PALEFACE

When he first opened his eyes again after the battle, he thought he'd see his mother and lost clanmates; stars in their pelts, twilight in her their eyes, together again in the endless hunting grounds. Instead, he woke up in the shadow of a warped, stunted oak, lying on a nest of long, pillowy grass. Pain raked him from nose to tail-tip, shuddering through his body as he tried and failed to stand.

His dreams of StarClan were interrupted by his waking nightmare. Not Tigerleap there to bring him to his warrior ancestors, but he looked up to see that same fox-breathed HillClan warrior who had captured him. The same cat that had cut him down out there in the border hills.

"Morrow, wrong-eyes," she mewed, her blue eyes blinking from the gloom. She was a patched tortoiseshell, lean and long-limbed like other HillClan cats, her pelt carrying the scents of the mountain lowlands.

"Why am I here?" Paleface hissed, wincing as he sat up. His wounds were patched over with cobweb poultices, goldenrod and StarClan knew what else smeared into day-old cuts. "Why am I alive?"

The HillClan she-cat twitched her whiskers. "Are you complaining?"

"Why are you here?" Paleface said, narrowing his eyes. Come to finish what she'd started?

"I live here," the she-cat answered, turning to pick up a plump mole between her teeth, flicking it over to him with a lazy toss. "Eat, and rest. Recover your strength."

"You still haven't told me why I'm here!" the LeafClan warrior growled, surging to his paws and batting the mole away, only to buckle and collapse back into the carefully layered grass.

"I said, rest," she mewed, voice as light as misting rain. "All will be answered soon."

She turned to leave, but raising his voice for one last weak, "Wait," made her pause. "Who are you?" Paleface asked.

"My name's Robinsong. I'm your captor."


Robinsong brought in his prey, at sunup and sunhigh and sundown, until he was well enough to walk to the fresh-kill pile on his own. That almost made him want to cower in his makeshift prison, or else start planning an escape.

But Robinsong and hunger insisted, and he followed her with measured steps into the HillClan camp. His ears perked to the faint sound of running water, what might have been a creek around the base of this blasted, rocky hillock…

The crown of the hill seemed to dimple in on itself, high craggy outcrops shielding a little hollow from outer view. HillClan sentries lounged atop the stony wall overlooking camp and the rolling landscape beyond, their pale brown and gray fur melding to the natural hues of the rock.

If any of them were trying to be subtle about their staring, they were doing a poor job. The dens and clearing were perfumed with rosemary patches, tufts of white cuckoo flowers brightening the tough, scrubby grass. He squinted at the glare of the open sun above him, exposed without LeafClan's forest canopy, and just hoped it made his expression fiercer.

Paleface held his head high, avoiding the eyes of the HillClan cats. What chatter he heard among them was low, indistinct, but to his mind right then, undoubtedly about him.

Little heads poked out from the shade of a stony alcove in the camp wall, kits stumbling over each over to get a view of the stranger.

"It's the wrong-eyes!" one squealed.

"Scary!" another mewed, before hooked in by a queen's paw from within the den.

Wrong-eyes. The same name Robinsong had greeted him with, and the sort of thing he'd heard back in his kit and apprenticeship days. Until he put a stop to it. When he was still Palepaw, he had a denmate call him something similar when he missed his prey, asking if his blue or yellow eye was the blind one.

After bouncing their head off a root, no one in LeafClan had ever mentioned his eyes being two different colors since. Around his clanmates, he might've forgotten he looked different from any other cat, beyond catching his face in the occasional newleaf rain puddle.

Robinsong hovered over the fresh-kill pile, paw hovering over one piece of prey, and then another, before settling on a plump young hare. The choicest prey in the pile, it seemed to him, the kind they'd save for a senior warrior or reverend elder.

She snagged it by the ear, dragging it between herself and her prisoner. "Share it with me?" Robinsong asked.

Paleface felt the pinch in his stomach, but his eyes darted around at the watching HillClan cats; warriors and apprentices, elders and queens, their silent gawking almost burning a hole in his coat.

"You said my questions would be answered when I was well," he growled under his breath. "Let me speak to Duskstar."

"Duskstar will speak to you when he's ready," Robinsong said with a tilt of her head, nudging the prey closer to Paleface's paws. "Eat, first."

"I said, I want answers! Where is your leader?!"

His voice rang through the hollow, too loud.

