Bluestar's Prophecy

Bluefur didn’t answer. She let the kits stumble along underneath her belly, sheltered from the snow that had started to fall. She glanced back, as if Mosskit might be struggling after them, wailing at them to let her catch up. To her horror, the snow-hole was starting to fill up. No! I might lose her! She looked around wildly for somewhere to leave Stonekit and Mistykit while she went back to rescue their sister. Farther along the riverbank, two shapes were padding steadily away. Had Oakheart brought another cat with him? No—these cats were unhindered by the snow, gliding over the surface. Behind them, the snow was white and unmarked. These cats left no paw prints behind. One was full-grown, with a thick pelt of white fur that made her almost invisible. The other was patched with gray, and barely as high as her companion’s belly. The kit was looking up eagerly at Snowfur as they walked, as if she was telling her something exciting.

Good-bye, Mosskit. Snowfur will look after you now.

“Ow!” Beneath Bluefur, Stonekit crashed forward onto his nose. “This ground is hard!” he yowled.

They had reached the edge of Sunningrocks. Paw steps crunched toward them.

“Are they okay?” Oakheart asked quietly.

Bluefur nodded without looking up at him. His scent wreathed around her, warm and comforting. For a fleeting moment Bluefur longed to go with him. She wanted to walk the rest of her days at Oakheart’s side. Never have to leave him or her kits.

But she couldn’t.

She had to save her Clan.

The kits were staring up at the stranger with their heads on one side.

“This is Stonekit,” Bluefur trembled as she touched the light gray kit with her nose. “And this is Mistykit.” Her throat grew tight. She began to back away, her eyes blurring. I can’t say good-bye to them! “Please take care of them.”

“Where’s the other one?” Oakheart called.

“Dead.” Bluefur stumbled but didn’t look around, not wanting to take her eyes from her kits.

“Bluefur, come back!”

“Where are you going?”

“Are you coming back to get us?”

Unable to bear their desperate cries, she turned and fled into the trees.

She stopped by the clump of ferns. The snow-hole had vanished, but Bluefur dug down, ignoring the pain in her frozen paws, until she reached the tiny body. She carefully lifted Mosskit out—she didn’t even smell like the nursery anymore—and kept digging. There was no way Bluefur was leaving her daughter for foxes when the snow thawed. The ground ripped at her claws and rubbed her pads raw but she kept scraping the frozen earth until the hole was deep enough to protect her kit. Numb, she laid Mosskit’s body in the hole and covered it over.

She limped back to camp on throbbing, stumbling paws. There was one more thing she had to do. One more lie to tell my Clanmates. She slipped in through the dirtplace tunnel and quietly clawed a fox-sized hole in the back of the nursery.

Then she squeezed through the den entrance, checked that White-eye, Mousekit, and Runningkit were asleep, climbed into her nest, and deliberately, loudly called an alarm to her Clan.

“My kits! My kits are gone!”

Chapter 42

Adderfang spoke gently. “Bluefur, would you like to join a hunting patrol today?”

Bluefur gazed at him, trying to focus.

A moon had passed since she’d left her kits with Oakheart. The nursery walls had been fortified with extra brambles. Two warriors sat guard through each freezing night to make sure that no fox or badger would ever steal into the nursery again. The Clan had believed Bluefur’s story—that she’d awoken to find her kits gone. Every cat believed that they had been stolen by an animal that had clawed a hole in the back of the nursery, driven by starvation to venture into the camp for the first time.

They’d searched the forest for days, not knowing where to look, the scent trail killed by freezing snow. Bluefur had scoured the woods with her Clanmates, numb with guilt, reminding herself over and over that she’d done it for her Clan. Meanwhile hunger and sorrow gripped the Clan. They spoke in low voices and huddled in knots, eyeing Bluefur with pity that stabbed her like thorns. She was sick of telling lies. She hardly noticed how empty the fresh-kill pile was these days. She was too miserable to eat, wishing only to hide in sleep. She felt as though the shard of ice piercing her heart would never melt.

They’ll be safe with Oakheart.

The thought wasn’t enough to ease her grief.

Was Mosskit watching from StarClan, hating Bluefur for stealing her life? Had Snowfur explained that her life had been sacrificed for the good of her Clan?

“Bluefur.” Adderfang rested his tail on her shoulder and repeated his question. “Do you feel up to hunting?”