All the pent-up anger of the last moons burst from Yellowfang at once. “Why did you let Brokenstar become leader?” she shrieked. “What were you thinking, you mouse-brained foxes?”
Cedarstar raised his head and shook droplets of water from his whiskers. His gaze was solemn. “What choice did we have?” he asked. “Brokenstar was Raggedstar’s deputy. When Raggedstar died, we had to make him leader. That is the way of the warrior code.”
“Well, you made a mistake!” Yellowfang retorted. “There are kits here who shouldn’t even have been apprentices, let alone fighting in battle! You have to stop him.”
Cedarstar turned away. “There’s nothing we can do. Brokenstar promised to make ShadowClan the most feared Clan in the forest, and he has kept his promise.”
“What, even feared by StarClan?” Yellowfang sneered. Frustration and fury and compassion for the innocent dead spilled over inside her. “A curse upon you for letting us suffer like this!”
As she screeched out the words she awoke with a jolt in her own nest. StarClan, Cedarstar, the scent of her ancestors had all vanished. Her questions remained unanswered. StarClan could do nothing to help. Yellowfang’s anger ebbed, leaving behind nothing but emptiness and a strange sense of loss. She had never felt more alone, more abandoned by the ancestors who should have protected her. From now on, I cannot even trust StarClan.
“It’s the meeting tonight,” Runningnose remarked. “We should go to the Moonstone.”
Half a moon had passed since Yellowfang had dreamed of Cedarstar. Since then she had had no contact with StarClan, not even in dreams of violence and blood. She knew that she could not go meet the other medicine cats, press her nose against the Moonstone, and pretend that nothing had changed. “Go without me,” she meowed. “I have nothing to say to them or to our ancestors.”
Runningnose’s voice was urgent. “You cannot give up hope.”
“As long as Brokenstar rules this Clan, there is no hope!” Yellowfang snarled.
“Then don’t give up on your Clanmates,” Runningnose pleaded. “They need you. I need you. Please, Yellowfang, you have to keep going.”
“What, keep on burying kits who should still be at their mother’s bellies?” Yellowfang let her fury spill out in a low-voiced snarl. “Keep on treating wounds from battles that should not have been fought? Keep on sending the elders to the farthest corner of the territory because their wisdom is valued less than dirt?”
Runningnose shook his head. “I made a vow to serve ShadowClan,” he mewed quietly, “and that will outlast any leader.”
Yellowfang touched Runningnose on the shoulder with her tail. “Your loyalty is admirable,” she murmured. “I chose well when I made you my apprentice.”
Following her friend into the clearing, Yellowfang watched him leave for the meeting. Her hatred of StarClan was a cold, hard knot inside her. Around her the life of the Clan went on; Blackfoot was leading a patrol out, while the apprentices dragged bedding out of the warriors’ den. Yet there were no elders sunning themselves at the entrance to their den, and no hunters returning laden with fresh-kill.
ShadowClan is victorious and feared by all the Clans, just as Brokenstar promised. But darkness lies at its heart.
Excited squeaks from the other side of the clearing jerked Yellowfang out of her black mood. Her heart lifted as she watched Brightflower’s kits playing outside the nursery. Then she realized that Marigoldkit was pouncing on a ball of moss, shredding it to bits with tiny claws, while Mintkit was dragging a feather along the ground, worrying at it as if it were a defeated enemy.
So young, and already playing at battle?
Yellowfang bounded across the clearing. “I know a better game,” she announced. “See if you can catch my tail.” She twitched the tip invitingly in front of Mintkit.
Both kits stopped what they were doing. They looked at Yellowfang’s tail, then at each other, but neither of them moved.
If a cat had offered that to me or my littermates, Yellowfang thought, their tail would have been shredded by now.
“Okay,” she mewed. “What about this?” She held her tail out level with the ground. “Let’s see how high you can jump.”
“Is that part of warrior training?” Mintkit squeaked.
“Well, not exactly,” Yellowfang admitted.
“In that case,” Marigoldkit mewed with a polite dip of her head, “we’ll keep practicing our battle moves, thanks. Brokenstar said it’s important to be as strong as we can before he gives us our mentors.”
Yellowfang recalled her own early days in the nursery, playing with Nutwhisker and Rowanberry. Attacking the elders’ tails was the closest we got to fighting. Yes, we pretended they were WindClan invaders, but we knew real battles were moons away. These kits could be fighting to their deaths by the end of greenleaf.
She watched, sick at heart, as Marigoldkit went back to her moss and Mintkit to his feather.
A few moments later Brightflower emerged from the nursery and came to stand by Yellowfang’s side. “They’re so strong already,” she meowed, though Yellowfang could see a flicker of fear in her eyes.
“They’re certainly lively,” Yellowfang commented. “They must keep you busy!”
Her mother nodded. “I’ll be joining the elders as soon as they leave the nursery,” she revealed. “It seems so strange, not to have them around,” she added, “though I’d never say so in front of Brokenstar.”
“They should be here,” Yellowfang meowed.
Brightflower gave a swift glance around. “Don’t let our leader hear you say that!”
Yellowfang twitched her ears. “Well, the elders seem happy enough in their new home.” It was hard to force out the words when she thought of that tiny hollow in the marshes. “Nightpelt hunts for them.”
“And I’ll help him when I go to join them,” Brightflower declared. “I’m looking forward to the quiet. I’m feeling my age with these kits around!”
A pulse of shock ran through Yellowfang. “Brightflower, you’re not old!”
“Yes, I am,” her mother purred gently. “And so are you, Yellowfang. None of us survives forever.”
Yellowfang looked around at her Clanmates, from the traces of gray on her mother’s muzzle to the kits wrestling with moss and feathers beside her. Suddenly everything seemed as fragile as a moth’s wing, as fleeting as a drop of dew.
Nothing survives forever—not even ShadowClan, with Brokenstar as our leader.
Chapter 39
“Yellowfang, wake up!”
Something was prodding Yellowfang in her flank. She opened her eyes to see Brightflower standing beside her nest. Her fur was fluffed up and her eyes wide with anxiety.
“What’s the matter?” Yellowfang leaped to her paws. “Is it the kits?”
Brightflower nodded. “They’re not in the nursery. They were with me when I went to sleep, but now they’re gone!”
“We’ll find them,” Yellowfang mewed reassuringly.
She looked for Runningnose to ask him for help in the search, but he was deeply asleep after the long journey from the Moonstone, and she decided not to disturb him unless she had to. Stifling a trickle of fear, Yellowfang led the way out into the clearing. The night was dark, the moon showing fitfully in a sky ribbed with cloud. “Let’s try the apprentices’ den first,” she suggested.
But when she and Brightflower peered into the den they saw only the four remaining cats in training, curled up and snuffling gently in their sleep.