“What happened to them then?” Bramblestar felt like a kit begging the elders for a story.
“They made their home in a gorge where the forest river rises. But there were dangers that they never expected, and SkyClan almost died out, until cats began to settle in the gorge again, and StarClan sent me and Sandstorm to help them form a new SkyClan.”
“So that’s where you went!” Bramblestar exclaimed. “That time you disappeared for moons and left Graystripe to lead the Clan.”
Firestar dipped his head. “That’s right. And it wasn’t easy, let me tell you.”
Bramblestar’s head spun. How had the Clans kept this massive secret for so long? “What about SkyClan now? Did they survive?”
“I don’t know,” Firestar admitted. “They have their own warrior ancestors, and I can’t see them from my StarClan, though Cloudstar once visited me here. But I have faith in Leafstar, the cat who became their leader, and her deputy, Sharpclaw, and their medicine cat, Echosong. And if they follow the warrior code, it will protect them.” He paused for a moment, memories flickering in his eyes like minnows in a stream. “The four leaders who drove SkyClan out realized that they had been wrong,” he meowed. “They came to Leafstar and each gave her one of her nine lives. It was more than an apology: It was an acknowledgment that one Clan cannot survive alone, that we owe the others a debt that is greater than we know. And that proved to me what I’ve known all along: that the safety of each Clan depends on all the others.”
Bramblestar began to understand why Firestar had told him this story, but he didn’t dare to interrupt.
“Fighting the badgers was your chance to do the right thing,” Firestar told him, “to save ShadowClan from being driven out of their territory altogether. The Clans traveled a long way to find this home. We can’t lose it now. It’s not up to any one Clan to protect the others; all of us have to fight together to survive.”
“Like in the Great Battle,” Bramblestar meowed.
“Exactly!”
“Tell me more about SkyClan,” Bramblestar went on, his pelt pricking with curiosity about these cats he had never heard of before. “Did they—?”
He broke off as the sun began to rise above the treetops, spilling warm light into the hollow. Firestar’s flame-colored form was already beginning to fade.
“There is one other cat who knows what happened with SkyClan,” he mewed; the words seemed to come from an immense distance as the last glimmer of his green eyes vanished. “If you have any more questions, ask her.”
Bramblestar woke to find his cats stirring around him, heading out of the tunnel in their eagerness to begin the new day. Firestar’s last words echoed in his ears.
I know which cat he meant.
Following his Clanmates out of the tunnel, he padded over to Squirrelflight, who was starting to organize the first patrols. “Don’t put me in a patrol just yet,” he meowed. “There’s something I have to do first.”
Squirrelflight nodded. “No problem.”
A paw poked Bramblestar in the side, and he turned to see Jessy. “Hey,” she protested. “I thought we were going hunting this morning.”
Bramblestar dipped his head. “I know. But this is important. We’ll go later, okay?”
Jessy gave him a light flick with her tail, and bounded off to join Frankie, Cloudtail, and Millie. Bramblestar watched her go, then went to look for Sandstorm. He found her sitting in a patch of sunlight near the mudpile. Jayfeather had just dropped a spray of leaves at her paws.
“But I’m perfectly capable of joining a patrol,” Sandstorm was objecting. “I’m hardly coughing at all.”
“You’re capable when I say you are,” Jayfeather retorted. “Now eat the tansy and get some rest.”
Sandstorm sighed, rolling her eyes, but she licked up the leaves without any more argument. Bramblestar padded up as Jayfeather disappeared into the tunnel again.
“Firestar visited me in a dream last night,” he announced as he sat down beside the pale ginger she-cat.
Joy glowed in Sandstorm’s green eyes. “That’s wonderful!” she exclaimed. “I dream about Firestar all the time, but it’s not the same as a real visit.”
“I know he’s watching over you,” Bramblestar assured her. “He sent me to talk to you.”
“Oh?” Sandstorm’s whiskers twitched. “What about?”
“In my dream, he told me about SkyClan. I wanted to know more, and he said that you were the cat I should ask.”
“SkyClan… oh, yes.” Sandstorm reached out with her forepaws to give herself a good stretch. “That was an amazing time! So scary… but it was fun, too, and what we did was important.”
“Tell me about it,” Bramblestar urged her.
Sandstorm described how the former SkyClan leader, Cloudstar, had visited Firestar in a dream and given him the task of traveling upriver to discover the remains of his Clan. “When we came to the gorge where the river rises, it seemed empty at first. But we learned that an old cat came to sit on the rocks at every full moon to watch the stars and speak to the spirits of his ancestors. His name was Sky.”
“And he was the last surviving cat of SkyClan?” Bramblestar asked, fascinated.
Sandstorm shook her head. “No, but his mother’s mother was born into the Clan. She passed down the warrior code to her daughter, who passed it down to Sky.”
“And he kept the memories alive…” Bramblestar murmured. “What happened next?”
“Firestar thought that all he needed to do was find SkyClan, but the old cat Sky didn’t agree. He wanted to see SkyClan restored… So that’s what we did, though it wasn’t as easy as that makes it sound.”
“Where did you find enough cats?”
“There were rogues living in the forest around the gorge. We had to rescue one she-cat and her kits from a Twoleg who was starving them. We scared him out of his fur! And there were two young kittypets who became our first apprentices: Cherrypaw and Sparrowpaw. They were a pawful, and no mistake! They took Firestar into the Twolegplace nearby to see if any other kittypets wanted to join.”
“And did they?” Bramblestar asked, surprised.
“Oh, yes.” Sandstorm’s eyes glimmered with amusement. “Echosong, who became the medicine cat… She was a kittypet.”
Bramblestar blinked in surprise.
“In the end,” Sandstorm went on, “we discovered what had destroyed the original SkyClan. There was a huge Twoleg den that was full of rats. The rats started attacking the new Clan in the gorge, so we had to go and fight them.” For a heartbeat her gaze became shadowed. “Firestar lost a life there.”
Bramblestar pressed himself against her side. “It was hard for both of you. SkyClan owes you a lot.”
Sandstorm dipped her head in agreement. “Yes, but they repaid us, in a way. Skywatcher—that was the warrior name Firestar gave to Sky—died while we were there, but before he died, he made a prophecy.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “‘There will be three, kin of your kin, who will hold the power of the stars in their paws.’”
Bramblestar felt his heart skip a beat. “The Prophecy of the Three came from SkyClan!” he murmured. “Everything is connected.”
The two cats shared a few heartbeats of silence, until Bramblestar meowed, “Why didn’t Firestar tell all the Clans about SkyClan when you came home?”
“I asked him that once,” Sandstorm replied. “He said that the burden of guilt didn’t need to be carried on. StarClan had done its best to make amends by sending Firestar and me to build a new SkyClan.” Gently she added, “There is a time for guilt and shame to stop.”