“When will you learn to come back to the cave by sunset? And what in the world has happened to your face?”
Sun Shadow extended his tongue and licked toward his nose, tasting blood again. His pelt grew hot with embarrassment at the thought of confessing how he had fled from the bats. “I… uh… I ran into a hawk,” he mumbled.
Sharp Hail lashed his tail in frustration. “You expect me to believe that?” he snarled. “A scrawny thing like you would never stand a chance against a hawk. Besides, that injury is a bump, not a scratch—like you crashed into something.”
He waited, flexing his claws impatiently, but Sun Shadow had nothing more to say. He blinked miserably as he stared at the cave floor.
“We just want you to be safe.” Dewy Leaf spoke gently behind him. “Don’t you understand? After all that’s happened to us, here in the mountains…”
“Nothing has happened to us!” Sun Shadow blurted out, whipping around to face Dewy Leaf. “Not in my lifetime. I wish something would happen! Then living here might not be so boring.”
A look of horror flashed into Dewy Leaf’s eyes. At the same moment, Sun Shadow felt a stinging blow across his ears, and turned to see Sharp Hail glaring at him with one paw raised.
“That’s enough!” Sharp Hail yowled. “I’ve had it up to here with you whining about being safe and having enough to eat. You’re just like your father! Moon Shadow was always too restless to appreciate what he had.”
Sun Shadow had heard that accusation before, if not exactly in those words, and the truth of it stabbed him like a thorn in his pad. I am restless! And if I were with my father, at least I’d be around someone who understands me!
He had been too young to remember how his sister, Crow Muzzle, had died during her birth, and he had only a vague memory of his brother, Dancing Leaf, falling sick and dying a moon later. He had grown up alone. There had never been any cat who would listen to his dreams of life beyond the mountain.
“You need to be taught a lesson,” Sharp Hail went on, his voice cold. “To make up for worrying your mother tonight, you’ll spend the next half moon caring for Stoneteller.”
Sun Shadow nodded, feeling slightly bewildered. He liked Stoneteller, and admired how her wisdom guided the Tribe and how she cared for each of them as if they were her own kits. Ordinarily caring for her would have been an honor, not a punishment. But in the last few days Stoneteller had fallen ill with some kind of vomiting sickness. Sun Shadow had overheard the older cats reassuring one another that she would get better soon. They all believed she had many more seasons in her, and couldn’t imagine life without her.
I hope they’re right, Sun Shadow thought. But meanwhile, cleaning up after her will be pretty yucky.
“Well?” Sharp Hail’s voice broke into Sun Shadow’s thoughts. “Are you going to stand there all night? Get on with it!”
His belly still churning with resentment, Sun Shadow padded toward the back of the cave and the tunnel that led to Stoneteller’s den. He had never been allowed there before, and at the end of the passage he halted, his eyes wide with wonder.
The tunnel opened into a smaller cave, lit by starlight from a jagged hole in the roof. Reflections glinted from pools on the cave floor. Most astonishing of all, stone pinnacles rose from the cave floor, rising to meet spikes of stone that hung from the roof. Some of them were joined in the middle, so that Sun Shadow felt that he was gazing into a forest made of stone.
Hardly daring to breathe, Sun Shadow padded forward. “Stoneteller?” he called softly.
There was no reply. But a moment later Sun Shadow spotted the old white she-cat curled up beside one of the pools, her tail wrapped over her nose. Her body rose and fell gently with the rhythm of her breathing. She looked perfectly fine; there was no scent of vomit around her.
Sun Shadow retreated quietly and returned to the main cave. He crouched at the end of Stoneteller’s tunnel, trying to ignore the rumbling of his belly.
All the prey had been shared by the time I got back. And I’m not going to ask Sharp Hail if there’s any left!
A few tail-lengths away, Sun Shadow spotted Quiet Rain sitting beside her sleeping hollow and nibbling daintily on a mouse. As he watched her, his jaws watering, Quiet Rain glanced his way, then picked up her prey and padded over to him.
“You look like you could use some kindness,” she murmured, blinking sympathetically at his injured face. “Here.” She tore the mouse in two and pushed half of it toward him.
“Thank you!” Sun Shadow meowed, tearing hungrily into the prey.
“You look so much like your father,” Quiet Rain went on. “The same slender build and black pelt.
It’s a pity he never saw you.”
Sun Shadow looked up, gulping down the last mouthful. “My father is a hero,” he declared. “He left the mountains and risked the dangerous journey down the Sun Trail to find new hunting grounds and save all the cats who stayed in the mountains.”
To his surprise, Quiet Rain seemed not to share his admiration. “That’s true, but to do that, he left your mother on her own, even though she was expecting kits,” she pointed out.
A pulse of anger shot through Sun Shadow. “It was a sacrifice he had to make!” But his anger died as he met Quiet Rain’s steady gaze, and he remembered that she too had been left behind. “Your kits—Clear Sky, Gray Wing, and Jagged Peak—were heroes too,” he went on. “Do you ever wonder about them?”
Quiet Rain did not reply, though her eyes misted over, as if she was gazing into the far distance.
Sun Shadow found himself questioning whether the she-cat was lonely. She never took another mate, or had another litter. All her kits are gone.
“Do you ever think about what life is like at the end of the Sun Trail?” Sun Shadow asked her.
“Beyond this mountain?”
Quiet Rain remained silent for a few heartbeats, and Sun Shadow hoped he hadn’t upset her. But when she met his gaze again, her expression was resolute.
“I often wonder how my kits are faring,” she replied. “I would like to see them once more before I die. But my place is here, on this mountain, with these cats.” She paused, running the tip of her tail along Sun Shadow’s back. “Perhaps every cat wonders about life beyond the mountain,” she mewed.
“But you must find your place in the group here, where you belong.”
Without waiting for a reply, she padded back to her sleeping hollow and curled up inside it.
Sun Shadow watched her, impressed by her wisdom. But before he could think more about what she had said, he heard the sound of Stoneteller’s voice coming from her den at the end of the tunnel. It was too far away for him to make out the words, but there was an urgency in her tone that made him spring to his paws and race down the tunnel toward her.
Maybe she’s ill! I have to help her!
But when Sun Shadow erupted into Stoneteller’s cave, he saw her standing erect on her paws, her head raised and her gaze fixed on the jagged gap in the roof. Her green eyes shone brilliantly, as if what she saw there filled her with mingled joy and sorrow. Sun Shadow didn’t dare speak; he could only watch and listen in wonder.
“Fluttering Bird… Shaded Moss… Bright Stream… Turtle Tail…” She breathed out. “Oh, my dear friends! I thought I would never see you again. How is it that you’re here now, with me?”