ELDERHEART
"Can no one tell me where Sunpaw is?" Rowanthorn growled the morning they were to leave for Standing Stones. "He's the only LeafClan cat I haven't seen since I returned. Is he still playing the kittypet?"
Rowanthorn's son was the odd one of the bunch, to say the least. The apprentice already had a reputation, and not the kind of reputation his father or father's father had cultivated.
A moth-chaser who skipped training and patrols to nap in the sun. Worse, he had an embarrassing affection for Twolegplace, fraternizing with the rogues and loners and kittypets outside Clan borders. If he picked up battle scars, he picked them up there, not where he was supposed to be. His mentor, Goosebelly, was another of such a kind. The joke of LeafClan.
Of course, Goosebelly was not at camp either to answer for it. A lump of fur and fluff, full of hot wind, and not above snacking on a quick mouse or three before returning to feed the kits and elders.
"I saw Sunpaw just the other day," Nettlepaw said, walking out of the apprentice den with a long stretch. "Out by the old Twoleg nest, with some other cats I didn't recognize."
"Something has to be done about this flea-brained apprentice," Rowanthorn hissed under his breath, turning to Elderheart now. "Did your Asterstripe ever give you this much trouble when he was that age?"
"I don't know an apprentice who's never been in trouble," Elderheart mewed. But that much trouble, he was blessed to be able to say no, although he kept that to himself.
They departed by the third sunrise after Rosestar's abdication, as promised. Besides himself, Rowanthorn brought Beethorn and Hawkwing, as well as Shrikepaw, the smoky gray and white medicine cat's apprentice.
Nightbird was left to watch over camp, a thought that didn't put any comfort in his breast as Elderheart rose from the warrior's den to leave.
In all his long moons, Elderheart could count all the times he'd traveled to Standing Stones on one paw. For the young medicine cat's apprentice, it was routine. Every half-moon, the medicine cats crossed Clan borders to share tongues on the sacred island. They knew the safest, shortest paths, the hours of the tides, and a medicine cat in their patrol would be enough to make any enemy warriors pause before attacking.
Or at least, they could hope for as much. One look at the gray tabby told him Shrikepaw didn't relish the task, but he never objected or dragged his paws. He also didn't say a word except when absolutely necessary, but it would be too much to ask for him to look cheerful.
Each time Elderheart looked at him, he couldn't help but see Briarstalk's resemblance.
Yet, they all remained loyal to their new leader. Duty was bigger than any one cat.
There was no eating to fill their bellies on the day of their pilgrimage; it was taboo. They ate Shrikepaw's herbs instead of fresh-kill, burnet and daisy leaves for strength and endurance, and left camp with most of the Clan to see them off. Breaths of mist and fog threatened drizzles, but the sun emerged in time as they weaved through the forest and toward the border, to where the trees thinned into grassy plains.
Skirting the edge of the riverbank, where MeadowClan territory lay on the other side of the churning current, they followed its course all the way toward the sacred ground around Clawtower. Crossing a tributary stream, all Clan border markers disappeared as they moved onto neutral territory, but still they had further to go.
The very edge of the world, where the river emptied into the sun-drown-place. Weaving between HillClan, MeadowClan, and MireClan territories, toward the great poison waters that stretched on for infinities.
On, and on, past the flatheaded mountain, and further still, toward the unmistakable taste of salt air. The scrubby grass began to whip with the coastal winds, the soil turning loose and sandy beneath their paws as they pressed on.
The sun was already on its descent when they finally glimpsed the sacred isle, a tuft of woods among glittering water and crashing waves, roaring. Poison water lapped up against the stony shore as the LeafClan cats watched from an overlook.
"We can rest for now," Shrikepaw told them as they climbed the stony rise, spying the little islet many tree-lengths off the shore. "The tide will recede by sundown."
Elderheart thanked the stars for the opportunity to take a break. He kept pace every pawstep of the way, leading side by side with Rowanthorn, but now he needed to slump under a shady tree. The other warriors hardly looked winded.
