ROWANSTAR
He'd always wondered how the Gatherings looked from the top of the Greenstones. The four boulders formed a scattered ring near the center of the clearing, with each leader taking their proper seat across from each other.
Deputies and medicine cats sat at the foot of the Greenstones, with the most senior warriors closest to the action. For so long, he had to strain his ears to hear from the outer edges, and moon by moon he had crept closer and closer to the center. Now, with one sharp lurch, he was here.
The entire clearing burst into excited chatter when Rowanstar bounded onto the Greenstone, grown over with moss and ferns. Elderheart took a spot at the base of the rock, silent, and Shrikepaw beside him.
"It's true!" he heard one voice shout from among the innumerable shapeless shadows in the crowd.
Burdockstar was all mug and muscle, a powerful build rippling beneath her blue-gray coat, reeking of sour MireClan swamp. She had a hunter's look in her eyes, embedded with deep hostility, like she'd spotted some unsuspecting mouse.
Or toad, or crane, or whatever it is MireClan cats ate. Memory of the raid still hadn't faded, clearly.
The MeadowClan leader on the next stone over was every part Burdockstar's opposite. Their scent was more akin to warm grass and wildflowers. He made a cutting figure beneath the moonlight with his long snow white fur, refined, old, constrained. Lilystar, straight-backed as one of the Standing Stones and long tail curled around his paws, eyed him more like a piece of crowfood.
If Duskstar was surprised, he made no sign of it. Those wily copper eyes betrayed nothing, but just like every Gathering, Rowanstar couldn't help but note how the HillClan leader almost never blinked. Something about him made his fur crawl.
Countless eyes glowed up at him in the half-light, with Duskstar yowling for the Gathering to begin. All the chatter lapsed into silence, gazing up at the newcomer on the Greenstone.
Lilystar took the lead, looking at him sidelong. "It would be remiss if any of us should speak, before this warrior explains why he sits in Rosestar's place."
Did Lilystar even know his name? Did any of these cats? Rowanstar gazed around at the clearing before summoning up his voice.
"I am Rowanstar," he said to a chorus of shocked yowls. "Rosestar is no longer leader of LeafClan."
"What, could he be dead?" Burdockstar said incredulously. "It's less than a half-moon since he attacked us in our nests with his HillClan underlings! Terrorizing our kits and elders! Stealing our prey!"
"Call us underlings? I'll visit your camp again with just my own warriors." Duskstar growled.
Rowanstar struggled to keep his fur flat. "Not dead," he mewed. "LeafClan needed new leadership. I did not seek it, but when my clanmates called my name, I would not shame them by refusing the honor."
He thought LeafClan was gossipy and boisterous during Clan meetings; the Gathering was that four times over. Some cats jeered, gave low hoots, groans of disbelief and disapproval.
"By rights, was Elderheart not Rosestar's deputy? Why not him?" Duskstar pressed.
"Elderheart is retiring, and has only stayed as my deputy at my pleading," Rowanstar said. With another hard swallow, he added, "I have already journeyed to Standing Stones and shared dreams with StarClan."
Those dreams still followed him in the nights after.
'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.'
What could it mean? And what good was it for him to know if he couldn't decipher it?
'You will give your life among flowers, and then LeafClan shall see sunup.'
"A honey-coated story," Lilystar scoffed. "Just recently, one of your queens came running through our territory for sanctuary. The story she told was sad and savage indeed, and some part of me prayed it was not true. But now I see it is."
Ivyflower. There had been no way to make her stay, but to betray them for MeadowClan?
Lilystar's green eyes narrowed into slits. "She told us that you, Rowanthorn, are an exile—an envious, contemptible, ambitious cat—and when you returned before the end of your banishment, you murdered the cats opposed to you, and with your followers, forced Rosestar to step down."
"LeafClan has always been perfidious," Burdockstar spat. There was a rustle of wind through the trees, with a night-chill that reminded him of the coming leaf-fall.
"All this has been foretold before our lifetimes," Duskstar said with a glance toward the moon. "It was prophesied by our great medicine cat of old, Graysight, how the leaves would fall, and how all would be ours again. I am only glad that I shall live to see it."
He couldn't decide which one he wanted to knock down most. So much for a night of peace.