Without even looking, he could feel the wave of tension rippling up among the HillClan camp. The approach of a powerful presence. Duskstar seemed to bloom from the grass, emerging from some ancient warren or fox-hole half-concealed in vegetation, his warriors parting as he stalked his way through the clearing.

Paleface stood alert now, tail lashing, but his head high, expression haughty. He wouldn't give them the satisfaction of a LeafClan warrior losing their nerve.

"Duskstar," he mewed. "You told me that I would never see my home again. Tell me why you'd waste your fresh-kill and herbs on me, in that case."

"Warrior of LeafClan," Duskstar growled, his eyes two unblinking copper discs, twin suns hazy with smoke. Like other HillClan cats, he was lean, but well-developed muscles rippled beneath his scarred dusky brown pelt. A warrior and raider of notoriety. "The first thing you should know about me is that I do not deal in lies. You will know what you are entitled to know, when the stars deem it so. But for now, you'll do exactly as Robinsong tells you."

The tortoiseshell she-cat nudged the hare again, more forcefully this time.

He could've wilted under their glares, but he stood his ground. "I'm not some lost kit that needs to be fed by your warriors," Paleface mewed. "I can hunt my own prey."

Duskstar almost hovered over him now, his stare as unyielding as stone. But after a long moment, he growled in approval.

"You may hunt. But stray outside Robinsong's sight, and she adds you to the pile."


Flat against the grass, it was nothing like hunting in LeafClan territory. Back home, the hunting was close quarters, sneaking in silence under the cover of foliage. LeafClan prized light steps. Out here in the hills, the prey seemed to flaunt around just beyond sprinting distance.

Here, he needed speed.

With Robinsong's eyes locked on him, he resolved to catch something on the first pounce. But he made a fool of himself, and not just once. After the third bird fluttered just right out of his paws, biting back grumbled curses, Robinsong just snickered.

"Are you certain you can catch your own prey?"

He followed her tail signal and watched her, the next time they sighted prey. A rustle of gray fur screened by grass, a plump rabbit with a snowball tail.

She lowered herself to the ground, tail and belly almost sweeping the dirt, slinking through the grass like a snake. He could only see the ridge of her spine as she moved through the grass, until pouncing a fox-length away. Too soon, he thought as the rabbit bolted, secretly relieved he wouldn't be the only one to miss his prey.

But she danced behind the rabbit, never more than a stride behind, darting out with claws outstretched. Hunter and quarry disappeared into the greenery, Paleface straining on the tips of his claws.

A heartbeat later, she emerged from the tall grass, the rabbit swinging lifelessly from between her jaws.

"Now, maybe, you'll share with me," Robinsong mewed.

They ate the fresh-kill together on a green rise, overlooking glittering streams and sweeping fields, puffy white clouds scuttling across a blue sky. LeafClan's forest was just a distant black ridge of trees in the distance, somewhere beyond the border hills.

The rabbit became scraps and bones, consumed in silence. Sharing tongues like clanmates seemed a stretch too far, in his mind. But she caught his stare as he gazed out toward LeafClan territory in the distance.

"You know, I was always afraid of LeafClan," Robinsong mewed. "In HillClan, they tell terrible kit-tales about you. Kit-killers, prey-stealers, kin-slayers, code-breakers, blood-drinkers…"

"I assure you, only half of those kit-tales are true," Paleface said with a lash of his tail. "Are you still afraid, then?"

"After throwing you into the dirt? Hardly," she sniffed. "You don't seem like the blood-drinking sort to me. But I still get nervous looking out at those black woods along the border. The elders said they were so tangled and so dark, all kinds of forgotten monsters still lived inside."

Back in his camp, HillClan cats were thought of as skittish rabbits, gullible as newborn kits, superstitious about every cloud in the sky or odd feather on the ground. Not quite so flattering a comparison, for him or her.

After all, he was the one captured by rabbits.

Were his clanmates wondering about him, he wondered? Mourning for him?

Would they come for him, after how he'd failed? Would they remember him, if they didn't? One cat, at least, might be cheering his bad fate. Rowanstar had never looked at him the same after coming back from his exile, never forgiven him for being a friend to Rosestar during those fraught hours.

Paleface wondered how quickly Duskstar would kill him if he knew that trying to ransom him back to his leader would be fruitless. A question he'd keep to himself.

His eyes flicked over to his HillClan captor, grooming herself lazily in the grass. If he stood to his paws and bolted now, he'd have a head start. But with a tinge of defeat, he let himself lounge next to her instead, content to look at the LeafClan border from a distance.