Shady trees were not so common on this barren strip of land, but he found a gnarled piece of driftwood which blocked the buffeting wind. The wood was rubbed smooth from the waves, finally heaved up on the far bank in some storm, its twisted roots locked in gravel and packed earth.
Another cat's shadow fell over him soon enough. Who else but their soon-to-be leader? Elderheart lifted his head, blinking in greeting.
"I thought I might yap your ear off and disturb your peaceful solitude, if you don't mind," Rowanthorn purred.
The sound of waves on the shore, startling at first, became almost lulling. A nap wouldn't be remiss. Still, Elderheart purred in response.
"I'm here to serve, Rowanthorn," Elderheart said. "Sit down. What would you speak about?"
Rowanthorn settled down beside him, as best as one could on the dry stones. "To ask you to stay my deputy, for one."
"You flatter me," Elderheart purred, "but I can't deny it anymore. I'm old. All the apprentices in the forest giggle about Old Elderheart when they see me at the Gatherings."
"And you're still a better warrior than cats half your age," Rowanthorn gently rebutted. "The entire forest respects you."
"If Lionpelt was ready to retire so many moons ago, it's only pride that kept me going this long," Elderheart said. Sometimes he feared an elder's life would make him break down entirely. If he stopped, even for a day, getting started again was so much harder.
So he rose at every sunup, the first cat in the Clan, to organize the dawn patrol. If he could sleep all day, he might just sleep forever—have all his strength finally unravel. He'd felt only one day ahead of it for so many moons now.
"The decision is yours to make," Rowanthorn mewed. "But who would you choose?"
Who would I choose for deputy? Elderheart had a hunch that was his original question all along.
Rosestar had already picked out Paleface; an able enough warrior. But if he could choose?
He gazed thoughtfully around before flicking his ears toward Hawkwing and Beethorn. They walked the beach some distance away, just their brown and golden tabby pelts visible from where they sat.
"Those two make me feel safe," Elderheart said. "Be careful around Nightbird, Sparrowflight, and Paleface."
Rowanthorn stared out over the beach, toward the two warriors walking along the sands.
"Nightbird and Sparrowflight risked everything for me. They stood up to Rosestar to his face, for me."
Elderheart flicked his tail. "No one is owed their rank; warriors earn their place. It's not a favor to be traded. You must think of the good of the Clan before any one cat."
Rowanthorn twitched his whiskers, looking unconvinced. "You don't think they've proven themselves?"
"No, I think they're brave and capable," Elderheart said, quieter now. And Sparrowflight especially was too intelligent by half. "But they are ambitious. Raise them up, and I fear they'll spend their time thinking about their future leadership, and not focus on being your best deputy."
"Ambition makes great warriors."
"And dangerous warriors too," Elderheart mewed.
Rowanthorn let the exchange lapse into silence, all except the cries of waterbirds and the beat of waves against the shore. They passed a long time that way, changing the subject to idle camp matters, soaking in the last rays before sundown.
"When was the last time you were here?" Rowanthorn asked him, staring out toward the island in the distance.
Elderheart had to strain his eyes to look out over the water. Ahead of them, the blood red disc stretched its rosy fingers over the dark expanse, balancing just a tail-length off the world's edge. Just as Shrikepaw had said, the water had almost receded, turning the island into a green hill among the barren stones.
"With Rosestar, when he became leader," Elderheart said. He still remembered it as clear as the last moonrise, how Rosestar crossed the sacred pool to share dreams with the Moonshard. How he seemed to flop over, as if dead, and then how he shook and seized with each new life poured into his body.
When he awoke, he looked like a shaken kit, but eyes glowing with inspiration.
"This is my first time since I was an apprentice," Rowanthorn admitted. "Close-eye used to tell us these stories about dogs that lived in the water; I was terrified of seeing one. At least now I know she was lying."
