Bluestar's Prophecy

Clouds covered the sky, yellow and heavy with the threat of snow. Bluefur shivered and scanned the far bank once more. She couldn’t wait any longer. She was hungry and cold. As she turned, disappointed, to head up the bank, a flash of movement on the other side of the river caught her eye. She leaned forward hopefully, her heart quickening when she recognized the sleek, tawny pelt of Oakheart.

But there were other cats with him. He was on a patrol, flanked by Owlfur and Ottersplash. Bluefur backed away as the RiverClan patrol padded to the river’s edge, but it was too late. The cats had spotted her.

Ottersplash scowled across the water. “Hoping for fish?” she sneered.

Oakheart didn’t look at Bluefur. “ThunderClan doesn’t like getting their paws wet,” he reminded the she-cat. “You two go back to camp and tell Crookedstar that ThunderClan is at the border,” Oakheart told his Clanmates. “I’ll stay here and see how many more of them are hanging around.”

Ottersplash and Owlfur hared away into the trees.

Oakheart stood on the shore with water lapping his paws. “It’s been a while,” he called across the dark, swirling river.

“I—I need you.”

Hope flared in Oakheart’s eyes. Bluefur winced, anticipating his disappointment with a pang. Did he really think she’d come to tell him they could meet in secret again?

He slid into the water and swam across, unswerving despite the tug of the current, gliding through the water as smoothly as an otter. He padded onto the stones and trotted to her side. “What’s the matter?”

Bluefur looked at her paws. She couldn’t just come out with it. She hadn’t seen him in a moon. How would he react? “Your brother didn’t make you deputy,” she meowed.

“No.”

“But I thought you wanted to be leader one day.”

“He offered. I refused. I haven’t earned it yet. But I will.” Oakheart glanced over his shoulder. “We don’t have long. What’s the matter?”

“Are you disappointed—about not being deputy?”

“Bluefur!” His mew grew stern. “Crookedstar is about to send a patrol.”

“Okay.” She took a deep breath. “I’m going to have kits.”

Oakheart’s eyes widened like an owl’s. Bluefur waited for him to say something while the forest whirled around her and the ground swayed beneath her paws.

“It’ll be all right.” He pressed against her, his wet fur icy on her pelt. “Our kits will be great. Brave and strong and clever—good at swimming and climbing trees!”

Bluefur flinched. He was completely missing the point. “We’re in different Clans,” she reminded him.

“That’s a problem,” Oakheart admitted. “But you can join RiverClan, or I can join ThunderClan. It’s been done before.”

“Has it?” Bluefur demanded.

“There’s a cat in your Clan—Windflight—whose father was WindClan. Didn’t you know that?”

Bluefur shook her head, shocked. No cat had ever mentioned it. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“So why does no one talk about it?” she snapped.

Oakheart shrugged.

Bluefur knew why. “Because if it’s true, they’re all too ashamed. The ThunderClan cats who let Windflight be raised in their camp, the WindClan cats who didn’t claim him as their own. They’d rather forget it. Do you want our kits to grow up like that?”

“But if I joined ThunderClan, they’d be ThunderClan kits,” Oakheart argued.

Bluefur stared. “You’d do that for me?”

“For you and for our kits, in a heartbeat.”

“But you want to become leader one day. You could never do that in ThunderClan. You’d always be an outsider.”

Oakheart lowered his gaze. “There are plenty of cats in RiverClan who want to be leader.”

“But you could do it!” Bluefur felt wretched. She couldn’t let him give up his dream. “You can’t leave your Clan.”

“Then will you leave yours and come to live with RiverClan?”

“I can’t.”

“If you’re worried about the swimming, I’ll teach you, like I promised.”

“It’s not that.” Bluefur thought of Thistleclaw with ambition burning in his eyes, and Goosefeather’s words: Blood lies in his path. Fire lies in yours. “My Clan needs me.”

Oakheart’s eyes glazed. “I need you, too.”

Bluefur slowly shook her head. “No, you don’t. I’m going to raise these kits as ThunderClan. My Clanmates will assume that a ThunderClan cat is the father.”

Oakheart drew away sharply. “Any cat in particular?”

“No!” It came as a sob. “But this is the only way it can be. Don’t you see that? To give our kits the best chance, I must raise them as if they were pure ThunderClan.”

“What about me?” Oakheart protested.

Bluefur curled her lip. “It’s my problem,” she growled, turning to leave. “I’m the one having these kits. I’ll be the one raising them without a father!”

“They can have a father if you want,” Oakheart breathed.

Bluefur felt something move in her belly. The kits were starting to fidget. Did they know what was going on? I’ll make it okay, she promised them as she headed up the bank.

“I’ll be here if you need me,” Oakheart called after her. “I love you, Bluefur. Whatever happens, they will always be my kits, too!”

Chapter 39