Soon, that's what he told himself. He'd be home soon.


HillClan camp was open to the stars, Silverpelt's fire blazing over the hilltop grove in hazy bands of white. Night winds stirred his pelt, carrying fresh newleaf scents and a pleasant coolness to the camp.

He sat on the edge of the clearing, his captor not far from his side, enduring the harassment of HillClan kits.

When he imagined being imprisoned and tortured, this wasn't quite what he had in mind.

"Look! It's the wrong-eyes!"

"Ugh! It really is that ugly up close!" one of the kits mewed, standing surreptitiously to the side as Paleface pretended not to notice their existence.

When Paleface turned a hard eye on the little scruff of fur, they scrambled back with their littermates.

"Eek! It heard me! I think it heard me!"

"Nuh-uh! Mother said white cats couldn't hear!"

"Look, but it's staring at me now! Make it stop!"

Paleface twitched his whiskers, watching as the kits' energy turned on each other. When he glanced back at Robinsong, she could only offer a shrug.

"There are no HillClan cats who look the way you do," she mewed. "You've been a point of gossip around here for quite some time, actually. I've watched you at the Gatherings."

He gave her a sidelong look. "For some time?" he said. As much as that stroked his ego, he couldn't begin to see why. "There's nothing so special about the way I look. It's just uncommon, that's all."

"We're given every stripe and spot for a reason, wrong-eyes."

They sat together until the rising of the moon, and commotion at the base of the hill. Paleface watched from the mouth of the medicine den where they kept him, the fur rising along the backs of the HillClan sentries, the lashing of tails.

"Where is Duskstar?" one of the HillClan warriors boomed, more cats turning out of their nests to peek. "A messenger has come!"

There she was; an unexpectedly familiar face. He scented her before he saw her, a smaller brown tabby she-cat flanked by a HillClan patrol.

"Sparrowflight!" Paleface mewed. "You've come!" He started forward despite Robinsong's protestations, rushing toward his clanmate.

Sparrowflight only answered him with a blink of acknowledgment as he approached.

"How glad I am to see you," Paleface said with a long exhale, before narrowing his eyes. "You haven't been captured too, have you?"

"Well, I believe that remains to be seen," Sparrowflight said lowly, eyes flicking to the HillClan warriors leering at her from every direction. "But I'm glad to see you safe as well, Paleface."

He brought his voice to a low whisper. "I thought I'd die here—this place is unbearable. Is there a rescue party coming? What news from Rowanstar?"

Sparrowflight kinked her tail in discomfort. "There's no rescue coming, Paleface," she said after a halting moment, low enough for the HillClan cats not to hear. "We have to rescue ourselves."

"But—" Paleface felt his heart sink into the earth. "Then why are you…?"

"Rowanstar has given you up for dead," she said bluntly. "He speaks of you like an enemy."

He was still reeling from the verbal concussion, the chatter of HillClan cats fading to a ringing in his ear, until the approach of their leader snapped him back to reality.

Duskstar emerged from his den, a stalking shadow, with all the presence of a lurking fox as he approached.

"Yet more LeafClan cats in my camp," Duskstar growled, unblinking eyes locked on Sparrowflight. "But this one was not looked for. You come from Rowanstar?"

"I come from my clanmates, with only the noblest intentions," Sparrowflight said, not flinching under the leader's gaze. "Could we have a word in private, Duskstar?"

Duskstar scoffed at her polished words, gnashing his teeth and pacing around the LeafClan warriors.

"There is no decision we make in HillClan that we do not make in front of all the Clan's warriors," the leader mewed. And not just warriors, but elders and queens, apprentices and kits, the entire Clan was gathered around them in an informal meeting now. "Speak your purpose now or be chased off our hunting grounds!"

Sparrowflight's eyes flicked from one warrior to another, and Paleface watched the silent calculations behind her eyes. She left Paleface with a lingering glance, something unsaid imparted in her stare, before she spoke again.

"Then hear me: LeafClan has been corrupted, and Rowanstar is the source of the rot," Sparrowflight mewed, as Paleface's jaw dropped open. "We need your help to end his rule, or else our Clans will never have peace again."

Among the scandalized mews and excited chatter, Paleface heard the scoffs and jeers. Even Robinsong beside him.

"Corrupted? Always has been," one pale gray warrior sneered.

"You'd betray your leader?" Duskstar said, leaning in toward Sparrowflight.

