MISTYSTAR AND STONEFUR
MISTYKIT AND STONEKIT WERE born in ThunderClan to the warrior Bluefur, after her illicit relationship with the RiverClan cat Oakheart. Faced with the agonizing knowledge that Thistleclaw was about to become deputy and destroy ThunderClan with his bloodthirsty ambition, Bluefur took her three kits through the snow to the edge of the river and gave them to Oakheart, leaving her free to be chosen as deputy instead. One of the kits, Mosskit, died in the cold, but the other two survived and were raised by Graypool after the death of her own litter. Of course, Graypool guessed exactly where the kits had come from, as did Crookedstar, but they kept Oakheart’s secret and raised the cats to be loyal, brave, respected RiverClan warriors.
Leopardstar made Mistyfoot her deputy, and Mistyfoot and Stonefur mentored Stormfur and Feathertail. But then Bluestar revealed to them the truth about their birth, and Mistyfoot and Stonefur became the thing that Leopardstar hated most: half-Clan cats. They were briefly reunited with their mother when she fell into the gorge, saving her Clanmates from a pack of wild dogs. Bluestar died at their paws, happy to have acknowledged her full-grown kits at last.
When Tigerstar took control of RiverClan, Mistyfoot fled across the river to ThunderClan, but Stonefur was captured and killed by Darkstripe and Blackfoot—both of whom had left their Clans to join TigerClan—on Tigerstar’s command. Mistyfoot returned to her Clan after the battle with BloodClan and resumed her duties as deputy, under a shocked and chastened Leopardstar. Mistyfoot helped her Clanmates on the Great Journey and stayed loyal to her father’s Clan as they settled into their new home.
She never forgot her ThunderClan connections, though, and would have been hard-pressed to declare war on Firestar and his warriors. But her half-Clan roots were long forgiven by all the Clans, and she was regarded with great respect from all around the lake. When Leopardstar died, Mistystar became the leader of RiverClan.
FEATHERTAIL
FEATHERTAIL NEVER KNEW HER mother, Silverstream, who died giving birth to her at the foot of Sunningrocks. She and her brother, Stormfur, were first raised in ThunderClan by their father, Graystripe, but when they were treated less than kindly by their adopted Clanmates, Graystripe took them back across the river to be raised in their mother’s Clan. Graystripe soon returned to ThunderClan, but Featherkit and Stormkit stayed loyal to RiverClan. When Tigerstar rose to power and inflicted his obsession with pure Clan blood on the whole forest, Featherpaw and Stormpaw, now apprentices, were obvious targets. Leopardstar was persuaded to keep them prisoner in an old fox den, together with Featherpaw’s mentor, Stonefur, and from that dank hole, Featherpaw and her brother watched Stonefur die in a savagely unfair fight with Darkstripe and Blackfoot.
Firestar, Graystripe, and Ravenpaw rescued them and took them to ThunderClan, where they joined their Clanmate Mistyfoot; like her, they chose to go back to RiverClan when the battle with BloodClan was over. In the following greenleaf, StarClan visited Feathertail, now a warrior, in a dream, urging her to listen to Midnight. Four cats, one from each Clan, received the same message, and joined together to travel to the sun-drown-place and find a way to save their Clanmates from the destruction of the forest. Stormfur went with Feathertail, too loyal to his littermate to let her travel so far alone. But Feathertail was not alone; she fell in love with another cat who had been visited by StarClan, Crowpaw of WindClan. To other cats, he was prickly and reserved, but Feathertail saw through that to the loyal warrior beneath and, free from the borders that divided their forest home, they had no need to hide their affection.
On the return journey from the sun-drown-place, they stayed in the mountains with the Tribe of Rushing Water, and here Feathertail learned that she was part of another prophecy altogether, not from StarClan but from the Tribe of Endless Hunting. They foresaw that a silver cat would be the one to save the Tribe from the mountain lion named Sharptooth that preyed on them. The prophecy came true, but it cost Feathertail her life, plunging from the roof of the cave with the shard of stone that killed Sharptooth. She was buried above the waterfall, and she walks in the stars with the Tribe of Endless Hunting, watching over her adopted home. But she has never forgotten the Clans and often visits them in their dreams, guiding their paw steps with the same gentleness and foresight that she showed in her short, courageous life.
HAWKFROST
HAWKFROST WAS TIGERSTAR’S OTHER son, half brother to Brambleclaw and Tawnypelt. He and his sister, Mothwing, as well as their brother, Tadpole, were born to a loner named Sasha who strayed into ThunderClan shortly after Tigerstar became leader. Sasha gave birth to her kits alone in the forest and tried to raise them in abandoned Twoleg dens. After nearly losing her litter in a flood that claimed the life of Tadpole, Sasha brought her kits to RiverClan. Although the life of a Clan cat didn’t suit her, she hoped it would give her kits a better chance of survival than if they were left in the wild.
She came back for them when she learned that the Clans were being forced out of the forest by Twolegs, but by then Hawkfrost and his sister, Mothwing, were grown up and loyal to the code they shared with their Clanmates.
Even before he learned who his father was, Hawkfrost wanted to take Leopardstar’s place. He trained harder than any other apprentice, practiced catching fish over and over even though the skill didn’t run in his blood as it did in his Clanmates’, and was rewarded by being made temporary deputy when Mistyfoot was captured by Twolegs. He was clever enough to know that being Leopardstar’s favorite did not mean he was respected by his Clanmates. For that he needed something more… such as a sister who was the Clan’s medicine cat. So he tore the wing off a moth and faked a sign from StarClan to convince Mudfur that Mothpaw was the right choice for his apprentice.
Tigerstar saw the potential in his ambitious, coldhearted son, and when the cats made the long journey to the lake, Tigerstar began visiting Hawkfrost in his dreams, encouraging him to support
Mudclaw in the rebellion against Onestar. When Mudclaw was defeated, Hawkfrost insisted he’d had nothing to do with the uprising.
And it was Tigerstar’s idea that Hawkfrost should plot with a ThunderClan cat who was already an enemy of Brambleclaw’s to lure Firestar into a trap. That cat was Ashfur, who couldn’t have realized just what Hawkfrost was planning. But Tigerstar underestimated Brambleclaw’s loyalty to his Clan leader; instead of killing Firestar as Hawkfrost and Firestar expected, he freed the ThunderClan leader from the trap. Then Brambleclaw turned on his half brother, and StarClan’s terrible prophecy was fulfilled: “Before all is peaceful, blood will spill blood and the lake will run red.”
Hawkfrost joined his father in the Dark Forest and preyed on discontented cats in the living Clans, urging them to train in their dreams and rise up against the weaknesses of the warrior code.
Hawkfrost personally sought out Ivypaw, Dovepaw’s troubled sister, and watched with pride as she became one of the Dark Forest’s most skilled warriors. Even when his companions doubted her loyalty, Hawkfrost insisted she could be trusted. When he realized that she had duped him all along and had been a ThunderClan spy in their midst, he turned on her. Before he could strike the fatal blow, Hollyleaf leaped to intercept it. Hawkfrost killed her instead and was pursued back to the shadows by a fearsome patrol of living warriors.