Bluestar's Prophecy

Bluefur understood. “And you kept it a secret in case the Clan thought you did not have StarClan’s full blessing.” She tipped her head to one side. “But you can be honest now, surely? You have proved over and over that you are a great leader. What cat would doubt it?”

“A cat with ambition might choose to doubt it.”

He means Thistleclaw. Bluefur returned his steady gaze. “But what about me? I have ambition,” she pointed out.

“Only to serve your Clan,” Sunstar answered. “That is why I chose you. You have suffered much and lost much, and yet you still serve your Clanmates, putting their needs before yours, willing to sacrifice all for the sake of your Clan.”

If only he knew!

“My Clan is all I have now,” Bluefur confessed. “I will give every breath in my body to serve it.” Regret tugged in her belly.

But I am fire. And this is the path I must follow.

Chapter 43

“Come!” Featherwhisker called softly from the shadows inside Mothermouth.

Bluefur breathed the cold, mineral air flooding from the dark opening. It reminded her of her trip there many seasons before, with Pinestar. Now she had come to receive her nine lives. When she returned to her Clan she would be Bluestar, leader of ThunderClan.

She remembered Sunstar’s death with a pang. Weakened by illness, he’d been unable to outrun a Twoleg dog that was roaming loose in the forest. It had killed him before the patrol could drive it off. Bluefur mourned his loss deeply, regretting that he had not been able to share words with her before dying. But she took comfort in knowing that he had never wanted to suffer a slow death as Tawnyspots had, joining StarClan only after days of agony that even Featherwhisker’s herbs could not ease.

Featherwhisker led her down to the cave of the Moonstone. The darkness pressing around her still made Bluefur uncomfortable. It felt as though she were drowning in thick black water that she could taste but not feel. At the end of the tunnel, the cave was filled with shadows. Watery starlight filtered through the hole in the roof, scarcely penetrating the dark.

“Not long till moonhigh,” Featherwhisker promised.

Bluefur padded across the rough cave floor and lay at the foot of the Moonstone. It stood solid and dull in the center of the cave, untouched by moonlight. But as Bluefur rested her nose between her paws, the moon began to slip across the hole in the arching roof and the crystals began to shimmer like tiny trapped suns.

Dazzled, Bluefur flinched away.

“Press your nose against it,” Featherwhisker urged.

Screwing up her eyes, Bluefur leaned forward and touched the Moonstone. It was cold and smelled of darkness and old, old rock. Instantly the cave rushed away and Bluefur felt herself being swept through blackness, darker than night, tossed and swirled on an invisible river. Panic seized her and she struggled, flailing her paws, until suddenly she felt soft grass beneath them.

Blinking open her eyes, she saw the Great Rock rising above her and the four great oaks marking each corner of the clearing. She was at Fourtrees. Alone. She glanced up at the crow-black sky, speckled with stars.

Why were there no cats there to receive her? Didn’t StarClan want her to be the leader of ThunderClan? Perhaps the sacrifices she’d made were unforgivable.

Then the stars began to swirl like leaves caught in an eddy. They gathered speed until they blurred together in a silvery spiral, down, down, down toward the forest, toward Fourtrees, toward her.

Bluefur waited, her heart in her throat.

The spiral of starlight slowed, and the cats of StarClan stalked from the sky. Frost sparkled at their paws and glittered in their eyes. Their pelts shone like ice, and they carried the scent of all the seasons on their fur: the tang of leaf-bare snow mingled with the green scent of newleaf, the musk of leaf-fall, and the sweet blossom of greenleaf.

Countless cats lined the hollow—bodies shimmering, eyes blazing—and filled the slopes in silence. Bluefur crouched at the center. She forced herself to lift her head and look at the cats, and stretched her eyes wide when she realized that some faces were familiar. She recognized Mumblefoot and Weedwhisker, and beside them Larksong, who looked pleased to be with her denmates again. Goosefeather was with them; he’d died exactly as he’d predicted, on the first snow of leaf-bare.

And Pinestar! StarClan had accepted him after his ninth life, despite his betrayal. Bluefur felt a rush of joy to see the red-brown warrior sitting among his Clan, where he truly belonged. She met his eyes, and he nodded.