"Rowanstar has betrayed us, who gave him that name he calls himself now," she answered coolly. "He's no true leader of ours. Even most of our Clan doesn't know, but I'll tell you his secret, if it helps prove my conviction."

She swept her gaze around the watching cats now, their hoots and droning gossip frozen into intent silence now.

"Rowanstar was never given nine lives by StarClan, after he usurped leadership," she said, making the camp buzz like bees at once again. "I heard this from our medicine cat's own mouth. But before Rosestar died, he intended to pick a different cat as his deputy… The very same warrior you've taken for your guest. Paleface is StarClan's true choice for leader! Paleface is who LeafClan will support! And Paleface… he needs your aid, and we would be in your debt."

Guest. That word did a lot of heavy lifting.

Every eye was on him now as Sparrowflight gestured her tail toward him.

"Then it's true!" one of the HillClan queens moaned, and a new sort of frenzy seemed to fill the HillClan cats. Paleface looked uneasily around, but even Robinsong looked at him strangely now, as if seeing him for the first time.

"The wrong-eyes," Duskstar said, casting his eyes up to the stars above, words tumbling from his lips in silent prayer. "Just as it was foretold. Just as it was promised!"

"The dawn that was promised!" the HillClan cats shouted with fanatic ecstasy, young and old alike, some with tears brimming in their eyes. "The falling of leaves! As it was, so shall it be!"

Paleface and Sparrowflight held each other's gazes now as the HillClan cats began to lift their heads back and yowl in broken cries toward the sky. 'What. Is. Happ-en-ing?' she seemed to mouth in his direction, but Paleface just answered her with an equally helpless stare.

"It's time he knew!" Robinsong cried, and the rest of the Clan yowled their assent.

There was no spot in HillClan camp for the leader to perch and look down on his warriors. Instead, they gathered around him in a tight circle, with Paleface and Sparrowflight being folded right into the middle of the mass of cats, closest to Duskstar as he began to pace, tail lashing.

"Ten leaf-bares ago, and ten more," Duskstar intoned, wide eyes lifted to the stars above. "StarClan blessed our medicine cat of old, Graysight, with visions of what had been, and what would come to pass.

"Even in those ancient days, LeafClan was a terror to us all. The darkest of nights would befall us, it was said, and all the forest would drown in blood. But Graysight saw the dawn that was promised! Leaf turning on leaf! All the leaves of the forest, tumbling to the earth!"

Duskstar stared at him with unwavering intensity now, with the rest of his Clan. His booming voice had a singsong quality, ancient words repeated by HillClan elders over the generations, to be delivered to him now.

"From the wrong-eyed one, the bloodied dawn shall spring! When three are joined in one, the light-bringer will rise, his pelt blazing like flame! To restore what was broken, to right what was wronged, to cleanse what has been tainted! Then what was once ours, shall be returned again!"

His hackles stood on end, stiff as a boulder, as the HillClan cats pressed in against him, chanting his name.

"The wrong-eyes!" an elder ululated. "Light-bringer! Brightest one! Sign of the dawn!"

The rest of the Clan now, his name on their tongues, shouted into the night.

"Paleface! Paleface! Paleface!"


Needless to say, Duskstar was courteous enough to permit his Clan's prophesied chosen one to go for a stroll. To clear his head. His captor was still meant to keep a close watch on him now, Robinsong trailing him like a shadow.

Wandering over the open moonlit hills, night winds stirring his pelt, it felt like a lump of ice where his heart should be. His mouth was dry, paws numb, thoughts racing.

Sparrowflight padded at his side, her eyes lifted to the sky in quiet contemplation. She'd told him everything, about Nettlefang and Burdockstar, the dark looks Rowanstar had showered over them, his jealousy and paranoia.

"Then Nettlefang and the others will join us soon?" Paleface asked.

"If all's gone as planned, in my absence," Sparrowflight mewed.

It looked like he'd have to fight LeafClan if he wanted to return. How was that just? But he steeled his heart, his despair converting to a simmering hate.

If fate had twisted differently, LeafClan might have been his. What kit didn't look out at the Hollow Ash, and think about themselves on its boughs, looking down on the rest of the Clan? But when Rowanstar took the leadership instead, he stayed the course. Even when Rosestar died, he'd never said a word.

He remembered Splitears, and Rooktuft, and the rest. Speaking up then might have been death. So he had played his part, a loyal warrior.

Now, what other choices did he have? What did loyalty earn him? He raked his claws through the grass, gritting his teeth. If HillClan needed a savior, and LeafClan needed a new leader, then fine. He would play the role the stars foisted on him.

