JAYFEATHER
DESPITE BEING BORN BLIND, able to see only in his dreams, Jayfeather was confident in his ability to also navigate his world when awake. He shared his littermates’ courage and curiosity, which led to an adventure with fox cubs that nearly took all of them to StarClan prematurely. Jaypaw saw no reason why he couldn’t train to be a warrior alongside them, and he was bitter and angry when Firestar insisted on apprenticing him to Brightheart, the one-eyed warrior, in the hope that she could help the blind apprentice become a warrior too. After his disastrous first battle and a dream visit from Spottedleaf, ThunderClan’s former medicine cat, Jaypaw realized that it was his destiny to become a medicine cat and was apprenticed to Leafpool. His memory for herbs and his connection with StarClan made him unusually gifted from the beginning, but Jaypaw still chafed at what he saw as a second-best future, limited to the confines to the territory.
He found freedom by walking in other cats’ dreams, which is how he learned about the prophecy
Firestar had received so many moons ago.
The discovery that he was expected to have more power than StarClan gave Jaypaw the confidence to challenge his ancestors and also to interfere with the destiny of the Tribe of Rushing Water in the mountains. Jaypaw learned from their ancestors, the Tribe of Endless Hunting, that something dark and terrible loomed for all of the Clans—and that the chance of survival depended on him and his littermates.
After receiving his medicine cat name, Jayfeather’s destiny became entangled with that of the mountain cats when he walked with the Ancient Clan cats, who had once lived beside the lake, as a long-ago sharpclaw named Jay’s Wing. He fell in love with Half Moon and helped guide the cats to the mountains when their home by the lake was threatened. Knowing that he had to return to his own
Clan, many seasons and fox-lengths away, Jayfeather made Half Moon the first ever Teller of the Pointed Stones for the mountain cats and gave to her the seeds of a faith in something more than what the cats could see around them—a faith that would be passed on for every generation to come.
CINDERHEART
CINDERHEART WAS BORN TO Sorreltail at the exact moment a badger took the life of Cinderpelt.
Perhaps in recognition of Cinderpelt’s thwarted destiny and of her unceasing loyalty to her Clan as their medicine cat, StarClan allowed her spirit to return in the body of tiny Cinderheart.
Cinderheart became a warrior apprentice alongside her brothers, training hard to learn how to hunt and fight—and never knowing about her connection to the former medicine cat.
Following an accident in which she fell from a tree while saving another apprentice, Cinderheart’s peace began to be disturbed by vivid dreams where she walked through a forest she didn’t recognize—and yet it was completely familiar. She knew the names of the cats who lived there and could identify the scents of herbs that clung to her pelt. The images felt as real as memories, but she tried to ignore them until Jayfeather walked with her in the dreams and gently showed her that they were memories—from her former life as ThunderClan’s medicine cat. Cinderheart was torn between her ambition to be a warrior and serve her Clan by hunting and fighting, and her responsibility to make use of the medicine skills she had somehow been born with. She felt trapped by the destiny that seemed to have been forced upon her.
Only Lionblaze could convince Cinderheart that she could choose her own path. Cinderpelt had lived one life, but this was Cinderheart’s life now. And when Cinderheart chose to spend that life as a warrior, alongside Lionblaze, she felt the spirit of the medicine cat lift softly away from her and take its place in StarClan.
DOVEWING
KIN TO FlRESTAR THROUGH her mother’s father, Cloudtail, Dovewing was the third cat of the prophecy, in place of Hollyleaf. From the time she was a tiny kit, she could hear sounds from far, far away, even beyond the lake, and could picture what was happening in other territories. Dovepaw assumed that every cat was the same, so it was a shock when she first learned she was the only one after she helped her Clan by realizing that the shortage of water in the lake was caused by big, brown animals—beavers—building a dam of wood to block a stream much farther up. Jayfeather instantly recognized the potential of Dovewing’s gift, but he told her to pretend she had dreamed what was happening, which was something Firestar would understand.
Although she was still only an apprentice, Dovepaw traveled with cats from the other Clans to find the beavers and destroy the dam, releasing the water back into the lake. She forged a powerful friendship with the ShadowClan cat Tigerheart on the journey, a friendship that persisted and deepened when they returned to their own Clans. Even after she had learned about the prophecy and knew about the role she would have to play in the clash between the cats of the Clans and the Dark
Forest, Dovepaw couldn’t resist visiting Tigerheart at night, using her powers of hearing to keep them safe from detection.
But the looming crisis forced Dovewing to reconsider her loyalties, and she knew that defending her Clan—and the warrior code—mattered more to her than anything else. She found a good friend, somewhat unexpectedly, in Bumblestripe and began to see a future with a cat of her own Clan, rather than the tormented and secret love she’d had for Tigerheart. As the echoes of the final battle died away, with the scratches from Dark Forest cats still stinging on her pelt, Dovewing made her choice.
IVYPOOL
IVYPOOL WAS DOVEWING’S ONLY littermate and, like Squirrelflight and Leafpool, the sisters were closer than hairs on a vole’s pelt. But their paths began to diverge when, as an apprentice, Dovepaw went on the quest to free the water. When Dovepaw came back, she had distant horizons in her eyes and a connection with cats in other Clans that seemed to stretch the limits of the warrior code.
Feeling unwanted and left out, Ivypaw continued to train hard, even though Dovepaw always seemed to hear and see things much faster than Ivypaw could; on the occasions when Ivypaw did make a catch first, she knew it was because Dovepaw had let her. When a mysterious dark brown cat with ice-blue eyes visited Ivypaw in a dream and offered to train her to be a better warrior than she ever imagined, Ivypaw immediately said yes. Her new mentor, Hawkfrost, led her nightly into a forest of shadows and black rivers, where cats that Ivypaw recognized from other Clans were taught to fight harder, run faster, attack with more cunning than their daylight mentors allowed. Here, Ivypaw shone. She began training apprentices of her own and was sought out for praise by Hawkfrost time after time.
But when Tigerstar laid bare the true purpose of training these cats—to destroy the Clans from within, using cats from past and present—Ivypool, by this time a warrior, swore never to return.
Unbeknownst to Ivypool, Jayfeather had followed her into her dreams and discovered her involvement with the Dark Forest. He and Lionblaze saw the potential of recruiting Ivypool to spy for them; to Dovewing’s dismay, her sister agreed and risked her life by going back to the Dark Forest to learn when the attack would happen. Despite suspicions from older cats, Ivypool maintained the illusion of loyalty right up until the final charge through to the living Clans. Then she fought with immense courage against cats who she knew had no hesitation about killing to secure a victory.