness of a striking viper. Her unblinking amber eyes burned into the warrior. Sedgestrike could see the glint of her unsheathed claws in the fading sunlight. "I will no longer tolerate weak wills within the Order. Justice is ugly and frightening. If you can't look it in the eye, you can't mean to stand for it."

Whitestar stalked toward the Order, and they became statues before her. As she pushed passed them, Sedgestrike could see the shiver in Snakefang's gangly limbs. He was watching Sedgestrike with wide eyes, his jaw agape.

"Snakefang, Claytooth," Whitestar beckoned, "take Sedgestrike into custody. She will be returning to camp with us as a prisoner."

Upon Whitestar's order, Snakefang and Claytooth looked to Sedgestrike with hardened resolve. Sedgestrike shivered; the numbness in her brain failed to grapple what was about to happen. Her body felt reduced to a pulp, bloody and useless. She felt the slow trickle of blood from her neck continue to soak her chest. The stench of death and loss of blood blurred her already harbored vision. She did not know they were coming to imprison her until their claws were latched onto her hindlegs, hooking them upwards so that only her chest and forelegs remained grounded. The pain struck like lightning, and she yowled with the thunder that followed.

"No!" she cried. Her voice was hoarse after her screams. "Let me go! Mother!"

As she was dragged away, she reached her blood-stained paw out for Fernstream desperately, but her mother only stared blankly back.

She heard Whitestar's voice coming from behind her. "As for Fernstream, it seems she successfully escaped MarshClan today, wouldn't you agree?" After a brief pause, the only answer her leader received was the roar of the rushing river. "For the good of the Clan, we must leave them in ignorance. This injustice is our burden to bear."

There was another pause, and Sedgestrike scrabbled against the fetters of claws at her legs, which only injured her more. "Whitestar! No, please, don't do this to her!" Sedgestrike begged.

"Kiteclaw, since you were so concerned with her fate, you may do the honors of giving her body to the river." Whitestar's resolution fell onto the other paragon like a boulder.

Kiteclaw did not speak her response. She merely nodded, refusing to look their leader in the eye. Slowly, the paragon approached the fallen warrior, gathering a small quarry of stones from the shore to settle around her.

Sedgestrike watched in horror, reaching for Fernstream as she was dragged away. "No! Mother!" she screeched, flailing. "Mother!"

Snakefang hissed as he buried his claws deeper. "Stop fighting us, it'll only make things worse for you."

"Shut up!" she cried, twisting to swipe at the other paragon. "Let me bury her!" The world around her began to spin, blurring into shadows and evergreen and rushing blue. She tried to resist the fog that flooded her eye, but it only grew thicker. Turning back to face the shore, she watched as Kiteclaw began shoving rocks into her mother's throat.

"Please!" she begged in a screech. "Don't do this to her!"

"Claytooth, take control of her before the whole damn forest hears her," Spiderfang ordered.

A boom of thunder sounded as a paw struck the back of Sedgestrike's head. Stars scattered into Sedgestrike's eye, blinking at her. Darkness creeped at the edge of her vision, but through the narrow tunnel, she could still see the silhouette of her mother was she was rolled into the rushing river. With a loud splash and a hollow scream, it all went black as night.