Mothwing swallowed. Would Hawkfrost be a good leader? I’m not sure. Before they’d come to the lake, she would have said yes. But lately he’d been restless, and she wasn’t sure she liked the brooding look in his eyes. She’d seen the same look in the eyes of their ThunderClan half brother, Brambleclaw. The two toms were more alike than she’d thought.
“I can’t just tell Leopardstar to get rid of Stormfur,” she argued. “Not without a reason.”
“Have a reason, then,” Hawkfrost answered, even more quietly. “Tell her you had a vision.” His tail was sweeping slowly back and forth, as if he scented prey.
Mothwing gasped. “I can’t!” she protested. “I couldn’t lie about that. Being a medicine cat means I have to be trustworthy.” She willed her brother to understand. “The way that it happened—that you tricked Mudfur into thinking he’d gotten a sign about me from StarClan—I’ve always been ashamed of that. I’ve been afraid of any cat finding out I’m not a proper medicine cat. It’s like heavy paws pushing me down sometimes, knowing that the whole Clan would turn on me if they knew. I can’t lie again. Being a medicine cat is the most important thing in my life.”
Hawkfrost looked at her calmly, his eyes cold. He’d never looked at her quite that way before, and suddenly Mothwing was sure that Tigerstar, the father she’d never met, had looked at cats with that same clear, considering gaze, before he’d done the awful things he did. “Sometimes it takes a lie to keep another lie secret,” he meowed softly.
Mothwing jerked back in shock. “You wouldn’t tell them, would you?”
There was a long, silent pause. Then, without acknowledging her question, Hawkfrost asked, “What if StarClan sent you a dream? A dream about Stormfur and Brook.”
As he outlined his plan, his long claws unsheathed and digging at the dirt of the medicine den’s floor, Mothwing couldn’t speak. She could only stare at him silently, her heart pounding. She felt scared, and terribly sad. What had happened to her littermate? When had he changed?
“I hope you’re proud of yourself,” Mothwing muttered. She licked angrily at the long scratches dug into Hawkfrost’s belly.
“Ouch!” Hawkfrost protested, jerking away. “You’re supposed to be on my side. We belong with each other, remember?”
“I am on your side,” Mothwing replied automatically, then stilled for a moment in her treatment of his wounds. Were she and Hawkfrost really allied now? Would he have threatened to expose her if they were? “I’m on RiverClan’s side,” she amended. “What good does it do the Clan for you to taunt Stormfur into attacking you? When Leopardstar made him and Brook leave, we lost good Clanmates.”
“We got rid of a threat,” Hawkfrost corrected her. “And I couldn’t have done it without you. When you told the Gathering about that dream you made up—two pebbles out of place, stopping the river from flowing smoothly—it began to turn the Clan against them. If our Clanmates weren’t already wary of him, they might have seen my fight with Stormfur differently.”
“I’m ashamed I made up that dream,” Mothwing hissed. “I wish I’d never done it.”
“Is that why you didn’t back me up this time?” Hawkfrost asked, his voice chilling. “‘Sometimes a dream is just a dream,’” he mimicked in a squeaky meow. “You’re forgetting where your loyalties lie.”
“My loyalties lie with RiverClan,” Mothwing told him. “And so should yours.”
“They do.” Hawkfrost looked down at her with wide, startled eyes. “When I’m the leader of RiverClan, we’ll be the strongest Clan of all.” He began to purr. “You’ll be at my side as medicine cat. We’ll take over ShadowClan one day, too. And our brother Brambleclaw will be the leader of ThunderClan, and they’ll take over WindClan. All the cats of the forest, safe in our kin’s paws.”
A cold shudder ran through Mothwing. “That’s not right,” she meowed. “There have to be four Clans.” Taking over the other Clans—wasn’t that what Tigerstar had wanted? Was her brother—along with her half brother; she knew Brambleclaw must be part of this plan—following in their father’s footsteps?
“There have to be?” Hawkfrost asked, still purring. “Who says? StarClan? I thought you didn’t believe in them.”
“No.” Mothwing’s tail drooped sadly. “I wish I did. But it’s still not right. Isn’t RiverClan enough?”
Hawkfrost’s ears twitched. “Just keep your mouth shut and stick to giving out herbs,” he snapped. He leaned down and pressed his muzzle to hers. “I’ll take care of you. And you’ll see, RiverClan will thank us in the end. Our home will always be safe.”
Hawkfrost’s wounds were clean. Instinctively, Mothwing reached for the marigold, to keep away infection. Who would be treating Stormfur’s wounds? She felt suddenly exhausted, the secrets and lies she was carrying weighing her down, pushing her into the mud of the stream banks. Her mouth was sour with guilt.
Maybe RiverClan would be safer with Hawkfrost in the lead, the way he claimed. But she didn’t feel safe.
Chapter 6
“It was scary, but it was beautiful, too,” Willowpaw gushed, as she and Mothwing walked side by side up the path that led out of the Moonpool’s hollow. Mothwing glanced down affectionately at her young apprentice, whose green eyes were shining brightly with excitement.
“You did very well,” she meowed. “How does it feel to be an official medicine-cat apprentice?” Mothwing had worried that somehow her secret would come out as she presented Willowpaw to StarClan for the first time. How was she going to guide her apprentice into having the right sort of dreams when she didn’t herself?
But it seemed like everything had gone perfectly. Willowpaw had dreamed of StarClan, and if she thought it had been more than a dream, Mothwing wasn’t going to discourage her. And Leafpool had offered to guide the apprentice in all the parts of her training where Mothwing couldn’t: interpreting the dreams and signs the other medicine cats believed were sent by StarClan.
Mothwing’s pelt prickled uneasily as she looked ahead to where she could see Leafpool’s silhouette leading them up the path. Had she been right to tell Leafpool the truth? She’d told her everything, from the false sign Hawkfrost had planted to how Hawkfrost had made her lie to turn the Clan against Stormfur. Guilt and horror churned inside her whenever she thought about it, and she’d half expected Leafpool to expose her to the other medicine cats and encourage RiverClan to drive her and Hawkfrost away.
But Leafpool had been so kind. Mothwing wanted to trust her.
Still, Mothwing was nervous. If Hawkfrost, Mothwing’s own littermate, could turn on her and use her secrets against her, so could any cat.
As they reached the top of the path, Mothwing breathed in deep and let the cool night air caress and calm her until one thought became clear: What’s done is done.
Leafpool had pointed out to her that Hawkfrost wouldn’t risk telling any cat that he had planted the moth-wing sign. No leader would make him deputy if they knew how he’d lied and cheated. He was as vulnerable as Mothwing was. But the thought wasn’t as comforting to Mothwing as it should have been. She wanted them both to be safe.
A shadow fell across the hollow, and Mothwing looked up to see a cloud slipping across the moon. A proper medicine cat would read a message in that shadow, she thought, and shivered as a cold breeze blew through her pelt.
Flipping her tail in farewell to Leafpool, and to Barkface and Littlecloud, who were already hurrying in the directions of their own territories, Mothwing turned her attention back to her apprentice as the half-moon reemerged from behind the cloud and they headed toward RiverClan’s camp.