Patchfoot stirred uneasily; Spottedleaf bent over him.
“Sleep now,” she whispered into his ear. “All will be well; I promise.”
As if he could hear her, Patchfoot sighed and seemed to settle more quietly.
Sandstorm blinked anxiously. “Will he really get better now?”
Spottedleaf nodded. “Just keep putting the root on his shoulder. You’ll find more in the wood by the stream that marks the boundary. Show the leaves to your warriors; then they’ll know what to look for.”
“Thank you, Spottedleaf,” Firestar meowed. Brushing his pelt against the medicine cat’s, he added, “I didn’t know you could come so far to help us. I haven’t seen you since we left the forest.”
Too late, he realized that Sandstorm was bristling beside him. “You mean you’ve seen Spottedleaf before?”
Firestar faced her to see anger and hurt in her green eyes.
“Spottedleaf visits me in dreams. She helps me—”
“You never told me!”
Firestar’s belly churned with guilt. He knew how insecure Sandstorm felt when she thought about Spottedleaf, knowing the connection she had shared with Firestar when she had been ThunderClan’s medicine cat. But he had never felt that he was betraying her by meeting Spottedleaf in his dreams.
Before he could reply, Spottedleaf slipped between the two of them and laid her tail tip gently on Sandstorm’s shoulder. “Peace, dear one,” she murmured. “Firestar loves you.”
“He loves you more.” Sandstorm’s voice was choked.
Spottedleaf hesitated, her amber eyes warm as she gazed at the ginger she-cat. “That’s not true. Firestar and I never discovered what we might have meant to each other,” she mewed at last. “I was alive in the forest for such a short time after he came to ThunderClan. But I know for sure”—her voice grew more intense—“that he and I could never have been mates. I was and always will be a medicine cat. That comes first, more than any cat who walks the forest, more even than Firestar.”
Sandstorm searched the tortoiseshell cat’s face. “Is that really true?”
“Of course,” Spottedleaf purred. “Even now I’m a medicine cat, not for my Clanmates in StarClan, but for all the cats in the forest below.”
“I love you, Sandstorm,” Firestar put in. “You’ll never be second-best for me. My love for you belongs here and now, in the life we share—and it will last for all the moons to come, I promise.”
Sandstorm looked from Spottedleaf to Firestar and back again. At last she took a long breath. “Thank you, Spottedleaf.
I’ve never stopped thinking about how you and Firestar seemed to belong together when he first came to the forest.
But I understand better now.”
“I thought you always knew how I felt about you,” Firestar mewed, bewildered.
Sandstorm blinked at him. Even though her eyes were full of love, there was a trace of exasperation there too. “Firestar, you can be so dense.”
Spottedleaf dipped her head. “I must go, but we will meet again, I promise. Until then, may StarClan light your path.”
“Good-bye, and thank you—not just for the burdock root,” Firestar meowed.
The tortoiseshell she-cat padded toward the cave entrance and paused for a heartbeat, her pelt brushing against his. Too softly for Sandstorm to hear, she murmured, “Sometimes I would give anything for things to be different.”
She did not wait for a reply. The moonlight had faded; for a heartbeat her slender shape was outlined against the first pale light of dawn from the sky above the far side of the gorge; then she was gone.
Sandstorm shook her head. “Have I been dreaming, or did that really happen?”
Firestar stepped to her side and pressed his muzzle against her shoulder. “It really happened.”
“I can’t believe she came to help us.”
“There’ll never be another cat in the forest like her. But she’s not you, Sandstorm.”
Sandstorm turned to gaze at him. “No more secrets, Firestar. I promise to try to understand how important Spottedleaf is to you, but I need to be able to trust you.”
“You can,” Firestar vowed.
Patchfoot let out a sigh, distracting Firestar from the depths of Sandstorm’s green eyes. The black-and-white warrior was quieter now, his breathing easier. He seemed to be sleeping more deeply.
“He’s going to be all right,” Firestar mewed. “And I think the rest of the Clan will be, too.”
“We’ll start extra battle training right away.” Firestar stood at the bottom of the Rockpile, with the SkyClan cats clustered around him. The sun had risen over the cliff top, casting long shadows down into the gorge. “We need to be as strong as possible when we go out to fight the rats.”
Sandstorm stood beside him. Since Spottedleaf’s visit earlier that morning, Patchfoot had improved so much that she had told Firestar she could leave him for a while to come to this meeting. “Don’t wait too long,” she advised, with a twitch of her ears. “Otherwise the rats will come and we won’t be ready for them.”
Firestar knew she was right. “I want a permanent watch on the Skyrock.”
“We should send extra patrols out to the Twoleg barn, too,” Leafdapple suggested.
Firestar nodded. “Right, but not too close. I don’t want a fight until we’re ready.”
“I’ll sort out the patrols,” Sandstorm meowed. “And the training schedules.”
“Watches and extra patrols and battle training?”
Cherrypaw’s eyes were wide with dismay. “It sounds like really hard work.”
“You’d rather have your throat torn out by a rat?”
Sharpclaw flicked his tail over the young tortoiseshell’s ear, and she sprang back with an indignant hiss. “My apprentice will do as she’s told, and do it without complaining.”
Cherrypaw opened her jaws to protest, but Firestar silenced her with a flick of his ears. “We can get started,” he meowed, “unless you have any other suggestions?”
Rainfur rose to his paws. “Petal and I want to be trained as well.”
“That’s right.” Petal looked nervous to be speaking in front of the whole Clan. “The kits are too small for us to leave yet, and we want to be ready to defend ourselves.”
“Thank you.” Firestar dipped his head. “We’re glad to have you. Sandstorm will add you to the training schedule.”
“Either Clovertail or I must stay with the kits,” Petal pointed out.
“Don’t worry,” Sandstorm replied. “I’ll work around that.
Are there any more questions? Right,” she went on when no cat responded, “Leafdapple and Sharpclaw, you can be the first patrol. Cherrypaw, will you keep watch on the Skyrock?
Give me a few moments to check on Patchfoot, and then I’ll lead a training session with Sparrowpaw and Rainfur, and Petal, you can join us, as Clovertail’s with the kits right now.”
“What about me?” Shortwhisker asked.
“You can come with me on a hunting patrol,” Firestar replied. “We’ll need all the fresh-kill we can get to keep our strength up. One more thing,” he added before the cats split up for their duties. “No cat leaves the camp alone from now on. And every cat must stay alert. If the rats come, they’ll find us ready and waiting.”
He dismissed the meeting with a wave of his tail.
Sharpclaw and Leafdapple sprang up the rocks toward the top of the cliff, and Cherrypaw followed, taking the trail that led to the Skyrock. Petal, Rainfur, and Sparrowpaw made their way up the gorge toward the training area.
Asking Shortwhisker to wait for him, Firestar padded beside Sandstorm as she headed for the medicine cat’s cave.
“You know, Cherrypaw was right,” he meowed. “It will be hard work. We don’t have enough cats to prepare for a rat attack as well as all the regular duties.” He sighed. “I’d give my pelt to have a patrol of ThunderClan warriors here now.”