River Of Fire

CHAPTER 20

Violetshine whisked out of the thorn tunnel behind her father and the two ShadowClan warriors. Alderheart brought up the rear; after Strikestone’s shattering news that Tigerheart was dead, he had insisted on coming with them—with Bramblestar’s permission—to see if he could help.

I can’t believe Tigerheart is dead, Violetshine thought, especially so soon after Rowanclaw died. Tigerheart had always been so strong, so full of life, and so kind to her when she was a kit, bewildered in her new Clan, and missing her sister.

Violetshine knew it wasn’t the same for Hawkwing and Alderheart, who hadn’t known Tigerheart that well, but she could see her own shock and horror reflected in the faces of the ShadowClan cats.

“I wonder what this means for the prophecy,” Alderheart meowed, catching Violetshine up to bound along beside her. “Is Tigerheart the shadow that must not be dispelled? But if he’s dead . . . ?”

He let his voice trail off with a confused shake of his head.

Violetshine felt just as confused. She hadn’t even realized the direction they were heading until, a moment later, Alderheart halted.

“Hang on!” he exclaimed. “This isn’t the way to the SkyClan camp. Why are we going toward WindClan?”

“We’re not,” Grassheart told him. “We’re going to the Moonpool. The cats with Tigerheart insisted on taking his body there.”

“Puddleshine and Frecklewish are with him,” Strikestone added.

Alderheart shook his head sadly. “If Tigerheart is truly dead,” he mewed quietly, “then I don’t think StarClan can help him.”

Violetshine’s legs and paws were aching by the time she and the other cats reached the last steep slope that led to the Moonpool. The sun had started to go down, casting a red light over the rocks.

Her jaws gaped with astonishment as she saw the crowd of cats waiting at the foot of the slope. The first cat she spotted was Dovewing, her claws flexing, scraping anxiously at the stones. Three kits huddled beside her.

“Dovewing!” Alderheart exclaimed, rushing over to her. “You’re here—you’re safe! Oh, thank StarClan!”

Dovewing leaned forward briefly to touch noses with the ThunderClan medicine cat. “It’s not the homecoming I wanted,” she responded. “But I have to be brave for our kits.”

“Yours and Tigerheart’s?” Alderheart mewed, looking down at the three young cats. “The dark brown tabby looks exactly like him.”

“That’s Lightkit,” Dovewing told him. “The gray striped tom is Shadowkit, and the gray she-cat is Pouncekit.”

While Alderheart admired the kits, Violetshine was staring at the other cats who stood with Dovewing. Four of them were ShadowClan warriors.

“Berryheart, Sparrowtail, Cloverfoot, and Slatefur,” she breathed out, hardly able to believe what she was seeing. “We all thought you were dead!”

Three even smaller kits were clustered around Berryheart. And beyond them were three cats Violetshine had never set eyes on before: two full-grown and one younger, the age to be an apprentice.

“Where have you all come from?” Violetshine asked.

It was Dovewing who replied. “I was living in a huge Twolegplace with Tigerheart and our kits. That’s where we met Ant, Cinnamon, and Blaze.” She flicked her tail toward the three strange cats. “But in the end, we knew we wanted to return. And on our way back we found Berryheart and the others.”

Dovewing fell silent, and Violetshine was aware of the tension among the cats as they waited, breathless with fear and anticipation. What are they waiting for? What is there to hope for? Tigerheart is dead!

Movement in the shadow of the rocks alerted Violetshine, and she realized that still more cats stood with them, sharing in the anxious vigil. All the other ShadowClan cats were there, along with Leafstar and Frecklewish. She took a pace forward and dipped her head to her Clan leader.

Leafstar returned her nod. “Violetshine. Hawkwing. This is all so strange. . . . What are these cats expecting to happen?”

No cat replied to her.

Just behind Leafstar, Tawnypelt was standing, her head bowed as she stared at her paws. She seemed numb with grief.

I’m so sorry for her, Violetshine thought. Dawnpelt, Rowanclaw, and now Tigerheart. Tawnypelt is so brave—but how can any cat bear so much loss?

Violetshine wondered too what this would mean for the remaining ShadowClan cats.

Trying to shake off her worries and the overwhelming feeling of strangeness, Violetshine padded over to the newly returned ShadowClan warriors.

“It’s so good to see you again,” she meowed to Berryheart. “We’d all given you up for lost.”

“It’s good to see you, too, Violetpaw,” Berryheart replied. “Kits, say hi to Violetpaw.”