"She didn't lie," Elderheart purred. "I've seen them once myself. A hundred of them."
"Very funny," Rowanthorn said.
"I'm serious. They're hairless, with heads like dogs, but flippers and tails like a fish. Big. Stinky. They bark like dogs, too." Elderheart gestured over the beach with his tail. "The first time I came here with my littermates… Blackfang, Tigerleap, Lionpelt, myself, we were all '-paws' then. We had to make the journey to finish our apprenticeship.
"We climbed this very ridge, and the entire beach was covered in them… just sleeping. Sunning. Rolling around in their own filth."
Rowanthorn gaped at him. "You aren't joking with me, are you?"
"Would you believe me if I said your father snuck up on one?" Elderheart said with a twitch of his whiskers. "It spotted him about a fox-length away and started barking its head off. Then all of a sudden they're all barking their heads off, and flopping away toward the water. The entire horde of them all ran away from little Lionpaw while he just stood there with his tail between his legs. Stormstar ripped him a newleaf coat for that stunt."
Rowanthorn allowed himself a deep laugh before his expression slackened. "He never told me that story," he mewed with a touch of wistfulness. "I wish I could have been with him."
"He is with you still," Elderheart mewed, "and will be with you tonight."
Elderheart remembered his last moments with his last surviving littermate. The medicine den, rain trickling down the rowan branches, the air thick with sickness.
"I dreamed about the battle," Lionpelt had wheezed between deep breaths. "The battle against MeadowClan."
"Which one?" There were too many. They were LeafClan's most dire enemy, even more than MireClan or HillClan, who loved them like prey loved cats.
"You know the one," Lionpelt said. "The only one that matters. The one we'll be remembered for."
"At the muddy hollow," Elderheart said with a note of reminiscence. Waves of MeadowClan cats, beyond counting, swarming up that slick and blood-greased hill. The yowls almost seemed to ring in his ears. "You, me, and Blackfang."
"Against the entire forest," Lionpelt said with a growl of approval that dissipated into a cough. "I really thought we would die then."
More coughs, tail twitching in pain.
"When will Rosestar come so I can breathe my last?" Lionpelt groaned.
"Don't waste your breath on someone who won't open their ears to hear," Elderheart said in a low tone. "It's too precious to waste now."
Lionpelt grit his teeth. "But he must listen. LeafClan is wilting before our eyes." His eyes glowed with fever, head trembling. "I think death's turned me into a prophet, Elderheart. I see our ruin coming."
The LeafClan cats gathered on the shore to watch the sun drown, filling the skies with spectrums of color before plunging all into blackness and silver starlight. Shrikepaw led them over the faint path of stones that led toward the island, now a stranded hill surrounded by land.
"Be careful not to step into the sand," Shrikepaw said. "It can suck you right in, and there's no digging you out."
That made his hackles rise, even more than the night wind blowing through his fur. He spotted crabs scuttling among the rocks, and other strange creatures he couldn't name. One was shaped like a star, and the warriors all stopped to gape at it and wonder if it was a plant or animal, alive or dead, or if it meant some kind of sign, but Shrikepaw kept trudging forward.
"Please, don't delay," the medicine cat's apprentice insisted. "I don't want to walk back with wet paws."
They had to push forward with the argument unresolved. The island was just ahead.
He was relieved to feel his paws on grass and soil again, to see trees overhead and familiar foliage. Through a thick copse of trees, fruit trees with heart-shaped leaves and ancient, gnarled oaks, breaking through the greenery, until they entered the clearing of Standing Stones.
The moon framed itself over the circle of tall, angular stones, perfectly smooth and identical in dimension. A shallow pool of water had collected within the circle, where a grassy mound bright with wildflowers rose up from the center, an island within an island.
On that island was the Moonshard, gleaming star white from where it jutted out of an ancient stone. Its hilt draped with moss, grooved with dirt, which hung down from the silver shard like hair.
