“What does it mean?” Shadowpaw asked. “It can’t be good … right?”
“I wouldn’t worry about it.” Puddleshine pressed his muzzle briefly into Shadowpaw’s shoulder, a comforting gesture. “Maybe it’s because the Moonpool is freezing over. Once it thaws, the StarClan cats will be stronger presences again.”
Shadowpaw wished he could believe his mentor, but the other medicine cats were exchanging doubtful looks, and he wasn’t sure that even Puddleshine believed what he had just said. However, no cat spoke to contradict him. None of them seemed ready to talk about what had happened—they just headed back up the slope and out of the hollow, then said their farewells.
Padding at Puddleshine’s side on the way back to ShadowClan, Shadowpaw still felt a worried tingle in his fur. If this has never happened before, why is it happening now? What does it mean? Turning to Puddleshine, he opened his jaws and began, “What do you—”
But Puddleshine’s expression had grown somehow remote, as if he was turned in on himself in thought. Shadowpaw didn’t know why, but he got the sense that this wasn’t the time to bother his mentor with an apprentice’s questions.
Remembering the cloudy shapes and the distant voices, Shadowpaw felt a dark cloud hovering over him and all the Clans, as if a devastating storm were about to unleash itself. Once again he tried to tell himself that he was anxious because he didn’t have the others’ experience. He just needed more time to get used to it.
Surely that’s all it is … right?
Books by Erin Hunter
NOVELLA COLLECTIONS
The Untold Stories
Tales from the Clans
Shadows of the Clans
Legends of the Clans
Path of a Warrior
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Copyright
A WARRIOR’S SPIRIT. Pebbleshine’s Kits, Tree’s Roots, Mothwing’s Secret. Copyright © 2020 by Working Partners Limited. Series created by Working Partners Limited. Map art © 2020 by Dave Stevenson. Interior art © 2020 by Owen Richardson. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
www.harpercollinschildrens.com
Cover art © 2020 by Owen Richardson
Cover design by Ellice M. Lee
Library of Congress Control Number: 2019026612
Digital Edition MARCH 2020 ISBN: 978-0-06-285742-2
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-285741-5
2021222324PC/BRR10987654321
FIRST EDITION
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