Sunrise

Some of Lionblaze’s tension melted away as he batted the leaf back to the kit. This was almost like playing with the kits back in the stone hollow. Speckle’s litter were big and strong, almost ready to become apprentices.

Soon they should be learning to fight and hunt, he thought. Do these cats have the skills to teach them properly?

Hollyleaf joined in the game, too, chasing the leaf and pouncing on it until all four kits collapsed, panting, beside their mother.

“They’re fine kits,” Lionblaze gasped, flopping down on the floor in front of Speckle. “They’ll grow up to be strong cats.”

“I hope so,” Speckle murmured. She bent over Frisk, licking his rumpled fur. Then she looked up again. “Whatever you think Sol has done, you’re wrong.”

Lionblaze’s belly lurched as he glanced at his sister; Hollyleaf’s green eyes were wide with alarm. How much does this cat know?

He was too startled to reply. After a couple of heartbeats, Speckle went on quietly: “Sol never gets his own paws dirty. If something has happened, another cat did it—maybe at Sol’s bidding, maybe not. You won’t be able to accuse him of anything.”

There was a yearning in her voice; even though she knew the damage Sol had done here, she clearly wanted him back.

“Is Sol the father of your kits?” Hollyleaf asked, reaching out her tail to touch the brown queen’s flank.

Speckle shook her head. “Their father left when the dogs started to become a problem.” She hesitated, then added almost defiantly, “I wanted them to be Sol’s. I know that the other cats say he betrayed us, but we were the ones who decided to fight the dogs. Sol didn’t force us to do anything.”

No, he just made it seem as if you couldn’t do anything else. Lionblaze couldn’t speak the words aloud to Speckle. It was obvious she was still deeply in love with the loner.

He and Hollyleaf exchanged another glance. Neither of them had mentioned Ashfur, but Lionblaze knew that the gray warrior’s death must be weighing on his littermate’s thoughts, just as it was on his own.

Speckle bent her head and went on grooming Frisk. “If Sol came back,” she mewed between licks, “I’d be very glad to see him.”

CHAPTER 12

Jayfeather shifted uncomfortably on the bare earth. How was any cat supposed to sleep without a proper nest? But Leafpool had kept him so busy the day before that there had been no time to search for fresh moss. “It’ll do the den good to be aired out,” Leafpool had said. Huh! Jayfeather wriggled again, feeling a cold dawn wind ruffle his pelt.

The sound of a cat brushing past the bramble screen brought him properly awake. He picked up Leafpool’s scent, and the smell of the moss she carried in her jaw. At last! But why didn’t she ask me to help? Jayfeather’s paws itched with irritation that Leafpool seemed determined to do even the most basic tasks without him. Does she think I’m too incompetent even to carry moss?

But there was no point in protesting. Jayfeather stumbled out of the scoop where his nest should have been and helped Leafpool arrange the moss near the trickle of water, where sick cats slept.

“Do you want me to fetch more?” he offered.

His mentor’s only reply was a grunt that could have meant anything. Jayfeather wanted to ask her what was biting her, but he knew she wouldn’t tell him anything. She’d probably claw my ears off just for asking, he muttered to himself. The only way I’ll get any answers—about my own past and what’s going on with Leafpool—is if I look for them myself.

While he pushed the moss tidily into place, Jayfeather cast his mind back to his earliest memories. His littermates’ absence stabbed him like a claw. We might find out a lot more if we could share what we remember!

He recalled a long, cold journey, stumbling through snow that reached up to his belly fur, following his mother’s scent.

No—Squirrelflight’s scent! Pausing with a pawful of moss, he tried to think himself back into that snowbound forest. He strove to distinguish each individual scent: his own, Lionblaze’s, Hollyleaf’s, Squirrelflight’s…and there was another! Another adult cat, a warm and bulky shape. He’d never remembered this detail before, but another cat was definitely there, just ahead of Squirrelflight, forcing a way through the snow….

Who was that? Jayfeather wondered. Did two cats bring us back to the hollow?