SUNFIRE
Camp was as solemn as a burial by the time he returned through the bramble tunnel.
"Who's seen Ryebreeze?" he asked, glancing around, and finding her sitting in front of the Hollow Ash. Honeypad and Swiftstorm stood nearby, their heads together. "Who died?"
It was a joke, but her tear-brimmed gaze could have skewered him through.
"What?" Sunfire said. He felt his heart drop into his stomach. "It's raining in camp but not in the forest? How is Rowanstar?"
"Exceeding ill," Ryebreeze replied hoarsely.
"Did he hear the good news yet?" he asked. His brother and their raiding party must have reported back by now. "Tell it to him."
"He fell into a swoon upon hearing it," Honeypad whispered.
"If he's sick with joy, then he'll recover without medicine," Sunfire offered cheerfully, but no cat so much as twitched a whisker.
"Not so much noise, please," Swiftstorm said. "Sunfire, speak low. Rowanstar is trying to rest."
"Let's withdraw to the warrior's den," Ryebreeze said.
Swiftstorm glanced toward the deputy. "Will you come with us?"
"No," Sunfire said, glancing into the dark maw of the Hollow Ash. "I will sit and watch him."
His sisters and Swiftstorm pulled away, as he padded into the deeper shade of the leader's den, where his father curled up in his nest. His reddish-brown flank rose and fell with quick and shallow breaths, Owlswoop and the old and young medicine cats lurking nearby.
Rowanstar's nest was carefully weaved with flowers, bright-eyed asters and stalks of goldenrod. A small note of Ryebreeze's affection. She'd always decorated her nests like that, ever since they were in the apprentice's den together.
He froze at the sight of him, stiff and unseeing in his nest, heart tensing in his chest.
"Please, give me a moment," Sunfire said with a gesture of his tail. The senior warrior and medicine cats stood with silent obedience, and then he stood alone over the frail, skinny, aging cat who had always been the fiercest warrior he'd known.
Why did he have to sleep here, in the Ash? With all its ghosts and cares and worries that came with it, with a leader's name? It was this rotten old tree killing his father now. If only he could pull him away.
He stood in silent vigil over him, searching for the words, as if Rowanstar could even hear them. Sunfire stared over him, the rustle of fur from his weak, low breaths. Until those became so faint, that the fur stirred no more, and his breaths seemed to stop. Still, so still.
"Father…" Sunfire whispered, to no answer.
The tears came then, and the words. "You leave me this den," he whispered. "You're gone, and leave me this dead tree." He left him LeafClan, and a world of cares.
Sunfire turned and left, blinking the tears from his eyes as he emerged into the black night. And hardly thinking, he turned to scramble up the pale wood of the Hollow Ash, onto the boughs where his father had sat for all these seasons.
Eyes glances up from all around camp, cats emerging from their dens, queens and apprentices and warriors gazing up at him.
He gave a hard swallow, voice cracking.
"Let all cats old enough—"
But the words faded off, unsaid. A low moan emerged from the den, and then a shout, tearing every cat's attention down to the roots of the tree.
"Swiftstorm…! Honeypad! Ryebreeze!" came Rowanstar's voice in a strain. They came rushing into the mouth of the elder's den, Murkpool and Elmpaw and Owlswoop following after, as Sunfire's guts tied themselves into knots. He leapt down from the bough and ducked in after them, in the far rear of all the other gathered cats.
"You called, Rowanstar?" Ryebreeze asked, leaning over him.
"What can we do for you?" Swiftstorm said. "How are you faring?"
"Why did you leave me here alone?" he wheezed, breaths quick.
"We left Sunfire, who said he'd sit by you," Ryebreeze said gently.
Weak eyes searched around wildly. "Sunfire? Where is he? Let me see him. He is not here."
"He was sitting atop the Ash," Swiftstorm told him.
"The Ash…?" His voice strained with anger now, shouting to rattle the Ash even in his weak condition. "Is he so hasty? Go seek him out!"
Sunfire pressed through the throng to Rowanstar's side. "Leave us here alone," their leader growled, and the leader's den cleared out in one breath.