Paleface stopped in his tracks, touching his tail tip to Sparrowflight's shoulder.

"I think I'd like some time alone, Sparrowflight. We'll speak more tomorrow."

His LeafClan clanmate departed with a bow of her head, leaving Paleface alone with his captor on the open moor. As she disappeared into the distance, even with the HillClan warrior watching him, Paleface felt himself almost collapse.

He managed to ease into a sitting position, almost succeeding in making it look natural.

"Paleface…" Robinsong mewed, just behind him. "Are you all right?"

"Would you be, if you were in my place?"

She didn't answer at first, settling beside him and curling her tail over her paws. "Perhaps not," she said. "But I'm not you. I'm not chosen."

He hadn't asked to be chosen. Certainly not by some long dead HillClan medicine cat. Suddenly his entire future felt like loose sand crumbling into a creek bank.

"I'm no one special," Paleface said.

"Our elders tell us the plainest seeds grow into the mightiest oaks," Robinsong said, turning her eyes intently on him now. He was forced to meet her stare, sapphire eyes searing into his. "You may not feel special now, but I'll tell you what I know. StarClan has marked you, Paleface. And you will save both our Clans."

There was something he caught in her eyes he'd never recognized before. Total reverence. Devotion, as if he were a StarClan cat returned to earth. Honestly, it flipped his stomach.

"How can you be so sure?" Paleface said, voice strained. He wished he had just an ounce of that faith in himself.

"Because I look at you, and I know," she mewed. "Don't believe in yourself, if you can't. But you can believe in us. Believe in me. Because we will follow you over the mountains and back if you tell us. Because I've waited my entire life for you."

Her cheek nuzzled against his, suddenly, unexpectedly. Paleface surrendered to her comfort, as she pressed herself close to him, chasing the night cold away.


It wasn't as if Robinsong had left his side since he'd first woken up bloodied and bruised in HillClan's camp.

Now, she wouldn't let so much as a mouse tail between them. She kept their tails linked together in a briar's knot even as they returned to the HillClan camp, Paleface picking up on the sideways looks as they walked together.

Robinsong didn't seem to notice, or care to notice. Every time he seemed to glance over, she seemed to be looking at him, and only him.

It was deep in the night, some nights after Sparrowflight arrived, when Nettlefang and the others came too. This time, he could stand with the HillClan patrol on the MireClan border, side by side with Sparrowflight.

Nettlefang sloshed through the waters of a mucky creek without a hint of care, purring fiercely as he rushed to his clanmates' sides.

The other LeafClan cats were more careful. Larkfeather hung at the opposite end of the bank, crossing the border stream with a calculated leap. Thrushear pawed around the shallows with trepidation, padding some lengths down the course of the stream as if searching for a stepping stone, before crossing with high steps and tail lashing with agitation.

"Paleface! You snowball, you're alive! And you, Sparrowflight, HillClan didn't pick your bones either."

Their HillClan escorts didn't bother to hide their snarls, and Nettlefang didn't bother to look bothered.

"Does our enterprise thrive?" Sparrowflight urged. "Where is my brother?"

"Father lingers in MireClan, Shrikewing and Jaywind with him. A little cough kept him from traveling farther for now, but nothing to be concerned about." He glanced back over his shoulder, toward the fens. "Burdockstar prepares her warriors even now, waiting for our signal."

All these cats, leaving their camp for him? Larkfeather, Jaywind, Thrushear, the medicine cat—none of them had reasons to love Rowanstar. Not after what happened to their previous leader.

But the others? How long ago had they been Rowanstar's closest advisors, the pillars that seemed to have propped him up?

"Spoke you with any others?" Sparrowflight asked as they started back over the hills. "Asterstripe?"

"He shied away from the risk like a mouse," Nettlefang spat. "The other warriors, I can only hope they see sense before it comes to claws. Right now I trust them as far as I can toss them."

Almost as an afterthought, Nettlefang flicked his tail, as if reliving an unpleasant memory. "And my mate, she will be crossing over too, when it's safe."

Dovefeather! His sister from a younger litter, a fierce young warrior, but not exactly fit to fight any battles in her current condition. Her kits would be coming any day now.

"By all the stars, she'll be ready to burst," Paleface murmured. "But I'll be glad to see her."

"And she'll be glad to see you, and a Clan with an actual medicine cat in camp."

When they returned to HillClan camp, he expected to be right down to business. There was a war brewing, after all.