Elderheart felt his breath hitch in his throat. He could taste the waves of fear off Hawkwing, who looked like he might bolt from the sight, but Rowanthorn stepped eagerly up to the edge of the pool.
"Careful," Shrikepaw warned, mane bristling. "Do not dip your paws in the pool. Find the stones."
Rowanthorn stretched out one tentative paw, hovering over the water's surface, finding one dark stone among the water. In its perfect stillness, it reflected Silverpelt and the moon above, as if he walked on the night sky itself. Another paw, and then another paw, never rippling the surface, and finally planting all four paws on the small island in the center.
"Now drink, and touch your nose to the Moonshard," Shrikepaw said from the far side of the pool, "and you will dream."
Rowanthorn took one small lap of water, and then turned toward the splinter of silverstone that sprouted from the earth. Or fallen from the night sky, lodged into the earth from a great height.
He touched his nose, curled up… and then seized, flopping over as if dead.
The fear scent was overwhelming off Hawkwing now, and Beethorn stifled a gasp, and Elderheart even felt his own heart race and his hackles rise. But he simply watched on with keen intent, remembering how Rosestar had writhed and twisted.
The worst was yet to come.
It could've been a heartbeat or a half-moon, staring at Rowanthorn's limp body there, still collapsed and unmoving, and still no movement. The thought crept into his mind unbidden, but he still sensed it in his heart, in his gut. Something's wrong.
This was nothing like when Rosestar received his nine lives.
Rowanstar awoke with a scream.
His fur stood on end as he skipped back over the stones with twice as much speed and half as much care as he did the first time, quickly racing past the patrol and to the shore.
"Rowanth—Rowanstar!"
Elderheart whirled to follow, and the rest of the LeafClan cats after him, bursting through the trees and into the open air at the edge of the island.
Rowanstar stood there, flank rising and falling heavily, whiskers tense and straight.
Elderheart approached him gently from the side, gently touching his pelt with his tail. "Rowanstar! What did you see?"
The new leader returned a stare as wide as two full moons. "Lionpelt," he said. "Only Lionpelt. He told me: 'The forest will grow over the meadows, at the rising of the sun, but the darkest night is still to come. Blood will spill blood, kin will slay kin. LeafClan will not bloom until three are joined in one.'"
Elderheart blinked his eyes, head full of static. "Riddles," he mewed in confusion. What good were riddles? He'd never known Lionpelt to busy himself with wordplay. "That's all he told you?"
"Then he faded into starlight, but I still heard his voice," Rowanstar said. "The sky turned black, raining blood from the sky, and when it watered the grass, it turned to thorns beneath my paws. Blood and bone roses budded from my wounds. Then Lionpelt told me… I would die among flowers, and only then LeafClan would see the sunup."
The deputy couldn't disguise it. His heart dropped into the cold pit of fear.
Their return trip proceeded in silence. But even in the early dark hours, the Clan had stirred awake to welcome them back to camp, and their new leader scrabbled up the Hollow Ash and onto its lowest hanging bough to look over the camp.
There was no sign of that other cat, the still living leader that had sat there for so many moons, but his presence could still be scented. Cooped up in the medicine den.
"Rowanstar! Rowanstar! Rowanstar!"
"I thank you, my clanmates," Rowanstar said with a low dip of his head. "I promise a new era of LeafClan greatness."
Sleep didn't come easy to Elderheart, stumbling to his nest in the very heart of the warrior's den, where it was warmest. Timorous dreams of blood and roses haunted him until frazzling in the blinding daylight, the sensation of a paw prodding him awake.
"It's not like you to sleep in," Shrewnose, his mate, purred a whisker-length away from his face. Early sunlight shafted in through the twisted branches of the den roof. All the other warriors had woken before him.
They padded through the forest to hunt, but never stopped to hunt. Elderheart walked with Shrewnose and Asterstripe at a strident pace, and the story of the previous night's journey came out in spits and bursts.
