Jayfeather was strangely detached from his littermates’ anxious questions. The secret was out, and no cat could stop the consequences. All he felt was a mild curiosity to see what would happen next.
“We mustn’t say anything to our Clanmates,” Hollyleaf mewed worriedly. “What if they punish us, too? They might think we knew all along. We’ll have to go on just as usual.
Maybe Ashfur won’t say anything after all.”
“And hedgehogs might fly,” Lionblaze retorted. “But I agree we shouldn’t tell any cat. Not until we find out the truth. If the Clan learns what happened, we need to be able to defend ourselves so they know we had nothing to do with this. Okay, Jayfeather?”
Jayfeather nodded. “Okay.”
“Then let’s get back to the camp,” Hollyleaf meowed.
“There’ll be a lot to do there.”
The stone hollow smelled charred and bitter when Jayfeather scrambled over the remains of the thorn barrier. He started at the sound of his father’s—no, Brambleclaw’s—voice.
“Are you all right?”
“We’re fine, thanks,” Lionblaze replied tightly.
“Then can you help Brackenfur patch up the nursery? You too, Hollyleaf. You’ll need to bring more brambles from the forest. And Jayfeather, I think Leafpool wants you. Spiderleg’s paws are burned and Longtail had a nasty bang on the head from a falling branch. And there may be others I don’t know about.”
“Okay, fine,” Jayfeather meowed. As he heard Brambleclaw bounding away, he turned to his littermates. “Don’t forget, we say nothing.”
But as he padded across to the medicine cats’ den, limping a little from his scorched pad, Jayfeather was aware of Ashfur standing at the edge of the clearing. He knew that the gray warrior’s eyes were fixed on him as clearly as if he could see the burning blue gaze.
Midnight said knowledge isn’t always power, he recalled. But sometimes it is. And Ashfur has the power to destroy us all.
Chapter 24
On the morning after the storm, Lionblaze was chosen for the dawn patrol with Brackenfur, Sorreltail, and Cinderheart. Strengthening daylight shone down through the trees as they padded away from the stone hollow. There was scarcely a breeze to disturb the leaves that still remained on the trees. Lionblaze could almost pretend that he had dreamed the storm, if it wasn’t for the litter of twigs and branches on the forest floor, and the blackened husks of the trees struck by lightning.
His pelt itched all the time he was away from the stone hollow, as he wondered what he would find when he returned, what accusations and gasps of shock would greet him. But the camp was peaceful, with Brambleclaw directing the repairs to the dens. Thornclaw and Mousewhisker were busy patching the last gaps in the brambles around the nursery; Foxpaw and Icepaw were carrying in huge bundles of fresh bedding.
Cloudtail and Brightheart worked together, dragging burnt branches away from the warriors’ den, while Whitewing, Birchfall, and Berrynose cleared debris from the floor of the clearing. Lionblaze overheard Berrynose grumbling that this wasn’t a job for a warrior.
Nothing’s changed! he thought. He couldn’t spot Ashfur among the cats in the clearing, but obviously the gray warrior hadn’t revealed the secret yet.
Lionblaze tried to believe that the storm of the discovery had passed away like the rain and thunder, leaving calm behind, but he knew in his heart that the damage from Squirrelflight’s revelation would last for moons and moons.
“We need to talk about this,” Hollyleaf muttered in his ear while they helped Dustpelt drag thorn branches into place to make a new barrier at the entrance to the camp. “Meet me in the forest. I’ll fetch Jayfeather.”
She bounded across to the medicine cats’ den and emerged a moment later with Jayfeather following her. Lionblaze watched them go out at the edge of the barrier where the dirtplace tunnel used to be. He waited for a few moments, then padded over to Dustpelt.
“I think I’ll go hunt,” he meowed. “The fresh-kill pile needs restocking.”
“There are hunting patrols out already,” Dustpelt grumbled. “Is fetching branches a bit boring for you? Oh, go on then,” he added, flicking his tail at Lionblaze. “But you’d better bring back something worth eating.”
Lionblaze headed out at a fast trot, before the senior warrior could change his mind. He picked up his littermates’ scent trail, and followed them into the forest.
Pausing at the edge of a clearing, he looked around, tasting the air. An urgent hiss sounded from under the trees. “Lionblaze! Over here!”
Lionblaze spotted Hollyleaf peering out from a clump of bracken. “What took you so long?” she demanded.
“I thought it best to wait a bit,” Lionblaze explained as he padded over to her and slid in among the bracken stalks. “I didn’t want any cat suspecting we were meeting in secret.”
Behind the bracken, the ground fell away into a shallow scoop where Jayfeather was sitting; he raised his head as Lionblaze scrambled down to join him. “Okay,” he meowed. “Now we’re all here, we have to decide what we’re going to do.”
“There’s only one thing we can do.” Hollyleaf’s claws worked furiously in the soft earth. “We have to find out who our real parents are. Squirrelflight won’t tell us, but we need to know!”
“No, I don’t agree,” Lionblaze argued.
“What? But you said—”
Lionblaze raised his tail to silence her. “I want to know who our mother and father are, just as much as you do. But that’s not the most important thing right now. Our biggest problem is what to do about Ashfur.”
“I hate Ashfur!” Hollyleaf lashed her tail; she was working herself up into another storm of fear and frustration.
Lionblaze laid his tail across her shoulders. “He’s madder than a fox in a fit, but that’s not the point.” Suddenly he remembered the fight he had once had with Ashfur when the gray warrior was his mentor. Ashfur’s blue eyes had blazed with battle fury. Was he trying to kill me then, to hurt Squirrelflight?
“Somehow we have to come up with a plan to keep him quiet.
Squirrelflight will be in big trouble if this gets out.”
Hollyleaf flicked her ears dismissively. “That’s Squirrelflight’s problem, not ours.”
“It’s a problem for all of us.” Lionblaze couldn’t help a pang of sympathy for Squirrelflight. True, she had lied to them, but she had always done her best for them, as if she really was their mother. “As long as Ashfur knows our secret, he has power over all of us.” Every hair on his pelt tingled as he tried to imagine what that might mean.
“You don’t get it, do you?” Hollyleaf snapped. Her gaze burned with green fire. “Don’t you realize—we might not be Clan cats!”
Lionblaze opened his jaws to reply, but said nothing, too taken aback by what Hollyleaf was implying.
“We might have been born outside the Clan—outside the warrior code.” She sounded as if she couldn’t think of anything worse. “What if Squirrelflight took pity on a passing loner or a kittypet?”
“But—but we’re the three,” Lionblaze stammered. “The prophecy is about us. We have the power to be greater than the stars. How can we not be Clan cats?”
“I think you’re both forgetting something,” Jayfeather broke in, speaking for the first time; his voice was cool and detached. “The prophecy told Firestar that ‘There will be three, kin of your kin…’ If Squirrelflight isn’t our mother, then we’re not Firestar’s kin, are we?”