“In a day or two, maybe,” Leafpool replied. “We should go through the stores first, and check on what we need. Meanwhile, you can shred some of these leaves and chew them into pulp for Briarkit.”
Boring! But Jaypaw knew better than to object. He pushed the yarrow to the back of the cleft where they stored herbs and began tearing the borage leaves apart with his claws. He’d gotten through less than half the pile when he heard paw steps outside the den and caught a whiff of fresh-kill. He picked up Hollyleaf’s scent, too; the hunting patrol had returned.
“Sorry,” he mewed to Leafpool, springing to his paws.
“There’s something I’ve got to do.”
He brushed past the bramble screen and tracked his sister by her scent. He bounded forward and felt her muzzle brush his shoulder as she ran to meet him.
“Come on,” she urged breathlessly. “Lionblaze is waiting for us behind the warriors’ den.”
Jaypaw followed her, squeezing into the space where they used to play when they were kits. “It’s a bit more squashed in here than I remember,” he muttered as he edged between his two littermates.
“Because we’re bigger, mouse-brain,” Hollyleaf snapped.
“And they extended the warriors’ den,” Lionblaze added.
“There’s still not enough room in there, though. I kind of envy Foxpaw and Icepaw, now they’ve got the apprentices’ den all to themselves.”
“Not for long,” Jaypaw replied. “Rosekit and Toadkit will be in there pretty soon.” He winced as Hollyleaf stuck her paw into his side. “Hey, watch it!”
“There’s a thorn stuck between my toes and I can’t reach it,” Hollyleaf explained.
“Okay.” Jaypaw felt around his sister’s paw until he located the thorn, digging in deep between the beds of her claws.
“Hollyleaf, tell us what’s on your mind,” Lionblaze suggested; Jaypaw could feel his impatience like a cloud of stinging flies. “We can’t stay stuck behind here all day.”
“I’m worried about what Sol is teaching the ShadowClan cats,” Hollyleaf began. “Ivytail said he told them not to listen to StarClan anymore.”
Jaypaw drew back from Hollyleaf’s paw with the thorn gripped between his teeth. He spat it out. “We heard that at the Gathering,” he pointed out. “Is it such a bad thing?”
“What?” Hollyleaf sounded outraged.
“I don’t mean about ignoring StarClan. But it’s good for cats to question things instead of just accepting them.”
“There are some things you just don’t question.” Hollyleaf spoke with utter certainty. “Sol doesn’t think we should follow the warrior code. And without that, what are we? Just a band of rogues.”
“This still isn’t anything new,” Lionblaze meowed. “Why are you getting so upset?”
“What’s new is that now we know the whole of ShadowClan is agreeing with Sol, not just Blackstar. Honestly, are you both mouse-brained? Do you want a Clan on our borders who doesn’t follow the warrior code? What’s to stop them from crossing the border and stealing our prey? Or maybe even raiding our camp and stealing our kits?”
“I’d like to see them try,” Lionblaze growled; squashed up against him, Jaypaw could feel his brother’s muscles flex as he extended his claws and dug them into the ground.
“The Clans will be destroyed if we don’t stick together and believe in the same things,” Hollyleaf went on, her anger rising. “We have to do something.”
“I’d like to tear that mange-ridden rogue apart.” Lionblaze’s irritation was deepening into anger as fierce as his sister’s; Jaypaw struggled not to feel overwhelmed by the force of their fury surging over him from both sides. “Sol promised to help us with the prophecy, and then he left us and went to ShadowClan.” After a heartbeat’s pause Lionblaze added, “Do you think there’s a prophecy about ShadowClan, too?”
“I’m sure there isn’t,” Jaypaw meowed. “We are the three. I know we are.”
He hoped that neither of his littermates would ask him how he could be so sure. He couldn’t imagine how he would tell them about his dreams in the mountains when he had visited the Tribe of Endless Hunting.
“I still think Sol knows more about the prophecy than he’s telling us,” he went on. “And if he won’t come to us, then we’ll have to cross the border and find him.”
“Trespass in ShadowClan territory?” Hollyleaf’s shock struck Jaypaw like a blow. “We can’t do that! We’ d be breaking the warrior code.”
“That’s just what I was saying,” Jaypaw meowed. “Sure, we can’t do without the warrior code. But there are times when it’s right to break it. Great StarClan!” he went on, as he sensed that his sister was rejecting his idea. “When we were kits, didn’t we hear stories about how Firestar sometimes broke the warrior code if he thought it was right? We can’t do anything about the prophecy until we know whatever Sol knows.
Whether he’s right or not about StarClan, he knew the sun was going to disappear, and StarClan didn’t. And we’re not going to learn anything from him by staying here.”
“I’m up for it,” Lionblaze snarled. “I’ll make Sol tell us the answers. Hollyleaf, you don’t have to come if you don’t want to.”
Hollyleaf’s shock was fading into uncertainty. “No, we’re in this together. Besides,” she went on, more determined, “maybe the prophecy means that we’re the only cats who have the power to save ShadowClan.”
Jaypaw didn’t say anything. If the only way Hollyleaf could bring herself to trespass was by thinking she was doing it for ShadowClan’s sake, he’d let her go on thinking that. But he and Lionblaze were doing this for the three of them, to find out what the prophecy really meant and how they could achieve the power they had been promised.
“Jaypaw? Are you there?”
Jaypaw’s ears flicked at the sound of Lionblaze calling softly from the other side of the bramble screen. He listened a moment longer, until he picked up regular breathing that told him Leafpool was soundly asleep. Then he climbed out of his nest and slid out of his den into the clearing.
The scents of Lionblaze and Hollyleaf wreathed around him. “Follow closely,” Lionblaze whispered. “The moon is shining and we have to keep to the shadows. Cloudtail is on guard at the entrance.”
“We’re going to sneak out through the dirtplace tunnel,” Hollyleaf added.
“Oh, great.” Jaypaw wrinkled his nose.
“You can crawl out underneath the brambles if you’d rather,” Lionblaze muttered. “Come on.”
Jaypaw’s pelt prickled as he crept after his brother around the edge of the stone hollow. But when he felt the tunnel walls closing around him, the thorns snagging his pelt, there had been no yowl from Cloudtail. He relaxed slightly when he emerged from the other end and picked his way across the dirtplace. As they headed into the forest he tried sniffing out clumps of herbs and brushing through them to get rid of the nasty smell.
The forest was silent except for the gentle rustling of leaves and the occasional scuttling of prey in the undergrowth.
“We need to keep together, and keep quiet,” Lionblaze murmured. “There might be ThunderClan cats out for some night hunting, and we don’t want any cat asking questions.”
“Okay,” Hollyleaf replied. Jaypaw could tell she was scared, not by the thought of a fight with ShadowClan warriors, but because she didn’t want to be caught breaking the warrior code. I wish she’ d lighten up. If we’ve got the power of the stars in our paws, we’re more powerful than the code, right?
Lionblaze led them to the stream that marked part of the border. “Keep right behind me,” he instructed Jaypaw. “It’s not deep.”