“I need you to find Flametail and tell him to visit Littlecloud.” Jayfeather bounded after her. “Flametail’s got to explain that I tried to save him from drowning, not murder him.”
Yellowfang shook her head. “Sorry, Jayfeather. StarClan is divided. I can’t cross Clan lines.”
“But you used to be ShadowClan,” Jayfeather reminded her.
She turned on him, and he felt her eyes blazing. “I am
“But—” Jayfeather was pleading to empty air. Yellowfang had gone.
“Mouse dung!” Furious, Jayfeather broke into a run. Letting memory of his territory guide him, he raced up the slope till he broke free of the trees and felt the fresh, cold wind from the lake streaming over his pelt. He twitched his whiskers as he smelled another scent. “Leafpool?”
She padded out of the forest and stopped beside him. “Are you okay?”
Jayfeather tensed, ready to argue, but no words came. He felt hollow.
“Firestar seemed flustered when he came back to camp,” Leafpool meowed softly. “I was worried about you.”
Leafpool moved closer without touching him. “I know how it feels, to lose your place as medicine cat.”
“Firestar says I can keep treating my Clanmates,” Jayfeather reminded her.
“Brightheart could treat the Clan,” Leafpool pointed out. “But that doesn’t make her a medicine cat.” Anger suddenly sparked from her pelt. “You need to be able to visit StarClan and share with the other medicine cats and our ancestors.”
Jayfeather jerked away from her, unnerved that she understood so clearly. “I don’t care,” he insisted. He wasn’t going to be tricked into feeling close to her.
“Go to the Moonpool.” Leafpool ignored his protest. “Share your dreams with StarClan. Find Flametail and make him tell the truth to his Clanmates.”
Jayfeather flattened his ears. “How can I go? I’m not allowed to be a medicine cat outside ThunderClan!”
“No one can stop you from visiting the Moonpool,” Leafpool argued. “Do you think any cat would risk displeasing StarClan by standing in your way? Go to them and
Chapter 3
When he reached the Moonpool, Jayfeather called out hopefully. “Is anyone there?”
His mew echoed back, unanswered. He was alone.
Pushing away disappointment, he followed the dimpled path that spiraled down into the heart of the hollow. The wind whined overhead, worrying at the encircling rock like an abandoned kit searching for its mother. Jayfeather longed to feel the pelts of long-dead cats that used to jostle and hurry him down to the water’s edge. But there was no sign of the Ancients who had dented the stone with their pawsteps over so many generations. Jayfeather stopped alone at the water’s edge, hollow with a loneliness he’d never felt before. Closing his eyes, he crouched beside the Moonpool and touched his nose to the water.
“Jayfeather.”
Jayfeather sat up. He had expected to wake in the warm meadows of StarClan. But he was still in the hollow.
“Jayfeather.” A she-cat sat beside him.
He’d awoken into a vision; he could see her white pelt, spotted black along her flanks. Her pink nose stretched toward him, twitching as she sniffed.
Jayfeather blinked at her. “Who are you?”
“Brambleberry of RiverClan.”
“Did Willowshine send you?” Jayfeather felt a flash of hope. Perhaps the RiverClan medicine cat was trying to communicate with him despite the rift between Clans.
Brambleberry shook her head. “I came to appeal to your wisdom, not hers.”
“But you’re RiverClan.”
“So?” Starlight twinkled in Brambleberry’s round blue eyes. “The Clans are like honeysuckle. One tendril chokes the other to reach for the light, believing they grow from separate stems.”
Jayfeather pricked his ears as she went on.
“When the sun shines, young leaves fight for its warmth. The struggle makes the bush strong, each branch seeking out the light and climbing ever higher.” Brambleberry’s eyes darkened. “But when there is no sun, when the leaves begin to fall and the branches wither one by one, the stem must look to its roots for nourishment.”
“So instead of four branches, there is one root,” Jayfeather murmured. “But how? The Clans have been divided since the beginning of time.”
“You have created your own boundaries, setting them and patrolling them.” Brambleberry tipped her head to one side. “But they exist only in your minds. Why else would you have to mark them each day with fresh scent?”