“Seasons ago,” replied Graypool, sounding puzzled. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten. You…No, Oakheart wouldn’t need to ask that.” She staggered forward a couple of steps to peer more closely at Tigerstar.
“You’re not Oakheart!” she exclaimed.
“Never mind that,” Tigerstar mewed soothingly. “You can still tell me all about it. What ThunderClan kits? Who was their real mother?”
Fireheart was close enough to see the dazed look in Graypool’s eyes. She put her head on one side, gazing confusedly at the ShadowClan leader. “They were beautiful kits,” she meowed vaguely. “And now they’re fine warriors.”
She broke off as Tigerstar thrust his muzzle into her face. “Tell me whose kits they were, old crowfood,” he demanded, losing his patience.
Fireheart stared in horror as, flustered, Graypool took a step back. Her paws slid from under her. She rolled down the steep slope in a scramble of legs and tail, and landed hard against one of the rocks that poked out of the turf. There she lay, and did not move again.
Dismay and fury pulsed through Fireheart. As Tigerstar padded down to Graypool’s motionless body and sniffed it, he sprang to his paws and raced across the slope. But before Fireheart reached him the ShadowClan leader spun around, without seeing his former enemy, and bounded away in the direction of Fourtrees and his own territory.
Fireheart reached Graypool and gazed down at her. A trickle of blood came from her small gray head where it had struck the rock. Her eyes stared sightlessly at the sky. The she-cat was dead.
Fireheart lowered his head. “Good-bye, Graypool,” he mewed softly. “StarClan will honor you.”
He stood in silent grief, wishing he had known Graypool better. Her sharp tongue and noble heart reminded him of Yellowfang, and he would never stop feeling grateful to the RiverClan queen for sharing her deepest secret with him, even though he came from another Clan.
His sad reverie was interrupted by the voices of two cats, and he looked up to see Mistyfoot and Graystripe racing toward him from the river. Mistyfoot let out a desperate wail when she saw the dead elder and flung herself down on the turf to press her nose against Graypool’s side.
“What happened?” asked Graystripe.
In an instant, Fireheart decided to keep quiet about Tigerstar. Any mention of the ShadowClan leader would risk exposing the truth about Bluestar’s kits, and Fireheart knew Graypool would never want that, not even within her own Clan. He glanced at the still gray body and asked forgiveness from StarClan for the half-truth he was about to tell.
“I saw Graypool climbing the slope,” he replied. “She slipped, and I couldn’t reach her in time. I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault, Fireheart.” Mistyfoot looked up at him, her blue eyes filled with sorrow. “I have been afraid for a while that something like this would happen.”
She bent her head to touch Graypool’s body again. Fireheart felt sympathy well up inside his chest. Graypool had taken Mistyfoot and Stonefur when Bluestar, their real mother, had given them up. Without Graypool they would have died. She had suckled them and reared them until they were ready to become apprentices. She was the only mother they had ever known, and no cat could have done more for them.
“Come on, Mistyfoot.” Graystripe gently nudged his friend. “Let’s take her back to camp.”
“I’ll help you,” Fireheart offered.
Mistyfoot sat up. “No,” she meowed. “You’ve done enough, Fireheart. Thank you, but this is for her own Clan to do.”
With great care she grasped Graypool’s scruff in her jaws. Graystripe took hold of the elder’s body, and together the two cats carried her down the slope toward the Twoleg bridge. Graypool’s limp form sagged between them, and her tail trailed in the dust.
When they reached the other side of the river, Fireheart turned away, back to his own territory and the ThunderClan camp. His thoughts were churning. Tigerstar had found out that two RiverClan warriors had come from ThunderClan! Fireheart had no idea what Tigerstar would do with this knowledge. But he knew, as sure as the sun would rise the next morning, that the ShadowClan leader would make some use of it, and he had a sinking feeling the outcome could be disastrous for Bluestar and the whole of ThunderClan.
Fireheart stopped to hunt on the way home and arrived at the top of the ravine with a rabbit clamped firmly in his jaws. Looking down at the entrance to the camp, he saw that Goldenflower had brought her kits out into the bottom of the ravine; the two of them were chasing each other among the rocks, pretending to attack Brightpaw, who flicked her tail at them and frisked about just out of their reach. As Fireheart padded down the ravine and dropped the rabbit to watch for a moment, Bramblekit bounded up to him and laid a mouse at his paws.
“Look, Fireheart!” he meowed triumphantly. “I caught it all by myself!”
“His first prey,” Goldenflower added with a fond look at her son.
Bramblekit’s amber eyes blazed with excitement. “Mother says I’ll be just as good a hunter as my father,” he told Fireheart.
Fireheart felt an unpleasant jolt in his belly. His eyes narrowed, and he gave Goldenflower a sharp glance. Goldenflower kept her eyes fixed on her son, but Fireheart could tell from her twitching tail tip that she knew he was watching her.
“Fireheart?” Bramblekit was looking puzzled. “May I give my mouse to the elders?”
Fireheart shook himself angrily. The kit had done very well to catch a mouse when he was still so young, and he deserved a bit of praise. Yet Fireheart couldn’t help remembering Tigerstar bending over Graypool’s limp body, and he had a hard struggle not to vent his fury on the innocent Bramblekit.
“Yes, of course,” he mewed. “And well done for catching it. See if One-eye would like it. She might think it’s worth a story.”
Bramblekit’s eyes lit up. “Good idea!” he yowled. He snatched up the mouse and tore down the ravine to the camp entrance. His sister, Tawnykit, scampered after him.
Goldenflower was looking fiercely at Fireheart, and he knew that she saw very clearly how forced his praise had been. Frostily she mewed, “I told you before, Fireheart, I won’t tell the kits anything bad about their father. We’re loyal to the Clan—all of us.”
She spun around, switching her tail across Fireheart’s face as she did so, and stalked back to the camp.
Fireheart retrieved his rabbit and followed, deciding that he would take his prey to Cinderpelt and talk to her about Bramblekit at the same time. She might have some ideas about how best to handle the kit. The gray she-cat had limped back into the camp very late the night after the medicine-cat gathering at Highstones; Fireheart knew that she had been exhausted, but it had seemed that the light of the Moonstone still glimmered in her eyes.
As Fireheart pushed his way into the clearing through the newly growing gorse tunnel, he saw that Cinderpelt was sitting with Speckletail outside the nursery. The medicine cat was watching Snowkit, who patted at something on the ground a few tail-lengths from his mother.
Good, Fireheart thought. Now we should be able to find out if there’s something wrong with Snowkit. He padded over to the two she-cats and dropped the rabbit beside Cinderpelt. “That’s for you,” he meowed. “How do you feel after your journey?”
Cinderpelt turned to look at him. Her blue eyes were tranquil. “I’m fine,” she purred. “Thanks for the rabbit. Speckletail and I were just having a chat about Snowkit.”
“There’s nothing to chat about,” Speckletail muttered, hunching her shoulders. She sounded cranky, but there was a new sense of authority about Cinderpelt, and Fireheart guessed that the older she-cat hadn’t dared to refuse outright to talk to her.