"I never thought to hear you speak again," Sunfire murmured.
"Your wish was father to that thought," Rowanstar growled, trembling in his nest as he lifted his head. "I linger too long for you; I weary you. Do you hunger so much for my place that you'll take it before it's empty? Well, my day is dim. You have stolen what would've been yours, without offense, by the sunup… All your life, you've treated me with hate. And at the hour of my death, you've failed my expectation in you.
"Now Sunstar is LeafClan's leader… Here to fill our ranks with rogues and code-breakers, and teach our warriors to beg for Twoleg scraps. Let Twolegplace purge its scum, and send us its exiles, murderers, prey-stealers, and fox-hearts… LeafClan will give them name, and rank, and honor. My LeafClan… This forest will be a wilderness again, filled with wolves."
Sunfire leaned down close to him, throat strained with emotion. It felt like a spike of ice in his heart. "I am sorry, Rowanstar," he said at last, fighting away tears again, voice quivering. "StarClan witness me, when I came in and saw no breath from you, it struck my heart cold. If I lie, let me die as the failure I've been, and never live to show what I promised I could be.
"Coming to look at you, thinking you dead… I wanted this tree to burn down, like an enemy who'd murdered my father. I cursed it, cursed being your deputy. If you thought I felt the slightest hint of joy at the thought of sleeping here, StarClan keep me from it forever."
Rowanstar closed his eyes, sinking back down. "Oh, my son…" he rasped. "I love you. Come here, Sunfire, sit next to my nest. And hear, I think, the very last advice that I'll ever breathe…"
Sunfire forced himself to breathe steadily, settling himself close to his father's fading voice.
"StarClan knows what shortcuts and crooked ways I came to this den, and I know myself how troublesome I've slept in it. It will come to you in better peace, less doubt, because all that doubt will be buried with me.
"The leadership seemed to others like an honor snatched with a greedy claw, and many expected my eternal favor for helping to take it… Which grew to daily quarrel, and then bloodshed. I always feared those who helped me to this den, might be the ones to force me out. You can see my entire reign has been a tired kit-story, retold again and again. But even if you succeed me on more secure ground, it is not firm enough.
"Griefs are green, and all my friends—whom you must now befriend—have only recently had their claws and teeth taken out… So keep giddy minds busy with outside quarrels, that victory over our enemies might waste the memory of former days."
Rowanstar's eyes burned with a feverish light now, but he seemed to be staring right through him.
"When I went to Standing Stones, Lionpelt told me the forest shall grow over the meadows, at the rising of the sun… You must be that sun. You know the meadows. You know what our ancestor Stormstar once accomplished."
His voice was scratchy and weak now, the air wasted from his lungs. "How I came to be Rowanstar… Oh, StarClan forgive me for it, and grant you the nine lives of a leader…"
"Father, you won it, kept it, gave it to me. Then my possession is plain and right, and I will defend my place against all the world."
The sound of another cat approaching through the Ash's roots made him turn his head. "Look, look, here comes my Sorreltail," Rowanstar croaked.
"Health, peace, and happiness to you, Father," Sorreltail said quietly. Sunfire couldn't help but notice his brother's legs still speckled with blood, despite freshly dripping with creek water.
"You bring me happiness and peace, Sorreltail," Rowanstar said, sinking back in his nest. "But health flies from this bare, withered trunk, I'm afraid. Now that I've seen you again, I have nothing more left. Where is Swiftstorm? My daughters?"
"Swiftstorm!" Sunfire called out.
The young warrior filed in, Ryebreeze and Honeypad rushing past her to stand at their father's side.
Rowanstar purred faintly. "Who weaved these flowers in my nest?"
"Ryebreeze," Swiftstorm answered faintly.
"Praise be to StarClan," Rowanstar chuckled, a long sigh escaping his mouth. "It was prophesied to me that I would die among flowers, and I vainly supposed it must be a battlefield… Foolish. But I love these flowers much better."
With half-lidded eyes, Rowanstar stared up through the split in the Hollow Ash, to the lightening sky above, as a scarlet dawn began to break over the trees. And from there, he did not stir again.