Mapleshade’s tail swung slowly from side to side. “The first thing you’re going to have to learn is patience,” she murmured.
Crookedkit sat down and curled his tail over his paws. “I know.” He remembered Fleck’s teasing. “I promise I’ll try. But I’ve had to wait so long!”
“The best prey is the prey longest waited for.” Mapleshade gazed at him thoughtfully.
Please make me your apprentice! Crookedkit swallowed back the plea.
“Will you make me one promise?” Mapleshade’s muzzle was a whisker from his.
Crookedkit nodded vigorously. “Anything!”
“I can do more than make you leader. I can give you everything you’ve ever dreamed of,” she went on. “Power over your Clanmates. Power over all the Clans.”
Crookedkit’s eyes widened. “I promise!”
“Wait.” Mapleshade tipped her head. “You don’t know what you’re promising yet.”
Crookedkit blinked.
“You must promise me,” Mapleshade lowered her voice, “that you will be loyal to your Clan above all other things. What you want for yourself is nothing compared to the needs of your Clan. Nothing, remember?” Her green gaze bore into his. “Do you make that promise?”
Crookedkit’s heart quickened. “Yes!” He unsheathed his claws. “Yes, I do!”
Chapter 10
“No! No!” Mapleshade snapped. “Keep both hind paws on the ground or your enemy will unbalance you with nothing more than a hiss!” She nosed Crookedkit’s hindquarters until his paws were firmly planted. “Try it again.”
Concentrating hard, Crookedkit reared up and slashed again at the stick that Mapleshade had stuck into the slimy soil. With both hind paws steady, he found his blow was fiercer and stronger and the stick tumbled with the third hit.
“Much better.” Mapleshade pushed the fallen stick with a paw. “Now, try the move on me.”
Crookedkit blinked at her. “What if I hurt you?”
Mapleshade snorted. “You can try.” She faced him, her thick pelt like a mane around her neck.
Crookedkit imagined that he was facing a LionClan warrior. Only the bravest survive! As his thoughts whirled with excitement, he reared up and struck at Mapleshade. But she’d disappeared. He stared, confused, then felt fur beneath his belly and a weight pushing him up. With a yowl of surprise, he was tossed into the air. He flicked his tail, paws flailing, and tried to turn. But the ground rushed at him and he landed heavily on his side. Winded, he struggled to his paws.
Mapleshade was sitting a tail-length away. “A warrior doesn’t daydream,” she growled.
“How did you know?”
“You lost your focus a moment before you reared,” she told him. “I could see it in your eyes. Your thoughts were on a battle in your head. You must fight the battle you’re in, not the one you could be in.”
Crookedkit blinked. “Can I try again?”
Pain gripped his shoulders. He could still feel Mapleshade’s claws as he opened his eyes. Dawn light filtered through the nursery roof. Fallowtail was snoring. After a moon sleeping alone in the nursery, Crookedkit had at first resented Fallowtail’s arrival. The warrior was a queen now, heavy with kits. But after a night listening to her gentle snore, watching her wide belly rise and fall while her warmth filled the den, he felt happy to share again.
He longed to ask her what she’d been doing on the moorland, three moons ago. But if it was a secret mission for Hailstar he didn’t dare. That was warrior business and he was painfully aware he was still just a kit. He woke every morning hoping Hailstar would make him an apprentice that day. But he knew he had to prove his loyalty to his Clan. At least his Clanmates weren’t treating him like a useless fledgling anymore. He cleaned the elders’ nests, helped patch the warriors’ dens to get them ready for leaf-bare, and Piketooth had taught him to swim and how to catch minnows among the reeds. It needed far more skill than he’d thought; he had to have paws as fast as lightning to grasp them as they flickered in and out of the stems. He ate with his Clanmates—not as neatly as some cats, but neater than before he left and he didn’t really care much anymore. Just as long as he kept growing.
“Hailstar has got to make you a ’paw soon,” Brambleberry had commented while checking his jaw. “You’ll be too big to fit in the nursery at this rate.”
Her prediction was close to the truth after Fallowtail kitted Willowkit and Graykit. Crookedkit added reeds to her nest, making it big enough to accommodate the two fidgeting balls of gray fluff, and cleared away the training wall to make room for a bigger nest for himself. He wondered when the kits’ father would visit, but no tom made an appearance in the nursery and Fallowtail never mentioned a mate.
Snow came early, when Graykit and Willowkit were only two moons old.
“Can we go and play in it?” Willowkit begged.
Fallowtail looked imploringly at Crookedkit, who was tossing stale moss out of his nest. “Would you take them outside, please?” she begged. “I want to get this nest clean and they won’t stay out of the way.”
“We’re just trying to collect the old moss for you!” Graykit objected.
“Collecting?” Fallowtail sniffed. “Is that why you’ve been jumping around the den like frogs every time I tug a piece out?”
Crookedkit purred, remembering Mist, Soot, Magpie, and Piper. “I’ll take them.” He squeezed through the nursery entrance, sinking into the belly-high snow outside. Thick gray clouds promised more. “We can’t stay out long,” he told Willowkit and Graykit as they scrambled out after him. “You’ll turn to ice.”
Willowkit wallowed through the snow toward him. “Can we ride on your back?” she squeaked.
Crookedkit crouched down. “Climb on.” He waited, wincing as the two kits climbed his pelt with burrsharp claws. “Hang on!” Straightening, he plodded through the snow.
“Why are you still a kit when you’re so big?” Willowkit asked.
“Shh!” Graykit hissed. “Fallowtail said we weren’t allowed to ask that!”
Crookedkit’s fur ruffled. Willowkit dug in her claws. “Watch out!” she squeaked. “I nearly fell off.”
“Well, don’t ask stupid questions,” Crookedkit snapped.
“It’s not stupid,” she mewed. “Oakpaw’s been an apprentice for moons. What’s wrong with you?”
“I had an accident and broke my jaw.” Crookedkit pushed through the snowy clearing. Beetlepaw and Ottersplash were digging tracks through the snow.
“You’re better now,” Willowkit pointed out.
“He ran away and Hailstar’s punishing him,” Graykit whispered to her littermate.
Crookedkit pretended not to hear. “Where do you want me to go?” he called over his shoulder.
“To the reed bed,” Graykit mewed. “Petalpaw told us the water gets hard in leaf-bare and you can walk on it.”
“Only if a warrior has tested it first,” Crookedkit warned. “It can break under your weight.” He bounded over the snow where it had piled beside the apprentices’ den and headed to the frost-stricken reeds.
Rippleclaw and Brightsky were clearing a space to drop the mice they’d caught. With the river so cold, the hunting patrols were scouring the willow wood for land prey.
“There.” Crookedkit tipped the kits off at the edge of the river. A thin frosting of ice coated the water.
Willowkit peered over the bank. “Can we go on it?”
“It’s too thin.”
“Then let’s play warriors!” Willowkit bounded away, so light she barely broke the surface of the frost-hardened drift. Graykit chased after her, scooping a pawful of snow and hurling it at her sister.