“Sorry.” Raggedpelt blinked at her. “I had to talk to you, away from the camp.” He hesitated, took a breath, and continued, “Yellowfang, are you sure you’ve made the right choice?”
Yellowfang gazed back at him. For once he wasn’t trying to quarrel with her. His voice just sounded sad, full of such deep sorrow that there was no bottom to it.
“I miss you,” he went on. “I’m going to be the leader of ShadowClan, and I wanted to have you as my deputy.”
“I’ll be your medicine cat,” Yellowfang mewed.
“You know I want more than that,” Raggedpelt told her. He took a pace toward her and his scent flooded over her. His whiskers brushed her ear. “I know you are a medicine cat now,” he whispered, “but that doesn’t change the way I feel about you.”
“My feelings haven’t changed either,” Yellowfang whispered back, her voice quivering. “But this is my destiny! StarClan wants me to be a medicine cat!”
“They can have your skill with herbs.” Raggedpelt’s voice grew stronger. “They can even walk in your dreams. But they can’t have all of you. If we do all the duties expected of us, how can this be wrong? As long as no cat knows, everything can be as it was before. This can be our secret, shared with no one else.”
I wonder what Silverflame would say, Yellowfang thought. But then, she told me to have courage in my own instincts. And my instincts are telling me that this is my destiny too.
Yellowfang leaned closer to Raggedpelt, feeling the warmth of his fur, and crushed down a feeling of guilt. “I can keep a secret,” she murmured.
Chapter 22
Yellowfang watched a scarlet leaf spiraling down from a branch above her head. At the last moment she sprang up and clawed it out of the air, pinning it to the ground with a triumphant yowl. More scarlet and golden leaves tumbled from the trees. Happiness bubbled up inside her. Throughout newleaf and greenleaf she and Raggedpelt had kept their promise to each other, and no cat in ShadowClan knew that they had been meeting in the remotest parts of the territory. The only cats who could possibly know were their ancestors in StarClan—and since she had received no signs warning of terrible consequences, Yellowfang had begun to believe that StarClan would allow her to be both Raggedpelt’s mate and a medicine cat.
As she clambered up again Raggedpelt popped out from behind the tree and pounced on her, throwing her to the ground again and landing on top of her among the crackling leaves.
“Stop it, mouse-brain!” she gasped. “I can’t breathe!”
Raggedpelt’s face was close to hers, his amber eyes gleaming. “Admit defeat, then.”
“Okay, okay. Just get off me!”
Raggedpelt rolled over with a purr. “You can’t escape me,” he meowed. “I’ll always be here.”
“I should be looking for herbs,” Yellowfang told him, sitting up and shaking scraps of dried leaf from her pelt. “What’s Sagewhisker going to say if I come back empty-pawed?”
“There’s plenty of time,” Raggedpelt assured her, stretching out lazily.
“But it’s leaf-fall already. We have to build up our stocks of herbs before the first frosts. Remember how short of supplies we were last leaf-bare?”
“We’ll go back soon. I should be preparing Cloudpaw for his final assessment.” Raggedpelt let out a snort of amusement. “Do you know, that scatterbrained apprentice still hasn’t learned that squirrels can climb trees faster than he can? I have to keep reminding him to stalk them in the open.”
Guilt flooded over Yellowfang. “Then we have to go now.”
Raggedpelt gave her a gentle nudge. “We aren’t hurting any cat,” he reassured her. “We meet all our responsibilities. The Clan is as safe and protected as it can be.” He pressed his muzzle against her shoulder. “This is still our secret.”
Yellowfang couldn’t suppress a rising purr. It’s true. These times with Raggedpelt are the happiest moments I’ve ever known.
“Don’t forget,” Raggedpelt went on, leaning close to her again, “you’re only an apprentice. You can still change your mind. I would make sure that you would never have to fight in a battle. I’ll be leader soon, after all, and I’ll do everything to keep you safe.”
Curled warmly into his fur, Yellowfang was tempted for a heartbeat. But then she thought of everything she had learned from Sagewhisker, and she knew again that this was a path she had to follow, at least for a while. She shook her head.
Raggedpelt gave her a gentle nudge. “I’ll persuade you yet,” he murmured.
Before Yellowfang could respond, a terrible screeching filled the forest. Together the two cats leaped to their paws.
“It’s one of our patrols!” Raggedpelt exclaimed. “They’re being attacked!”
Shoulder to shoulder, Yellowfang and Raggedpelt bolted through the trees, following the sound. Heartbeats later they came to a clearing. Staring across the open space, Yellowfang saw four of her Clanmates grappling with four huge rogues. The stink of Twolegplace caught her in the throat, making her gag.
Raggedpelt let out a roar of fury and leaped into the battle. He flung aside a rogue who was pinning Rowanberry down, and crashed into the flank of another who was lunging for Blizzardwing’s throat. They fled screeching, and the other two, realizing they were now outnumbered, raced after them.
“Don’t come back!” Raggedpelt yowled after them.
Yellowfang padded into the clearing. Rowanberry scrambled to her paws and helped Blizzardwing up. Wolfstep flung himself in pursuit of the rogues, only to come back at a sharp order from Raggedpelt. All three of them looked battered, but Yellowfang could see that their injuries weren’t serious.
“It was my fault!” Rowanberry gasped. “I was leading the patrol. I should have scented them, but they jumped out on us.”
“They were just looking for trouble,” Raggedpelt snarled.
Yellowfang scanned the clearing. She had seen four of her Clanmates fighting, but she could only account for three. Where’s the fourth cat?
Then she caught a glimpse of white fur among a clump of ferns, and raced over to see Cloudpaw, lying ominously still.
“Oh, no!” she yelped.
“What’s he doing here?” Raggedpelt gasped as he came to stand beside her and look down at his motionless apprentice.
“He… he couldn’t find you,” Rowanberry admitted. “So he asked if he could come on the border patrol to practice his scenting skills before his final assessment.” She hesitated, then added reluctantly, “I let him take the lead. He didn’t pick up the scent of the intruders until it was too late.”
Trying to ignore the stricken look in Raggedpelt’s eyes, Yellowfang bent over the apprentice. At first she couldn’t see anything wrong with him, so she carefully let go of her control so that she could feel his pain. At once agony surged through her. She felt as if some fierce creature was inside her, trying to claw its way out through her belly. Her head reeling from it, her legs beginning to buckle, she reached out and gently turned Cloudpaw over. His belly had been slashed open; the grass underneath him was scarlet from his blood.
“Is he dead?” Rowanberry whispered.
Yellowfang shook her head; she had already spotted the faint rise and fall of Cloudpaw’s chest. Forcing herself to block off the pain again, she turned to the other cats. “Wolfstep, run back to camp and warn Sagewhisker. Blizzardwing, find me some cobwebs—try under those bushes. I have to stop the bleeding before we can move him.”
“I’ll carry him,” Raggedpelt mewed hoarsely.
Once Yellowfang had covered the wound with cobwebs, Raggedpelt insisted on taking Cloudpaw on his shoulders, even though the apprentice was nearly full-grown. Staggering under his weight, with Yellowfang and Blizzardwing on either side, he struggled back to the clearing.