Fireheart padded over to the dead kit's body and sniffed at it. A putrid stench emanated from Rainkit's still form, threatening to choke him, and his eyes, though still filled with terror, were glazed and unseeing. There was another scent on him as well, but it was difficult to discern who, or what, it was amidst the stench of death and the Thunderpath. He was clearly dead, and by the look of things, he had been dead for a few hours now. Sighing, Fireheart turned around to face Willowpelt, who was staring at him with a desperate, hopeful expression on her face. He shook his head sadly, and the pale gray queen sank to the ground in despair.

"No!" she wailed, throwing her head back in despair. "Oh, no!"

Frostfur rushed over to Willowpelt to try to comfort her, but the grieving queen just shrugged her off. Fireheart stared at them uncertainly. He wanted to do something to help Willowpelt, but he couldn't think of anything. Deciding to let Frostfur handle the situation, he turned away and walked over to Brightheart and Swiftrunner.

"Let's get Rainkit's body back to the camp," he meowed quietly. "The Clan will want to have a proper burial for him, and anyway, we shouldn't leave him here to be run over by any more monsters."

The two younger warriors nodded and walked over to Rainkit's body. Before they could pick him up, however, Willowpelt got back to her paws and rushed over to snatch up her dead son. Brightheart and Swiftrunner stepped back to allow her to carry Rainkit off the Thunderpath, watching sadly as his tail dragged lifelessly on the ground.

"Are you ready?" Fireheart asked gently.

Willowpelt nodded, her blue eyes dull with misery. A moment later, however, she froze and started sniffing the air. Confused, Fireheart watched as she placed her son's body back on the ground, apparently searching for something on his pelt. Eventually, she found it, and the expression in her eyes turned from grief to pure fury.

"Darkstripe," she snarled.

"What?" Fireheart asked in confusion. "What do you mean?"

"Darkstripe! His scent is on Rainkit's body! He killed Rainkit!" Willowpelt screeched, her claws sliding out as though she were imagining the ShadowClan deputy standing in front of her.

"What?" Frostfur exclaimed, rushing over to them. "Are you sure?"

"I'm positive it's him!" the pale gray queen hissed, her voice filled with absolute certainty. "I'm his mother. I would know his scent anywhere! My own son killed his half-brother!"

"But why would Darkstripe kill Rainkit?" Swiftrunner asked, shaking his head. "He doesn't even know him."

"I don't know," Willowpelt meowed in despair. "But I know it's him."

Fireheart stared at Willowpelt in horror, not wanting to believe that what she was saying could be true. But the more he thought about it, the more everything started to make sense. That was why the strange, unidentifiable scent on Rainkit's body had been so familiar: it had been Darkstripe the whole time! But why would Darkstripe try to kill a kit? He had never been an avid follower of the warrior code, but Fireheart had always thought he was too spineless to do anything except pad after Tigerstar like a lost kittypet.

Slowly, however, a picture began to form in his mind. In his mind's eye, he saw Darkstripe on ThunderClan territory, several stolen pieces of prey buried under leaves or mounds of dirt. He saw Rainkit running up to Darkstripe, and the ShadowClan warrior dragging him onto the Thunderpath, a monster approaching rapidly.

"Willowpelt," Fireheart began slowly. "You said Rainkit, Sorrelkit, and Sootkit were playing hide and seek earlier, correct?"

"Yes, that's right," Willowpelt meowed, nodding earnestly. "I was taking a nap. But I woke up when Sorrelkit and Sootkit told me they couldn't find their brother."

So that's what happened, then, Fireheart thought grimly. Out loud, he meowed, "That explains it. Rainkit probably left the camp so he could beat his littermates in their game. While he was out, he ran into Darkstripe on our territory. I'm guessing that he's the ShadowClan warrior whose scent we keep picking up around here. Darkstripe probably panicked over being caught and decided to kill Rainkit to keep him from telling anyone in ThunderClan what he had seen. He forced Rainkit onto the Thunderpath right as a monster was coming by, and Rainkit was either too confused or didn't have enough time to escape."

"You're right, that must be what happened!" Willowpelt agreed. She dug her claws into the ground, her tail lashing. "When I get my claws on that good-for-nothing disgrace of a warrior, I'll make sure he has the slowest, most painful death in the history of the Clans! I'll make him beg for mercy as I scatter his entrails from here to the territories beyond Highstones! How dare he? He murdered my son! I'll never forgive him! First, he betrays his Clan for Tigerstar, and now he's killed his own brother!"

She spun around, rushing towards the Thunderpath as though intending to seek out Darkstripe right then and there. Before she could cross, however, Frostfur knocked her off her paws, pinning the pale gray queen to the ground. Willowpelt struggled and spat, but she was powerless against the white-furred warrior, who was in much better shape than she was.

"Get off, Frostfur!" Willowpelt snarled. "I need to get to Darkstripe! He killed Rainkit! I'll kill him! I–I'll make him–"

"I know, Willowpelt," Frostfur meowed desperately. "I know you want revenge for your son–I would too if I were in your place. But you can't just run off into ShadowClan territory like that! You'll get yourself killed, and then where would the rest of your kits be? They still need their mother."

