Blaze puffed out his chest. “I’m going to be a warrior. And Spire is going to be a medicine cat.”
If only it were that simple. Tigerheart glanced at the young tom, imagining all the questions and recriminations that might be waiting at the end of their journey. “It’s a long story,” he told Rippletail. He felt suddenly tired. What would Rippletail think when he discovered that he and Dovewing had kits waiting for them on the other side of the hill? “Too long to tell here.”
As he spoke, paw steps thrummed across the frozen hillside. Tigerheart recognized the shapes of Cloverfoot and Sparrowtail at once. Lit by the moon, their pelts gleamed as they raced closer.
Cloverfoot called out anxiously from the darkness. “Rippletail? Berryheart? Who’s with you?” The gray tabby she-cat pulled up, blinking in surprise at Tigerheart.
Sparrowtail scrambled to a halt beside her. A fat rabbit dangled from his jaws. He dropped it as he saw Tigerheart. “What are you doing here?” His surprised gaze flitted to Spire and Blaze. “Who are you?”
Rippletail fluffed out his pelt. “Let’s have this conversation somewhere warmer.”
Berryheart’s eyes were clouding with tiredness. She blinked gratefully at her brother.
“Let’s go back to our den.” Cloverfoot nodded toward the abandoned Twoleg nest as Sparrowtail hurried to Berryheart and pressed his muzzle against her cheek.
Dovewing glanced anxiously at Tigerheart. “The kits,” she whispered. “They’ll be worried about us.”
Blaze whisked his tail. “Ant and Cinnamon will want to know that Spire’s okay.”
“Ant and Cinnamon?” Cloverfoot frowned.
Berryheart pricked her ears. “Kits?”
Rippletail padded between the cats, his tail flicking. “I guess you do have quite a story to tell.”
Spire flicked his tail impatiently. “The past is irrelevant. Now that we’ve found you, you must come with us.”
“Where to?” Rippletail looked alarmed.
“To the Clans, of course,” Spire meowed.
Rippletail and Sparrowtail exchanged anxious looks.
“We’ve been worried about going home,” Cloverfoot explained. “We joined the rogues. We fought the Clans. We weren’t sure ShadowClan would have us back. That’s why we’ve stayed away.”
Tigerheart returned the gray tabby’s gaze. After such disloyalty, any cat would find it hard to return to the Clan they’d betrayed. But ShadowClan was in trouble. Doubt fluttered in his belly. Could he trust them? He met Cloverfoot’s eye. “Would you join the rogues again?” he asked.
Her eyes flashed in alarm. Sparrowtail and Berryheart pressed together.
Rippletail lifted his chin. “Never.” His meow was unflinching. “We made a terrible decision. We didn’t realize that Darktail was a liar and a bully. We truly thought he could make ShadowClan stronger and safer. We were wrong. And we will spend our lives making it up to ShadowClan, if they agree to take us back.”
“They may not have much choice,” Tigerheart meowed grimly. “We lost so many warriors to the rogues that we didn’t have enough to patrol our territory. We gave some of it to SkyClan. The remaining cats lost faith in Rowanstar, and I… I left the Clan to give him a chance to be leader.”
Rippletail looked confused. “But you’re his son! You were always Rowanstar’s strongest ally.”
“I was causing trouble for the Clan just by being there,” Tigerheart told him bluntly. “My Clanmates were looking to me for orders. It undermined Rowanstar’s leadership. I thought Rowanstar had more chance of keeping the Clan together without me. And Dovewing… was expecting my kits. We traveled far, to a territory with many, many Twolegs, so she could give birth in a place where no cats could judge us.” He looked around the ShadowClan cats, daring them to criticize him. After all, he’d not only left his Clan, but he’d had kits with a warrior from ThunderClan. But there was truth in his curt explanation—and none of them were in a position to criticize the choices he’d made. And Tigerheart felt sure that he would make the same choice all over again, if he had to.
Sparrowtail glanced past Tigerheart. “Where is your camp?” Clearly he didn’t want to dwell on the past. “If you have kits, we should go to them.”
Blaze blinked at him. “Are they coming back to the Clans with us?”
Tigerheart looked at them. “Are you?”
Cloverfoot, Sparrowtail, Berryheart, and Rippletail exchanged glances, then nodded. “We’re ready to go home,” Rippletail meowed.
Dovewing padded anxiously around Berryheart. “Are you well enough to travel?” Her gaze flicked over the queen’s swollen flanks.
Spire answered for her. “It’ll be easier for her to travel with the kits inside her belly than outside,” he meowed matter-of-factly.
Berryheart’s eyes flashed with amusement. “Your friend is right.” She padded forward heavily. “I’m afraid I may slow you down. But if I wait until the kits are born, it may be moons before we can travel back to the lake.”
Tigerheart huffed in reluctant agreement. “Let’s go back to our camp,” he meowed. “We can rest for the night.” He glanced at Cloverfoot’s rabbit. Its warm prey-scent was bathing his tongue. “You can eat and rest there, and we can start the journey home in the morning.”
Spire glanced up. Tigerheart followed his gaze, his eyes resting on the stained wall looming above them. He dipped his head to the skinny tom. “The orange sun,” he said. “You were right.”
Two days of rain were followed by a crisp, bright day. Blue sky stretched toward the horizon. White clouds whisked across the sky, driven by a brisk, chilly wind. Tigerheart followed the Silverpath around a wide, curving valley, Dovewing padding at his side. There were only a few Twoleg nests dotted among the frosty meadows here. Spire kept his distance from the track, eyeing it warily from time to time. Blaze stayed close to him, glancing back at Rippletail and Berryheart.
The queen had slowed down their pace as she’d predicted. Her swollen belly made her breathless, and she tired easily. Pouncekit, Lightkit, and Shadowkit scampered ahead with Rippletail and Cloverfoot. They’d been excited to meet ShadowClan warriors and seemed eager to impress them. Ant and Cinnamon seemed pleased too, and asked their new traveling companions almost as many questions about Clan life as the kits did. Tigerheart hadn’t told any of them that the last time he’d seen these warriors, they were fighting alongside rogue cats who had threatened to destroy all the Clans. He eyed Rippletail now, his pelt pricking with an unease that hadn’t left him since they’d found their former Clanmates.
Dovewing brushed against him as they walked. She followed his gaze toward Rippletail. “You’ve forgiven them, haven’t you?” She sounded uncertain.
“We all make mistakes,” Tigerheart murmured. “But I keep thinking of the moment when the rogues came, and our Clanmates”—the word felt bitter on his tongue—“didn’t lift a paw to stop Rowanstar, Tawnypelt, and me from leaving the camp. They wanted us to go. They chose Darktail instead.”
Dovewing turned her soft green gaze on him. “That must have felt terrible. But things have changed. They know they were wrong.”
Tigerheart shook out his pelt. He knew he must get rid of the resentment worming beneath his fur. If ShadowClan was to survive, past grievances must be forgotten. “When I left ShadowClan, there was so little trust in the Clan. I’m worried that bringing traitors back will only make it worse.”
Dovewing flicked her tail. “For a start, you have to stop thinking of them as traitors.” She watched Pouncekit duck beneath Cloverfoot’s belly and pop out the other side. Lightkit ducked after her, purring. “They are clearly sorry for the choices they made. You’re helping to reunite your Clan. You need to show by example that old wounds can heal and old arguments can be forgiven.”