Firestar’s Quest

As if she had made up her mind not to think too closely about what was happening, Sandstorm began licking the chewed-up marigold from Patchfoot’s shoulder. Firestar watched numbly as Spottedleaf crouched down beside the burdock, tucked her paws underneath her chest, and began to chew one of the roots. When the pulp was ready she showed Sandstorm how to use it, patting it well down into the wound.

Patchfoot stirred uneasily; Spottedleaf bent over him.

“Sleep now,” she whispered into his ear. “All will be well; I promise.”

As if he could hear her, Patchfoot sighed and seemed to settle more quietly.

Sandstorm blinked anxiously. “Will he really get better now?”

Spottedleaf nodded. “Just keep putting the root on his shoulder. You’ll find more in the wood by the stream that marks the boundary. Show the leaves to your warriors; then they’ll know what to look for.”

“Thank you, Spottedleaf,” Firestar meowed. Brushing his pelt against the medicine cat’s, he added, “I didn’t know you could come so far to help us. I haven’t seen you since we left the forest.”

Too late, he realized that Sandstorm was bristling beside him. “You mean you’ve seen Spottedleaf before?”

Firestar faced her to see anger and hurt in her green eyes.

“Spottedleaf visits me in dreams. She helps me—”

“You never told me!”

Firestar’s belly churned with guilt. He knew how insecure Sandstorm felt when she thought about Spottedleaf, knowing the connection she had shared with Firestar when she had been ThunderClan’s medicine cat. But he had never felt that he was betraying her by meeting Spottedleaf in his dreams.

Before he could reply, Spottedleaf slipped between the two of them and laid her tail tip gently on Sandstorm’s shoulder. “Peace, dear one,” she murmured. “Firestar loves you.”

“He loves you more.” Sandstorm’s voice was choked.

Spottedleaf hesitated, her amber eyes warm as she gazed at the ginger she-cat. “That’s not true. Firestar and I never discovered what we might have meant to each other,” she mewed at last. “I was alive in the forest for such a short time after he came to ThunderClan. But I know for sure”—her voice grew more intense—“that he and I could never have been mates. I was and always will be a medicine cat. That comes first, more than any cat who walks the forest, more even than Firestar.”

Sandstorm searched the tortoiseshell cat’s face. “Is that really true?”

“Of course,” Spottedleaf purred. “Even now I’m a medicine cat, not for my Clanmates in StarClan, but for all the cats in the forest below.”

“I love you, Sandstorm,” Firestar put in. “You’ll never be second-best for me. My love for you belongs here and now, in the life we share—and it will last for all the moons to come, I promise.”

Sandstorm looked from Spottedleaf to Firestar and back again. At last she took a long breath. “Thank you, Spottedleaf.

I’ve never stopped thinking about how you and Firestar seemed to belong together when he first came to the forest.

But I understand better now.”

“I thought you always knew how I felt about you,” Firestar mewed, bewildered.

Sandstorm blinked at him. Even though her eyes were full of love, there was a trace of exasperation there too. “Firestar, you can be so dense.”

Spottedleaf dipped her head. “I must go, but we will meet again, I promise. Until then, may StarClan light your path.”

“Good-bye, and thank you—not just for the burdock root,” Firestar meowed.

The tortoiseshell she-cat padded toward the cave entrance and paused for a heartbeat, her pelt brushing against his. Too softly for Sandstorm to hear, she murmured, “Sometimes I would give anything for things to be different.”

She did not wait for a reply. The moonlight had faded; for a heartbeat her slender shape was outlined against the first pale light of dawn from the sky above the far side of the gorge; then she was gone.

Sandstorm shook her head. “Have I been dreaming, or did that really happen?”

Firestar stepped to her side and pressed his muzzle against her shoulder. “It really happened.”

“I can’t believe she came to help us.”

“There’ll never be another cat in the forest like her. But she’s not you, Sandstorm.”

Sandstorm turned to gaze at him. “No more secrets, Firestar. I promise to try to understand how important Spottedleaf is to you, but I need to be able to trust you.”

“You can,” Firestar vowed.

Patchfoot let out a sigh, distracting Firestar from the depths of Sandstorm’s green eyes. The black-and-white warrior was quieter now, his breathing easier. He seemed to be sleeping more deeply.

“He’s going to be all right,” Firestar mewed. “And I think the rest of the Clan will be, too.”

“We’ll start extra battle training right away.” Firestar stood at the bottom of the Rockpile, with the SkyClan cats clustered around him. The sun had risen over the cliff top, casting long shadows down into the gorge. “We need to be as strong as possible when we go out to fight the rats.”