What would Hailstar have done?
Distracted, Crookedstar padded toward the willow.
“Have you seen them?” Oakheart limped through the snow and stopped beside him.
“Seen them?” Crookedstar was still lost in thought, but he noticed the limp. “Are you all right? I thought you were resting that leg.”
“It’ll be fine.” Oakheart shrugged away his concern. “What about the kits? Aren’t they great? Just what Graypool needed. It really is a blessing from StarClan.”
“Then you think we should keep them?” Crookedstar searched his brother’s bright gaze.
“Don’t you?” Oakheart frowned. “Are you worried the mother might come and claim them?”
Crookedstar nodded. “They’re not our kits. Can we really decide their fate?”
“What else can we do?” Oakheart pointed out, with a hint of anger in his mew. “Take them back and leave them where Graypool found them? They’d die before moonrise.”
Crookedstar looked up at the clear evening sky. The setting sun had stained it pink. A frost was setting in. Oakheart was right: The kits wouldn’t survive long outside. “I suppose we need new kits.” They had lost so many. First Brightsky’s, then Softwing’s, and finally Graypool’s.
“Why don’t I go and guard the place Graypool found them, and if a loner turns up I’ll bring her back to camp?” Oakheart offered. He sounded tense, as if he was furious at the idea of these kits being claimed by the cat that had abandoned them.
Crookedstar pricked his ears. “Good idea.” He glanced at Oakheart’s wrenched leg. “I’ll send Cedarpelt to relieve you at moonhigh,” he promised.
“And if no loner comes, we can keep them?” Oakheart leaned forward. It must be cold. He was trembling.
“Yes.” Crookedstar rubbed his frozen nose with a paw. “They’ll never know anything but RiverClan, and Graypool deserves to raise a litter.”
Was that relief flashing in his eyes? Crookedstar swallowed back a purr. Perhaps it was time Oakheart got a mate of his own.
A moon passed. The snows melted and new buds softened the stark willow. As the sun slid toward the distant forest, Crookedstar sat at the edge of the clearing, his belly full, and watched Willowbreeze tugging a bulrush along the ground for the kits to chase. Stonekit scampered after it, his fluffy tail sticking straight up. He was a stocky little kit. Crookedstar could imagine him diving for fish already. Mistykit was slender and pretty. She watched the bulrush twitch, her clear blue eyes narrowing, before she pounced, landing right on top of it.
“Hey!” Stonekit complained as his littermate sat proudly on her catch. “Graypool!” He called to the queen watching fondly from outside the nursery. “She’s doing it again!”
“Now, now.” Graypool padded over and nosed Mistykit gently away from the bulrush. “Let Stonekit have a turn.”
Willowbreeze left the game and padded across the clearing. She sat beside Crookedstar. “They’re going to make good hunters,” she meowed. “They already hook their claws under the bulrush as though they’re catching a trout. Anyone would think they were Clanborn.”
The reed bed trembled and Oakheart climbed from the river, a fat carp in his jaws. He carried it over to the kits. Graypool’s eyes lit up. “Look what Oakheart’s caught for you!”
Mistykit reared up, reaching for the fish with her tiny front paws. When Oakheart dropped it, she started gnawing at it hungrily.
Stonekit wrinkled his nose. “It smells fishy.”
“I know, dear.” Graypool lapped between his ears. “That’s because it’s a fish.”
Stonekit sniffed at it tentatively before taking a bite. “Can’t we have mouse instead?” he asked, his mouth full.
“Another time, precious,” Graypool promised.
“Fox!” Sedgecreek skidded into camp, her pelt bushed up.
Crookedstar leaped to his paws. “Where?”
“Downstream, by the hawthorns!” Sedgecreek circled Crookedstar. “I could smell it.”
“But you didn’t see it?” Crookedstar’s hackles smoothed. “It may have passed through already.”
Timberfur hurried from beneath the willow. “Should I organize a patrol?”
Crookedstar had made him deputy when he’d returned from the Moonstone. Oakheart would have been his first choice, but RiverClan owed the old warrior a reward for his long loyalty and courage. Crookedstar knew Oakheart wouldn’t mind waiting his turn.
“I’ll go and check,” Crookedstar told him.
“Alone?” Timberfur’s eyes darkened. “Is that wise?”
“If I pick up fresh scents, I’ll come back for help,” Crookedstar promised. Foxes rarely strayed from ThunderClan’s shady forests, especially once the river ice had melted. The scent had probably drifted across the border and startled Sedgecreek.
He padded out of camp, following the grassy path for a few paces before hopping through the bushes on to the shore. The river washed the pebbles, low now that the snowmelt had gone. The wooded banks were bright with new growth. Crookedstar breathed in the familiar scent of fresh leaves and soft earth. Fish stirred the surface of the river and there were spiky claw prints in the mud where a moorhen had walked.
Crookedstar followed the river along the border of his territory. Reaching the hawthorns, he climbed the bank and tasted the air. There was no sign of fox, just the smell of primroses on the warm evening breeze. And something else. Crookedstar froze.
Mapleshade!
He snapped his head around, scanning the riverbank, hackles high. His heart lurched as a hawthorn bush quivered and Mapleshade stepped out.
Her eyes were dark, her orange-and-white pelt sleek. “You fool!” she hissed. “Where is your loyalty to your Clan now?”
Crookedstar turned and began to walk away. He didn’t want to fight her. He just wanted to get away from her. She darted in front of him, blocking his path.
He unsheathed his claws. “Leave me alone!”
“Someone has to warn you!”
“Warn me about what?” He stared at her.
“You trust what any cat tells you!” she spat. “Mouse-brain!”
Crookedstar growled.
She eyed him malevolently. “Those kits!”
“What about them?”
“Do you really think a loner left them in the snow? Is it just a coincidence they look like RiverClan cats? That they pounce like RiverClan cats?”
“What are you trying to say?”
“Are you stupid or blind or both?” The fur lifted along her spine. “Why do you think your brother spends all day hunting for them? Watching them as if they’re his next meal? He’s more attentive than most fathers—but then he is raising them without their true mother.”
Anger pulsed beneath Crookedstar’s pelt. “I’m not going to listen to any more of your lies! Oakheart has no kits! He’s never even had a mate!”
Mapleshade’s eyes glinted. “Not in RiverClan.” She jerked her head toward the far bank. “Look across the river, you fool!”
Crookedstar stared at the trees lined along ThunderClan’s bank. He suddenly felt cold. “What are you saying?” He snapped his gaze back to Mapleshade but the Dark Forest warrior had gone.
Crookedstar whirled around and raced back along the shore. Don’t be dumb! He leaped on to the grassy path. It’s just more of her lies! There’s no way these kits have anything to do with Oakheart! He skidded into the clearing out of breath, scanning the camp. “Oakheart!”
“What’s going on?” Oakheart darted, bristling, away from the nursery.
Crookedstar lowered his voice, suddenly aware that he was frightening the kits. “Come with me,” he ordered quietly.
Oakheart followed him through the reeds to the shore below the camp. “What is it?” He climbed onto a smooth rock and sat down, wrapping his thick, tawny tail over his paws. “Something’s wrong.” Worry sharpened his amber gaze.