But Duskstar waved his guests to silence, and all the Clan gathered to hear the elders speak. Creaky-voiced gray-pelts, some of them mumbling, some of them with old wounds, one with a dark void where their eye should have been.

One by one, they addressed the Clan, speaking their old stories. How snakes lost their legs, the death of the last wolves, and how the Clans discovered their hunting grounds. They spoke of a homeland far beyond the mountains, to which one day they would all return, and of great warriors and terrible monsters, ancient battles and disasters long forgotten. Fires, floods, quakes, terrible storms. Signs of StarClan's power.

It wasn't the first time he'd been subjected to this nightly ritual, but he listened in polite silence, sitting tall and straight, tail folded neatly over his paws. Before, he'd only heard bits and pieces from the medicine den, or he observed in quiet fascination from the outer ring of cats with Robinsong.

Now, sitting up front and close, he could almost recite parts of the stories. Generational lore, impressed into every cat's memory.

Nettlefang couldn't stop raking his claws through the earth, or help himself from laughing at the more colorful details. The eyes of the HillClan cats flickered to their LeafClan guests each time Nettlefang voiced over the solemn tales, glaring white hot in the gloom.

Sparrowflight had to give her former apprentice a harsh shoulder, and the young warrior somehow managed to keep his snickering to himself.


It wasn't until the next night when Duskstar gathered the LeafClan cats together, Robinsong and a pale gray tom named Leekroot flanking behind them. Instead of his den, or in view of the camp, he led them down the hill and over the open moor, through gorse and heather bruised gold and purple, toward a secluded rise green with bracken and holly.

So much for all decisions being made in front of the Clan, but Paleface kept the snide comment to himself as they ascended the rise, taking their places in a loose circle among the tall grass.

"'When three are joined in one,'" Duskstar said to begin, reciting that blasted prophecy the HillClan cats wouldn't stop beating into his mind. "HillClan, MireClan, and LeafClan shall be those three. Three Clans in one unbreakable alliance, unconquerable, guided by destiny."

As he spoke, he traced his tail through the dirt, lines representing the borders of the four Clans, with Clawtower between them.

"These promises are fair, our allies are sure," Paleface said courteously, "and our mission full of hope." This is happening, then. Palestar. He said the name over in his head, tasting the sound of it.

"We can't and won't fail, and I don't need a prophecy to tell me that," Nettlefang said with a burst of volume, much too earnest as he started forward, hovering over Duskstar's crude map of the territories. He planted his paw over the heart of LeafClan's woods, leaving a deep impression in the map where the camp was hidden. "I say we start the raid as soon as possible."

Sparrowflight's tail twitched in agitation, but if anything, Duskstar only looked bemused by the warrior's impetuousness.

"You have a fiery spirit, Nettlefang," the HillClan leader said. "But the hottest flames burn out the quickest. Patience—we shall wait for the correct sign, and you will have your battle soon enough."

Nettlefang opened his mouth with a retort, but a sharp glare from Sparrowflight silenced him. Either way, his expression said enough.

"This one has built a reputation for himself, for someone so young," Duskstar went on, gesturing toward Nettlefang. There was a sort of light-hearted glint in his eyes now, prodding at the LeafClan cat. "I've heard your name at the Gatherings, with many a rising sigh. Many MireClan and HillClan warriors have wished you in StarClan."

Like prodding a wasp's nest. But Nettlefang gave a snort of good-natured amusement, puffing out his chest after being recognized by a rival leader. "And my clanmates have wished you in some other place altogether, whenever they hear your name mentioned. War makes strange denmates."

"Why, and I cannot blame them," Duskstar said with a breath of hot, acrid laughter. "When I was kitted, the skies filled with fiery shapes, and the earth shook like a mouse-heart."

Nettlefang's face twisted with incredulity, tilting his head. "So it would have shook if it were a robin's hatchlings," he mewed pointedly, "and you had never been born."

All hint of humor and levity was gone from Duskstar's face in an instant, his face an unblinking, stony mask. He had a fox's eyes with the way he focused in on Nettlefang, staring the young warrior down.

"I say, the earth did shake when I was born," Duskstar repeated again, his voice descending into a low growl. He had a hunter's stillness to him, a tenseness in his shoulders, and Paleface could see Nettlefang's hackles begin to rise even when the LeafClan warrior bared his teeth in a hard, mocking grin.