Shrewnose padded the long silences between Elderheart's starting and stopping with idle smalltalk.
"You've spent quite some time with Rooktuft, Asterstripe," Shrewnose said slyly. "Are there any other she-cats keeping you company?"
"No," her son answered with an exasperated sigh. "That sort of nonsense doesn't interest me."
"Love is not nonsense, and doesn't care if you're interested or not, when it bites."
Asterstripe had no answer for that, blinking hollow yellow eyes, and they moved wordlessly through the woods, chasing birdsong.
Elderheart stopped suddenly, settling on top of a mossy green log overlooking a forest pond. Duckweed and lilypads choked the leaf-stained waters, but he could still make out his reflection. An old gray cat, filling in for deputy.
"You told me you would tell the rest," Shrewnose said, settling beside him. Asterstripe followed, a pale shadow, head low to the ground. He had hardly spoken a word to him since the night of Rowanstar's return, and Elderheart didn't know how to break the silence himself.
There was something unsaid and immovable wedged between them. Outside the shadow of Clawtower, when they had met, they'd stood facing each other as enemies. Asterstripe beside Rosestar, and Elderheart beside Rowanstar.
If it had come to claws, what would he have done?
Elderheart looked at them both in turn, his eyes like chips of flint. His heart cut straight to the tongue, discretion forgotten. He needed to relieve the weight off his chest.
"You must keep this an absolute secret," Elderheart said. "I don't believe Rowanstar received his nine lives. His dreams were full of bad omens."
"No?" Shrewnose gasped. "He was rejected by StarClan?"
Asterstripe looked as if he was sculpted out of stone.
"I can't say, only that StarClan has a paw in these events," Elderheart murmured. "But Rowanstar is our leader now, no matter what. We must support him."
"But he is not our leader," Asterstripe hissed, so sharp and so sudden it almost made him flinch. "How can he call himself leader without nine lives from StarClan? It's because our true leader still lives."
Elderheart's claws were out, and then Asterstripe's. Shrewnose stepped between them, tear lashing. "Peace, you two!"
"You taught me that loyalty means everything," Asterstripe said, voice strained.
"More than life itself," Elderheart growled. "So think carefully about what you're about to say to me."
Asterstripe's tail whipped back and forth. "I never betrayed my leader like you did. Rosestar trusted you to keep control over camp, and you turned on him and joined his enemies. Let him kill our clanmates. Helped him take over our Clan, and now StarClan is ready to punish us for it."
Elderheart could only glare in return, tears stinging his eyes.
"Will you listen to me for once in my life?" Asterstripe said, eyes intense as they flicked from Elderheart to Shrewnose, father to mother.
Still, Elderheart could only look on, his throat too tight to speak, teeth clenched.
"These omens don't have to come to pass. Our leader is still alive, still in camp. You can help us, you can make sure we succeed. The entire Clan still respects you." Asterstripe glanced around before he spoke now. "We are going to take out Rowanthorn when he sets out for the next Gathering."
Elderheart needed another long heartbeat before he could choke out the words. "Who is 'we'?"
"Murkpool, Splitears, Rooktuft, and myself," Asterstripe said.
In the next moment, Elderheart was lunging at him, claws outstretched. They went tumbling through the ferns and grass, kicking and scrabbling, yowls sending up flurries of birds through the canopy as Shrewnose watched helplessly on, cursing at them both.
They broke apart from each other with Asterstripe bleeding from a cut across his nose.
"Enough of this!" Shrewnose pleaded.
"Yes, I've heard enough," Elderheart growled. "Rowanstar must know this straight away."
"Then let my life answer for it," Asterstripe choked, tears welling to his eyes.
"Your life?" the senior queen gasped. She whirled on Elderheart now, green eyes blazing with rage. "We thought Asterstripe would be our only kit—my pride, my joy. What do you mean you will tell Rowanstar? And what about Splitears, my kin?"
"Have bees gone to your head?" Elderheart exploded. "Will you hide this murder plot from our leader?"