Willowpelt stopped struggling, though her eyes still burned with grief and rage for her son. Hesitantly, Fireheart padded over to the two queens and lowered his head to address the grieving molly.

"I swear on my life that we will make Darkstripe pay for this," he meowed firmly. "No matter what it takes, we'll see to it that he gets what he deserves. We won't rest until we see that justice has been served, Willowpelt, I promise. But we can't go looking for Darkstripe now. He's probably already left our territory, and we're not in any state to lead a battle patrol straight into the heart of ShadowClan territory. Right now, our priority needs to be taking Rainkit back home so his Clan can mourn for him properly."

For a few heartbeats, Willowpelt just stared at him, her expression filled with pain. Slowly, however, she nodded and relaxed. Sensing the danger had passed, Frostfur stepped off of her, allowing the pale gray queen to stagger back to her paws. She padded back over to Rainkit's body, picking him up and walking slowly in the direction of the ThunderClan camp.

"Come on," Fireheart murmured to the rest of the patrol. "Let's get back home."

The mood in the camp was extremely somber that night.

Willowpelt and Whitestorm spent the entire night beside their son's body, their noses pressed into his cold fur. Yellowfang had cleaned his pelt and decorated his body with lavender and rosemary, but there was nothing that could hide the scent of death that emitted from Rainkit's unmoving form. Sorrelkit and Sootkit, the dead kit's two siblings, watched fearfully from a short distance away. They didn't quite understand what was going on, but they knew something had happened to their brother that was distressing their parents.

"What did you find?" Bluestar asked in a low voice. She had spent part of the evening with her nephew and his mate but had left after a while to take care of the rest of her Clanmates.

Quickly, Fireheart explained what had happened earlier that day, including their theory about Darkstripe luring Rainkit onto the Thunderpath. When he was finished, his mother shook her head sadly and let out a sigh.

"Darkstripe has always been a bully, even when he was still in the nursery, but I didn't think he would stoop so low as to kill a kit," she murmured. "I suppose living in exile with Tigerstar for so long must have made him bolder, or at least a little less concerned with the warrior code–not that he cared much about that to begin with."

"What should we do now?" Fireheart asked.

"Right now, nothing," Bluestar replied. "The Clan needs to mourn for Rainkit first, and besides, we don't have the strength to lead an attack on ShadowClan. I don't want there to be any more casualties, especially with Tigerstar apparently trying to form an alliance with RiverClan. The next Gathering isn't too far from now; we'll confront them about Rainkit's murder then."

Fireheart nodded slowly, then asked, "Do you think Tigerstar knows about what Darkstripe did to Rainkit?"

"I don't know, Fireheart," his mother admitted. "It wouldn't surprise me if he did, but then again, we haven't scented Tigerstar on our territory. We'll find out at the next Gathering, I suppose."

Fireheart gave a low murmur of agreement and turned to walk off in the direction of the camp entrance. "I'm going to check the border again," he meowed to Bluestar. "Now would be the perfect opportunity for Tigerstar to lead an attack, and I wouldn't be surprised if Darkstripe told him to do exactly that."

Bluestar nodded and meowed, "Take a few other warriors with you just in case."

Fireheart nodded and beckoned with his tail for Ravenflight, Dustpelt, and Fernpaw to follow him. As the four warriors walked towards the gorse tunnel, they were stopped as Willowpelt called out to them. Fireheart turned around to face the pale gray queen, who had left her son's body to speak to him.

"If you find Darkstripe on our territory," she meowed, her voice dark with rage, hatred, and grief. "Show no mercy."

Fireheart looked deep into Willowpelt's blue gaze. "Don't worry," he meowed, his voice full of conviction. "We won't."

So I'm realizing there was a bit of confusion with the last chapter. The Rainkit that was killed was Willowpelt's son (Rainwhisker in canon), not Fireheart's daughter.

No, I didn't just kill him off because there were two Rainkits, and no, that wasn't a mistake either. There were always meant to be two cats named Rainkit simply because I like the prefix. The reason Willowpelt's Rainkit was killed off was that he lost a coin flip. It was always my intention to have Darkstripe kill one of Willowpelt's kits to help further along his fall from grace (not that he had much to begin with, but that's another story), but I didn't want it to be Sorrelkit since I have plans for her in the future. In the end, it came down to Sootkit and Rainkit since I didn't have any specific future plans for them, but I couldn't decide which of them to kill off, so I decided to flip a coin. And, well, Rainkit, unfortunately, came up on the short end of the stick.

If Rainkit had won the coin toss, there were going to be a lot of jokes about having two kits, and later two apprentices, with the same name. Bluestar was even going to (jokingly) threaten to give them the same suffix for their warrior names just to keep up the confusion. Oh well...there goes all of that. :(

Thanks for reading,

TheShadowedWarrior