"And I say," he started, unflinching, taking another pawstep forward, "the earth might have shook, but I don't suppose it shook in fear of you."

"The skies were all on fire!" Duskstar insisted, his voice a sudden roar now, hackles on end. The HillClan warriors beside him were standing now, bristling with offense. "The earth did tremble!"

"Then the earth trembled to see the sky on fire, and not in fear of your kitting," Nettlefang said, taking yet another pawstep forward.

When he was scared of thunder as a kit, the queens had told him the earth, the woods, the rivers, all had periods of health and sickness just as cats do. Just as when a cat is gripped by whitecough and expels phlegm and bile, sometimes the earth throbs with fevers and shakes, or storms brew up overhead.

Natural happenings. Nothing to be afraid of.

Yet Paleface was not about to contradict the fierce HillClan leader with his nursery-tale explanations, not with his eyes glowing like blazing coals. Not when he held their very lives under his claws.

"LeafClan cat, I do not bear this disrespect lightly!"

Paleface wasn't quite certain he'd ever heard the leader this discomposed, his fur so ruffled and voice so strained. Not during squabbles atop the Greenstones, or even when they were fighting out on the border hills.

"Give me leave to tell you for the last time," Duskstar snarled, "the skies were full of fiery shapes, the prey fled from the hills, and all the birds cried out and took flight. These signs have marked me extraordinary, and all the courses of my life show I am not in the role of common warriors.

"There is no warrior in these four territories who can out-hunt me, no cat alive who could best me in combat, nor any medicine cat who knows more about StarClan's mysteries. No cat can speak with more authority on these happenings than myself."

"And certainly, no queen tells better kit-tales," Nettlefang said, voice dripping with sarcasm.

Paleface bristled now. "Enough, Nettlefang," he hissed, watching Duskstar's claws dig through the soft, sandy soil. "You will make him angry."

"I can call upon the spirits of StarClan!" Duskstar's shout boomed, ringing over the moor.

"Ha! So can I!" Nettlefang said. "So can any cat! But will they come when you call?"

They were face to face now, nose to nose. "If you were not so blind and unfeeling to StarClan's blessings, I could teach you how. How to reach out to them in your dreams, to receive their wisdom, their warnings, their training."

"And I can teach you, great Duskstar, how to shame a liar." Nettlefang's ears were flat to his head now, voice rising as his words built in passion and tempo. "You bring your spirits here, and I'll give you a demonstration!"

"Come!" Paleface shouted now, putting an edge into his voice. "No more of this useless chat."

Neither warrior nor leader listened to him.

"Three times, I've defeated LeafClan in battle since Rowanstar became leader," Duskstar snarled. "Three times, from the hills and streams, have I sent your warriors scurrying back into the forest, tails tucked between their legs!"

"Tails tucked between their legs, with the earth shaking in fear too, I'm sure."

"I said, no more!"

Paleface let his voice ring this time, and finally the two bickering toms eyed each other in grudging silence.

"Let's waste no more moonlight," Paleface said, more gently now. "We have more important business." They had the future of the forest to divide between them.

There was still the hint of a growl building in Duskstar's throat, but he suppressed it as he hovered over the lines scrawled in the dirt.

"When Paleface is leader of LeafClan, we shall swear an oath of peace and mutual aid, together with Burdockstar of MireClan," Duskstar mewed. "Let war and ancient blood feud between our Clan be settled forevermore, and let us no more challenge each other's territory. But HillClan's borders must be returned all the way to the treeline, as it was before our elders' generation. That is the condition of our alliance."

Paleface only gave a solemn nod. They had lost hill by hill since Rosestar first brought up the idea of bargaining them away, and now all of Stormstar's gains would be gone. But that was the price they had to pay for a better future.

"Sparrowflight, Nettlefang, when the time is right, we'll return to MireClan and link up with our clanmates there. HillClan can rendezvous where our three borders meet, here, in the poppy fields." Paleface swept his tail over where three territories intersected, in the corner of LeafClan's territory. The poppy fields where they buried their dead.

If they had to spill LeafClan blood, at least the cleanup would not be too strenuous.

Duskstar nodded in assent. "We shall be prepared before the half-moon. Although I fear my daughter will go mad, as much as she dotes on her wrong-eyes."

Paleface blinked at him. "Your what?" Robinsong simply lowered her head to the ground, shuffling her paws.

Nettlefang was still hovering over the map in the soil, eyes narrowed. "All our territory to the treeline? We can't give up LeafClan land without a fight."

