“Okay, keep your fur on,” Jayfeather muttered. “Tell me what happens.”
“Be kind to her!” Leafpool called after Lionblaze as he bounded away.
Out in the forest, Lionblaze followed Cinderheart’s scent trail. She seemed to have dashed blindly away from the hollow, breaking through the undergrowth, leaving tufts of gray fur on brambles that trailed across her path. He found her at last crouched under a leaf-laden hazel bush, shredding a twig to pieces with her claws.
“You’ll need medicine cat skills to put that back together,” Lionblaze joked as he slid underneath the hazel boughs and crouched beside her.
“Really?” Cinderheart looked up at him, her blue gaze savage with misery. “Aren’t I lucky, then, that I have so many?”
Lionblaze realized that he had said the wrong thing. “I’m sorry,” he mewed. “I hate this, too, for both our sakes.”
The rage faded from Cinderheart’s eyes. “I don’t know who I am anymore.”
“You’re Cinderheart,” Lionblaze assured her, touching her ear with his nose. “You always have been.”
“No, not always,” Cinderheart replied, blinking unhappily. “Once I was Cinderpelt. And I’ve walked this path before, every step of it.”
“What do you mean?” Lionblaze asked, confused. “You’re a warrior now, not a medicine cat.”
“I don’t know what I am.” Cinderheart gave a last scratch at the remains of the twig. “But what I meant was… I’ve been in love before with a cat that I couldn’t have.” Her eyes clouded. “Poor Cinderpelt,” she whispered. “There was so much that was taken away from her…”
Lionblaze flinched. I can’t take any more of this. “We’ll talk later,” he murmured to Cinderheart, then scrambled out from underneath the hazel bush and headed for the lake.
When he reached the water’s edge he sat down and stared out over the tossing gray water. They’re so lucky, he thought moodily, picturing the life of the Clans going on all around the lake. They’re not tangled up in some dumb prophecy, or another cat coming back to life!
“I don’t know what to do,” he whispered.
Lionblaze wasn’t sure how long he had been sitting beside the lake when he heard paw steps approaching behind him. Hoping that Cinderheart had come to find him, he turned, and spotted Squirrelflight padding down the shore toward him.
“Hi,” she mewed, sitting beside him. “Do you want to talk?”
Squirrelflight was the last cat Lionblaze would have chosen to confide in, but his churning emotions wouldn’t let him stay silent.
“It’s so unfair!” he burst out. “Not just for me, but for Cinderheart, too. She wanted to be a warrior, but now she’s convinced she has to be a medicine cat because some other cat was before.”
Squirrelflight nodded. “All cats deserve to find happiness as a mate, and as a mother. I wouldn’t have changed anything about my life.”
Lionblaze tensed, digging his claws into the ground. He knew what he wanted to say, but the words seemed stuck in his throat like a hard piece of fresh-kill, and were just as difficult to dislodge.
“You were a good mother,” he admitted at last, thinking longingly of the time when he had been young, when he and his littermates had believed that Squirrelflight and Brambleclaw were really their parents. The tension in his shoulders relaxed as he let go of the long-held grudge. “You should have kits with Brambleclaw.”
“That’s not going to happen.” Squirrelflight sighed. More briskly she added, “And perhaps it’s for the best that it never did. But I loved you and Jayfeather and Hollyleaf just as much as if I’d given birth to you myself, and it breaks my heart to see you unhappy.”
Lionblaze turned his head to meet her brilliant green gaze. “I think Cinderheart is unhappier than any of us,” he meowed.
Chapter 20
“Let all cats old enough to catch their own prey join here beneath the Highledge for a Clan meeting!”
At the sound of Firestar’s voice Dovewing sprang up from the fresh-kill pile and gazed up at the Highledge. Firestar was sitting there with Brambleclaw beside him.
Although it was the height of greenleaf, the sky was covered with clouds. A chill, restless breeze rustled the trees above the stone hollow and ruffled Firestar’s flame-colored pelt. To Dovewing the murmuring of the leaves seemed to echo the murmuring within ThunderClan. She hardly needed her special senses to pick up the gossip.
“Did you hear that Cinderheart used to be Cinderpelt?”
“Yeah, and Leafpool and Jayfeather knew all along!”
“I can’t believe that Sorreltail didn’t realize. She and Cinderpelt were good friends, right?”
“They do look a bit alike. But how weird that Cinderheart knows all about that medicine cat stuff!”
Dovewing closed down her senses and blocked out the whispering. “This meeting must be about WindClan,” she meowed to Ivypool, her heart beginning to pound with anticipation.
Her sister swallowed her last mouthful of blackbird, then led the way closer to the Highledge. She was moving awkwardly; Dovewing guessed that she had been injured in the Dark Forest, but as usual Ivypool was refusing to talk about it. Foxleap, Molepaw, Rosepetal, and Hazeltail came to sit beside them, while Dustpelt, Graystripe, and Millie settled a couple of tail-lengths away. Mousewhisker and Cherrypaw emerged from the medicine cat’s den and joined the crowd on shaky legs, flopping down to listen beside Poppyfrost and Berrynose. Jayfeather and Briarlight remained beside the bramble screen.
“Everything is so strange right now,” Dovewing muttered as yet more cats appeared from the warriors’ den. “Hollyleaf coming back, Cinderheart being a cat that everyone thought was dead—”
“And a medicine cat, at that,” Ivypool added. “With all Cinderpelt’s memories and skills.”
Hazeltail leaned closer. “So does that mean we have two medicine cats now?” she whispered.
“I guess we do,” Mousewhisker agreed.
Ivypool shook her head. “Like you said, it’s strange. She was my mentor!”
“Surely we need warriors more than another medicine cat?” Foxleap mewed.
“That’s enough,” came a gruff voice behind them. Dovewing had been so intent on what her Clanmates were saying that she hadn’t noticed Brackenfur had joined them. He flicked Foxleap’s ear with his tail. “Firestar is waiting to speak.”
While the last scraps of conversation died away, Dove-wing spotted Hollyleaf by herself at the edge of the crowd. She looked awkward and self-conscious.
There’s been a lot of gossip about her, too, Dovewing thought. It’s only dying down now because there’s something else to talk about.
When Hollyleaf had first returned, Dovewing had tried to avoid her, nervous of getting too close to a cat who had killed a Clanmate, even if it had been an accident. But now she felt a stab of sympathy for the black she-cat.
Maybe Firestar’s right, and she’s been punished more than enough for not speaking up at the time. After all, no cat is blaming Brambleclaw, and he saw it happen!
Dovewing was about to go and sit beside Hollyleaf to give her support, when she saw another cat slip out of the warriors’ den: Cinderheart. The gray she-cat padded across to Hollyleaf; without speaking she inclined her head toward Hollyleaf’s until their ears touched.
“I see the odd ones are sticking together,” Foxleap commented.
“That’s enough!” Millie hissed. “Don’t speak like that about your Clanmates.”
Foxleap ducked his head, embarrassed.
“Cinderheart was Hollyleaf’s best friend before she… went away,” Millie continued. “And now they have something in common, a big secret revealed. They should be treated with kindness, nothing else.”