Brambleclaw pelted down the ravine to the gorse tunnel at the bottom, his heart nearly bursting with happiness. In a few heartbeats he would see all his Clanmates again: Graystripe would never have been captured by Twolegs; all Ferncloud’s kits would still be alive; the elders would be in their den, querulously ordering the apprentices to get rid of their ticks.
Trembling with excitement, Brambleclaw pushed his way through the gorse tunnel into the camp, his jaws parted to let out a yowl of greeting. Then he stopped dead. The clearing was completely empty, except for one cat sitting alone in the middle of the open space.
The cat raised his head and gazed at Brambleclaw with scorching amber eyes.
It was Tigerstar.
Brambleclaw almost choked with shock and disbelief.
Graystripe’s capture, the death of Ferncloud’s kits, the endless journey—all those things were real. This was the dream, and it had suddenly become a nightmare.
Tigerstar kinked his tail and beckoned Brambleclaw to come closer. Brambleclaw stiffened, then padded slowly forward. As he drew closer he saw his father more clearly, his muscular shoulders and broad head, his burning amber eyes.
“Welcome,” Tigerstar rumbled. “I have waited for many moons to speak with you.”
Brambleclaw stopped a couple of tail-lengths away. He had no idea what to say. All he could think was that he was the image of his father—the breadth of his shoulders, the shape of his head, the exact shade of his eyes. He could have been staring at his reflection in a pool.
“I have seen your courage and strength,” Tigerstar went on. “I am proud to call you kin.”
“Th-thank you.” Brambleclaw kneaded his forepaws on the ground. “Why have you come here? Did StarClan send you?”
“I do not hunt with StarClan,” spat Tigerstar. “There is more sky than Silverpelt, and there are hunting grounds that not even StarClan knows of.”
His gaze slid past Brambleclaw. “Welcome,” he meowed. “I hoped you would come. I’ve looked forward to meeting you.”
Brambleclaw spun around to see Hawkfrost emerging from the gorse tunnel. He watched in stunned silence as the RiverClan warrior padded across the clearing and sat beside him. The moonlight cast a pair of identical shadows on the hard-baked ground in front of them, and Brambleclaw realized that a half-blind kit would know at once that all three were kin.
He told himself that he ought to feel something stronger than bewilderment and curiosity to find out more about his father and half brother. They came from three different Clans; beyond that, Tigerstar had murdered many cats and betrayed his own Clanmates to satisfy his hunger for power.
Yet Brambleclaw could not shake off the feeling that he had waited a long time for this moment. For all the differences between them, the same blood ran in their veins.
“Are you Tigerstar?” Hawkfrost asked, reminding Brambleclaw that Hawkfrost had arrived in the forest after his father was killed. “Are you my father?”
Tigerstar nodded. “I am. So, how are your new territories?”
“It’s hard being somewhere so different,” Hawkfrost admitted.
“We all miss the forest,” Brambleclaw added.
“Soon the land by the lake will seem like home to you,” Tigerstar promised. “Establish your boundaries and guard them with tooth and claw, because territory is what binds a Clan together.”
“Yes!” Hawkfrost’s eyes gleamed. “RiverClan has set its scent markers already. Yesterday Blackclaw and I drove out a badger that was living in our territory.”
“Good, good.” Tigerstar’s ears pricked, and he raised his head as if he heard a voice calling him. Above the trees, the sky was growing pale with the first light of dawn. “I must go now,” the dark tabby meowed. “Good-bye, Brambleclaw, Hawkfrost. We will meet again as we walk the path of dreams; of that I’m sure.”
He rose to his paws. At that moment a cloud drifted over the face of the moon, plunging the clearing into darkness for a single heartbeat. When it cleared, Tigerstar was gone.
“I must go too.” Hawkfrost touched noses with Brambleclaw and began padding back to the camp entrance.
“No—wait. Don’t go!” Brambleclaw called.
“I have to go; I’m on the dawn patrol. What are you talking about, Brambleclaw?”
Brambleclaw blinked and sat up. Cloudtail was looking at him with a puzzled expression as he groomed scraps of moss out of his pelt. “Is there something wrong?” he asked. “Do you want me to tell Brackenfur I can’t go on the patrol?”
Brambleclaw shook his head, dazed. “No, no, I’m fine.” He lay down again and closed his eyes tightly, as if he could force out the thorn-sharp grief that tore at his belly.
The dream had faded, and he was in the stone hollow again. Tigerstar, Hawkfrost, and the old ThunderClan camp were gone.
Brambleclaw slept dreamlessly for a while, and awoke feeling less confused and wretched. He padded out of the ferns and arched his back in a stretch. The sky was brighter now, outlining the bare branches at the top of the rock wall. A pulse of excitement ran through him as he remembered that tonight the moon would be full, and the Clans would meet for a Gathering.
He glanced around the camp. The clearing looked very different from the first time he had seen it. Many of the brambles had been uprooted to form a barrier blocking the camp entrance. The biggest thicket had been turned into the nursery. The apprentices were using a shallow cave in the rock wall as their den, while the warriors slept under the spreading branches of a thornbush almost as big as the one in the old camp. The elders still hadn’t found a den they could agree on; every night they would try a different spot, and wake up complaining that it was too damp or too drafty.
Brambleclaw suspected Goldenflower and Longtail were rather enjoying the search for the perfect place, because it meant they got to inspect every corner of the hollow, and had even started advising the other cats on the best places to bask in the sun or eat fresh-kill out of the rain.
Gradually, the stone hollow was becoming more like home, but Brambleclaw couldn’t shake off the memory of his dream, when he had gone back to the camp in the ravine. It wasn’t just a longing to be back in the forest that tugged at his paws and made him restless; he kept thinking of his father and half brother, too. What had Tigerstar meant about hunting in different skies? Was he keeping watch over Firestar and the whole of ThunderClan from wherever he hunted now?
Brambleclaw shook his head violently, as if the dream were a cobweb clinging to his pelt. Their old home had gone, and there was nothing to be gained by fretting over memories.
Focusing on practical duties, he saw that the fresh-kill pile near the entrance to the camp was getting low. At the same moment, Dustpelt emerged from the nursery and padded across to meet him.
“Hi,” Brambleclaw meowed. “Want to go hunting?”
“Great!” Dustpelt’s eyes gleamed. “Who should we take with us?”
Brambleclaw wondered if he should go and look for Squirrelflight, but then he heard a cat call out Dustpelt’s name, and glanced around to see Brackenfur racing toward them.
“Dustpelt,” he panted as he skidded to a halt, “you had Whitepaw fetching fresh bedding all day yesterday. Can I have her for warrior training today? It’s time we got the apprentices back into a proper routine.”
“Sure,” Dustpelt replied. “Do you want to come hunting with us?”
“Bring Spiderpaw too,” Brambleclaw suggested.
“Mousefur isn’t well enough for patrols yet.”
“Good thinking.” The voice came from behind Brambleclaw; he spun around to see Firestar coming over.
“I’ve just had a word with Mousefur,” Firestar went on.
“Yesterday Spiderpaw chased away a young fox that was sniffing around the entrance to the camp. We both think he’s ready to be a warrior, so we’re going to hold his ceremony at sunhigh. You can tell him this will be his last hunt as an apprentice.”