She blamed herself wholly for Brokenstar’s brutality, and when he was finally defeated during a raid on the ThunderClan camp, she persuaded Bluestar to let him stay there, blind and captive. Just a few moons later, Yellowfang discovered that Brokenstar had plotted with Tigerclaw and some rogues against the Clan that had given him food and shelter. Wracked with guilt, Yellowfang fed deathberries to her own son: It was the only solution she could find for a problem she believed she had caused.
Her loyalty to ThunderClan was proven beyond all doubt when she died saving her adopted Clanmates from a fire that swept through their camp. Fireheart grieved as if he had lost his own mother.
CINDERPELT
CINDERPELT WAS A MEDICINE cat who should have been a warrior. She was Fireheart’s first apprentice, but when she was struck by a monster on the Thunderpath, she injured her hind leg so badly that she had to give up all her hopes of hunting and fighting for her Clan. In spite of her disappointment, she trained fiercely as Yellowfang’s apprentice and became a skilled and reliable medicine cat. She fought hard to save Silverstream’s life at the birth of Graystripe’s kits and was always haunted by her failure. Cinderpelt tried to make amends by helping two sickly ShadowClan cats who sought refuge in ThunderClan’s territory; this forged a strong, lasting friendship with one of them, Littlecloud, who went on to become ShadowClan’s medicine cat.
Cinderpelt didn’t have the same sensitivity to StarClan that other medicine cats have had; for example, she interpreted blades of burning grass as a warning that Brambleclaw and Squirrelflight would unite—fire and tiger—to destroy ThunderClan. In fact, those cats’ quest to the sun-drown-place saved the Clan by finding them a new home.
But StarClan did not blame Cinderpelt for her mistake. They understood that she should never have been a medicine cat. Her warrior ancestors gave her one more test before deciding to give her a second chance: Led by Bluestar, they told Cinderpelt when she would die and then let her live with that knowledge even though her apprentice, Leafpool, was on the brink of leaving the Clan to be with the WindClan warrior Crowfeather. Cinderpelt went on in the shadow of her own death with such courage and dignity, resisting the temptation to beg Leafpool to stay, that she proved herself worthy of a second life, returning to ThunderClan at the moment of her final breath as one of Sorreltail’s kits, Cinderheart.
LEAFPOOL
IN CONTRAST WITH ClNDERPELT, Leafpool was always destined to be a medicine cat. From birth, she had a special sensitivity to other cats, particularly her sister. As young apprentices, Leafpaw and Squirrelpaw could always sense where the other was and what they were feeling. StarClan fostered this link because they knew Squirrelpaw would be journeying far from the forest—farther than any
Clan cat had been before—and they needed a cat back home to be aware of what she was going through.
For a while it seemed that, young as she was, Leafpool knew what lay around every corner and over every horizon. She knew the Clans had found their new homes when they reached the lake; she knew that Brambleclaw would make a strong and loyal deputy for ThunderClan; she even knew that blood would spill blood before the Clans were truly settled around the lake—and she watched with her own eyes as Brambleclaw killed his half brother, Hawkfrost, to save Firestar.
But the one thing Leafpool did not foresee was falling in love with a WindClan warrior, Crowfeather. Like Yellowfang before her, she broke the warrior code and bore kits: Lionkit, Hollykit, and Jaykit. To keep Leafpool’s secret, Squirrelflight raised the kits as her own, even convincing her mate, Brambleclaw, that they were his. Leafpool suffered the pain of watching her kits grow up without them knowing she was their mother.
When her secret was discovered by Hollyleaf and blurted out at a Gathering of all the Clans, Leafpool was forced to give up her role as ThunderClan’s medicine cat and become a warrior instead. To add to her agony, her kits hated her for lying to them, especially Jayfeather, who became medicine cat in her place. But Leafpool never judged them, and she served her Clan with quiet loyalty until Jayfeather realized that her skills and experience were too precious to lose and invited her to return to the medicine den alongside him.
SQUIRRELFLIGHT
IF LEAFPOOL WAS LIKE water—calm, deep, reflecting the stars—then Squirrelflight was fire. She had enough energy to scorch every tree in the forest, and a tongue that could leave scars in beech bark.
She was passionately loyal to her Clan and incapable of doing anything but what she believed to be right—including taking on her sister’s kits and making their Clanmates believe they were Squirrelflight’s own.
Squirrelpaw was still an apprentice when she insisted on joining Brambleclaw on the quest to sun-drown-place, following the message from StarClan that they must “listen to what midnight tells you.” Midnight turned out to be a wise, old badger who steered the cats toward their new home by the lake. Squirrelpaw proved herself to be a brave, feisty companion to the other cats on the quest, demonstrating the courage of her father, Firestar, and the quiet determination of her mother, Sandstorm. For a while on the journey, it seemed as if she was growing close to the RiverClan warrior, Stormfur, but it was Brambleclaw who captured her heart.
Once the Clans had settled by the lake, Ashfur fell in love with Squirrelflight, noticing something behind the mischief and the fire, when Brambleclaw saw only a quarrelsome nuisance. But though Ashfur would have been loyal to the end, he failed to appreciate the strength beneath her impulsive ways. Squirrelflight needed someone to match her fire, not contain it, and that cat was always going to be Brambleclaw.
Squirrelflight watched Brambleclaw raise Lionblaze, Hollyleaf, and Jayfeather as his own, a fair and devoted father. When the truth came out that the kits were Leafpool’s, Brambleclaw couldn’t forgive Squirrelflight for lying to him. Squirrelflight accepted his anger as her punishment; the death of Ashfur and the shame she had brought to the whole of ThunderClan meant that she didn’t feel worthy of being loved. But she never stopped being unwaveringly loyal to her Clan, and fought like a lion in the battle against the Dark Forest. When Brambleclaw became leader after Firestar’s death, there was only one cat he could choose to be his deputy: Squirrelflight, his former mate, the cat he knew he could trust to his very last breath.
BRAMBLECLAW
THE SON OF TIGERSTAR was always going to walk a path of light and shadow, torn between the courage and ambition he inherited from his father and loyalty toward the Clan his father had tried to destroy. Brambleclaw was the first cat chosen by StarClan to go on the quest to find Midnight, and the fact that Firestar didn’t hesitate to trust him sent a clear signal to his Clanmates that Brambleclaw should not be judged for Tigerstar’s sins. Though still a young and inexperienced warrior, Brambleclaw led the five other cats through Twolegplaces and across mountains to the sun-drown-place. He endured the return journey, keeping his little band of warriors together even after Feathertail’s tragic death in the Cave of Rushing Water, and inspired Firestar and the other Clan leaders to set out in search of a new, safer home.