"You can't?" Duskstar hissed, exasperated. "You shall, and you must, if your leader commands it so."

"It's a fair exchange, Nettlefang," Paleface said. "One that will secure our Clan's safety, not weaken it."

"If you say so," Nettlefang spat. "But any HillClan warriors near our border, I might just confuse them for a hare, and accidents could happen."

"The specific arrangement could be worked out another night," Sparrowflight said abruptly, as if trying to throw a cover over Nettlefang's naked threat. "There's much to consider. Perhaps some of these hunting grounds could be shared, if HillClan is serious about friendship."

"I'll not have the deal altered," Duskstar growled, claws glinting in the moonlight.

"Why should we trust a HillClan cat's oath to begin with?" Nettlefang groaned. "Words are air."

"In HillClan, word is bond and a promise to StarClan is law. A virtue that was never seen in LeafClan."

"You HillClan cats spend too many words as it is, and I'd rather be deaf as a mole than listen to anymore."

"Deaf, that you already are, except to hear yourself speak," Duskstar hissed, and once again, the two cats were whisker to whisker, lips curled back to bare pointed teeth. "Fine, then let us negotiate."

Nettlefang broke away with a lash of his tail now. "I. Do. Not. Care. Let Paleface do the dealmaking, not me. If everything is settled then, shall we be done with this?"

He'd never seen a cat so close to exploding in a burst of hair and hot steam as much as Duskstar, but the HillClan leader just gnashed his teeth and clawed at the ground, tail flicking back and forth.

"The moon shines fair," the HillClan leader said with a deep exhale. "I shall consult with our medicine cat and our elders, and if the signs are good, then you may leave for MireClan as soon as tonight."

"My sister may be arriving soon, heavy with kits," Paleface said, suddenly exhausted. "We'll wait for Dovefeather's safe arrival, and then all will be ready."

He left a lingering gaze on Robinsong, who didn't take her eyes off him for a moment.

"We'll see you back in camp," Duskstar said, sweeping copper eyes over the LeafClan warriors. "Paleface, I would have a private talk with you later."

Paleface watched Duskstar go, Leekroot following after him as a pale gray shadow. Robinsong lingered a moment, glancing over her shoulder at Paleface with another long look, before darting after her father and clanmate.

He listened for the sound of their receding pawsteps, rustling through the grass into silence, before rounding on Nettlefang.

"Fox-dirt, Nettlefang, why do you provoke him?!" he hissed in the warrior's face, almost making him flop backward into the dirt.

"I cannot choose!" Nettlefang groaned in consternation, kicking his paws through the loose dirt, scrambling the map drawn into the soil. "I'm going mad as they are with all the prophecies and nursery stories and skimble-skamble stuff! I'll tell you what, those HillClan cats last night with their ceremony telling stories for hours on end, I thought I wanted a hawk to swoop me up and eat me.

"They held me up from my sleep until past moonhigh with their yowling, listing every dead cat that ever lived in their Clan, and who begat who. He is as tedious as a babbling elder, or a nagging mate, or a whining kit, and I'll go and kill Rowanstar by myself before I stay here in this territory another star-forsaken night!"

"He is a renowned warrior, and a respected leader," Paleface spat back hotly, with more conviction than he expected. "Do you know what I think? I think he must like you, and respects your tenacity. Otherwise, there's no other cat that's talked to him the way you have and gotten away without their pelt shredded. But don't push him anymore, please."

Sparrowflight shouldered her former apprentice roughly, teeth bared. "You are too willful, Nettlefang, and since coming here, have done more than enough to test Duskstar's patience."

Nettlefang gave a long roll of his eyes, suddenly bored.

His one-time mentor was still not finished. "You must learn to temper yourself. Sometimes, your hotheadedness shows courage, greatness, blood—but that's the only grace it renders you. Most cats see harsh rage, lack of manners, a problem with authority, pride, haughtiness. The least of which embitters cats' hearts, and turns them against you. Do you not want to be a deputy one day? A leader?"

The young warrior just sighed. "Well, well, consider me lectured. Good manners be your speed!" He gave a flourishing bow, before turning back to Paleface. "I'm off to meet Dovefeather in the border hills. You'll come with me?"

"Nettlefang…!" Sparrowflight started to hiss, but he was already slipping through the foliage.

Paleface just touched his tail tip to Sparrowflight's shoulder, and then went trailing after the young warrior, racing over the moor.

He only wondered, if this were his last night in HillClan, would he be leaving something behind?