"We are as strong as ever, and LeafClan takes and keeps what is ours!" Rowanstar answered with a challenging roar, to a wave of yowls and chatter now. "If you see this as a moment of weakness, then I pity your foolishness. We were strong under Rosestar, and we will be stronger now. The forest is about to witness LeafClan's new era of greatness!"
The cheering of his own warriors almost drowned out the rest of the clearing, and he might have been heartened by that, except for the light speckle of rain on his nose.
"Look above!" Duskstar hissed. A dark wisp of cloud was moving in over the moon, where no clouds had marked the sky before. "It is a sign of StarClan's anger. HillClan, we depart!"
They were always the most superstitious. Rowanstar watched them leave with a taste of dismay in his throat. Ancient HillClan prophecies… That was old elder's den pibble-pabble.
"It's not even raining yet," Burdockstar protested, but the HillClan cats were already scrambling as fast as they could out from the clearing. There could be no Gathering with only three Clans, and so she was quick to follow, leaping off the Greenstone with her MireClan warriors forming a tight mob around her.
Lilystar lingered on the stone, standing with a flourish of his long white tail. "We will be keeping a watchful eye on our border, Rowanstar, if you can call yourself by that name."
As he disappeared, Rowanstar recited Lionpelt's prophecy in his mind.
'The forest will grow over the meadows…'
He kneaded his claws through the moss of the Greenstone, watching him go.
'You will give your life among flowers.'
The dark front of clouds seemed to chase them from Clawtower, and by the time they crossed back over to LeafClan territory, the rain had started in earnest. Rowanstar led his warriors back without another word, thoughts whirling in his head.
It was the sharp stench of blood that greeted him as he approached the bramble tunnel, spurring him forward with a sudden burst of desperate energy.
Those who had stayed behind in camp all stood under the shade of their dens, out of the rain, with mixed expressions of shock and horror, fear and rage. There were two more LeafClan corpses laid out in front of the Hollow Ash.
One was a pretty dappled brown she-cat, a pink nose, old poorly healed scars raked across her face, white paws stained with blood. There was a new jagged tear across her throat now. Her sapphire eyes were closed forever.
Beside her was a pale cream gold tom, streaked with blood and wounds all over. To Rowanstar, he seemed haughty even in death.
Between them, standing, alive, defiant, was Stonetooth. The lithe, solid gray she-cat stood almost trembling in her triumph, blue eyes gleaming as the rain pelted down around them.
The leader of LeafClan approached with a stone in his gut. The Clan gathered around in a circle, but whatever words, cries, shouts they gave out, he tuned them out.
"Here is your living fear, extinguished," Stonetooth said. "Rosestar, your greatest enemy, is dead. Longscar helped, but she… I couldn't—"
"Stonetooth, what have you done?" Rowanstar said, standing over the dead leader. "Did you expect me to thank you for this?"
The young warrior bristled. "I followed the wishes from your own mouth…!"
"I wished him dead," Rowanstar admitted. Yes, looking down at him now, he loved him dead. "But I despise his murder. Stonetooth, take your guilt for your reward. You are banished from LeafClan territory until the end of your days, and never show your head near our hunting grounds again."
The warrior's expression shattered, blue eyes brimming with tears. "But Rowanstar—"
He whipped his tail, and she wordlessly staggered for the bramble tunnel, the eyes of the Clan tracking her as she left. Those eyes returned to him, their new leader sprouted from the blood of the old one.
"I will sit vigil for both our clanmates tonight," Rowanstar said, still not able to lift his eyes from Rosestar's corpse. "Believe me when I say my heart was not in this."
When he did look up, the Clan answered him with blank gazes.
Did they believe him?
They had to believe him.
'You will give your life among flowers, and then LeafClan shall see sunup.'
The rose had been the flower he had feared. The blood and bone roses, budding from his wounds. But that rose had wilted.
Must he die to make it right? All these LeafClan lives wasted, was he right to come back?
He had become a calamity—a fire, a flood, a storm. But it wasn't some act of StarClan, except those dreams from Lionpelt.
Had his father set him wrong?
How was StarClan using him to punish his Clan? To punish him, and still lead him here to become leader?
Or was it his own pride, his own ambition that filled so many graves in one moon?
And to die among flowers… He remembered Lilystar walking away, the MeadowClan scent of grass and wildflowers perfuming his pelt.
They would bury Rosestar and Longscar at sunup. Then they would prepare for war.