"Then leave him out of it!" Shrewnose cried. "Report the others!"
"No son of mine, to stain his claws with blood this way. That is not the kit I fathered, the apprentice I mentored."
Shrewnose swiped at him now, snarling, and Elderheart just ducked his head back, ears flat to his head. Asterstripe already looked like a cat accepting his grave in the poppy fields.
The queen looked at her son now, nudging her head against him in desperation. He stumbled as if in a daze.
"Go, Asterstripe! Run to Rowanstar before he does! Tell him yourself and beg for forgiveness!"
Elderheart was already bursting through the wood, back down the way they came, but heartbeats later he heard Asterstripe's long legs pelting through the woods. Racing up behind him, and then leaping into his path, almost careening into him.
Elderheart stumbled to the side to avoid being flattened, and Asterstripe raced on, a pale blue-gray blur, tail streaming as it disappeared through the smallest tunnel of leaves. He trailed after him, only seeing the rustle of leaves left in his wake, and soon there were another pair of legs behind him. His mate, Shrewnose, the sweet queen transformed into a mad dog chasing its quarry.
She flung her shoulder into him to send him crashing to the dirt, but Elderheart staggered to his paws, still running.
Three warriors burst through the bramble tunnel, one after another. Asterstripe was already disappearing into the mouth of the Hollow Ash.
Rowanstar! Would he strike now that he was discovered?
"Rowanstar, watch out!" Elderheart shouted after him, his sides heaving from the exertion of running. "You are in danger!"
He rushed into the Hollow Ash, a ruffled Rowanstar and Asterstripe standing half shaded within the den. He skidded to a stop in the den, a fine, soft dust kicking up around his paws.
Already, Rowanstar's claws were out.
"You have nothing to fear from me!" Asterstripe said, shrinking away from the leader's snarl.
"Don't believe him," Elderheart snapped to his leader, still breathing hard. "I heard from this foxheart's own mouth, that he, Splitears, Rooktuft, and the medicine cat are all plotting to kill you on the night of the full moon."
Rowanstar's head snapped from one to another, equal parts bewildered and enraged.
"Rowanstar! Rowanstar!"
That would be Shrewnose, now bowling in after them, pressing past her mate and her son to collapse at her leader's paws.
"Please, forgive Asterstripe," Shrewnose moaned into the earth. "If you kill him, if you banish him, it'll destroy my life."
Elderheart felt as if his heart was about to burst. "Take no pity against traitors, Rowanstar," he said in icy tones. "This is the type of rot that needs to be cleansed away."
"You stone-hearted dog!" Shrewnose sobbed. "You put your soiled loyalty above your own blood?"
Asterstripe lowered his head to the ground, wordless.
"Get up, Shrewnose," Rowanstar mewed lowly, his tone firm.
"Not until you pardon my son," Shrewnose said. "Or else I will never rise again."
"Stand up, Shrewnose."
"Don't say 'stand up'. Say pardon, please. I beg you, if it were your kits—"
Once more, exasperated: "Stand up."
"I will not!" she cried.
Finally, the words came, and it seemed to drain all the strength from Elderheart's limbs.
"I pardon him, with all my heart," Rowanstar said at last, and Asterstripe also went sinking to the den floor. "As I hope StarClan will pardon me."
Shrewnose exhaled deep, weeping freely now as she climbed to her paws. "Oh, merciful… You will be a great leader of LeafClan, Rowanstar. Thank you, I will never forget it. He will never forget it."
Elderheart stood, limbs stiff, back aching, hollowed out. His spirit felt dead on the floor even as Asterstripe sat dazed, silently rejoiced in the life snatched away and given back to him.
Now was he a traitor to his family too? Loyalty was all he had.
"I hope you can prove as true as your mother's word, Asterstripe. But as for the others…" Rowanstar growled, golden eyes glowing in the half-light of the leader's den. "There's not enough forgiveness in my heart."