“Hi, kits.” Violetshine touched noses with each of the tiny cats. “But my name is Violetshine. I’m a warrior now.”

“That’s great news,” Berryheart purred. “And these are Hollowkit, Spirekit, and Sunkit. Maybe one of them will be your apprentice.”

“Me!” Sunkit squeaked, bouncing up and down.

“No, me!”

“Me!”

Violetshine found that the ache in her heart was eased by the antics of the kits. But she knew it would be hard for Berryheart to learn that her kits would be raised in SkyClan—that ShadowClan was gone. “That will be for the Clan leader to decide,” she mewed. “So what happened to you?” she added to Berryheart. “Where have you been all this time?”

“We were all so terrified by the way Darktail took over ShadowClan,” Berryheart explained. “We ran away and found a place of our own, in a tumbledown Twoleg den. Then we met Tigerheart and Dovewing traveling home, and they told us Darktail was gone, and it was safe to come back.” Her expression darkened. “We were traveling back to ShadowClan when Hollowkit was attacked by an owl.” She rested her tail on the kit’s shoulder, and Violetshine noticed for the first time that Hollowkit had lost a few clumps of fur, and had a healing scratch on one shoulder. “Tigerheart saved Hollowkit,” Berryheart went on, “but the owl injured him so badly that he didn’t recover. If only we could have made it back to where he could see a medicine cat before he died. . . .”

“But he’s not dead!” The shrill assertion startled Violetshine. She turned to see where it had come from and saw Dovewing and Tigerheart’s little gray tom, Shadowkit. “I know he’s not!”

A pang of sorrow clawed through Violetshine as she gazed at the kit, who faced them with wide eyes. He’s too young to understand, she thought.

“I had a dream,” Shadowkit went on. “I was playing with my father, in a place not far from here, and I know it was a true dream.”

Violetshine stroked her tail gently down the kit’s side, noticing the dark stripes, so like his father’s. “What makes you think so, little one?” she asked.

“I just do. We were in this big hollow, with boulders and bushes at the top and pine trees all around. Their branches hung down really low. At the bottom of the hollow there were ferns and bramble thickets, and I lived in one of them with Dovewing and Pouncekit and Lightkit. We all played moss-ball with Tigerheart.”

Violetshine exchanged a puzzled look with Berryheart. “That sounds like the ShadowClan camp.”

“But he’s never been there!” Berryheart protested.

A shiver passed through Violetshine as if she had been lapping at icy water. “One of his parents must have told him about it,” she murmured to Berryheart, but all the same, Shadowkit’s words had woken a tiny spark of hope inside her.

Suppose it was a vision?

Time crawled past until the last streaks of sunlight disappeared, far away over ShadowClan territory. Violetshine was finding it harder and harder to keep her spark of hope alive, while the cats huddled together in the gathering shadows. The first warriors of StarClan appeared in the sky, and a pale moon rose above the summit of the hill.

“Whatever happens,” Cloverfoot whispered after a while, “it will be good to go back to the ShadowClan camp. It never stopped being home, no matter what happened.”

“But ShadowClan doesn’t live there anymore,” Violetshine told her miserably. “There were so few of them left, and they didn’t have a leader, so they joined SkyClan in their new camp.”

The returning ShadowClan cats stared at her, horror in their eyes, their ears lying flat as their shoulder fur began to bristle.

“What do you mean?” Sparrowtail demanded. “No leader? What happened to Rowanstar?”

Violetshine swallowed, wishing that she didn’t have to be the bearer of such terrible news. “Rowanstar is dead,” she replied. “But before he died, he . . . he gave his nine lives back to StarClan. He didn’t think he was worthy to be a leader because he had let Darktail destroy his Clan.”

Stunned, the ShadowClan cats gazed at one another. Violetshine could see that they didn’t want to believe what she had told them.

“I didn’t know . . . that a leader could do that,” Berryheart rasped.

“No cat knew, until it happened,” Violetshine meowed. “And since then, StarClan hasn’t sent a sign to say which cat should be ShadowClan leader in Rowanclaw’s place.”

“So all our Clanmates joined SkyClan?” Cloverfoot’s eyes were full of pleading, as if she wanted some cat to tell her it wasn’t true.

Violetshine nodded.

“Fox dung to all that!” Slatefur exclaimed loudly. “I don’t want to be a SkyClan cat! I’ve always been ShadowClan, and I always will be.”

His strident tones had caught the attention of Leafstar and Hawkwing, a couple of fox-lengths away. Violetshine noticed them giving him an annoyed look.

Neither cat said anything, though Leafstar was rising to her paws when the sound of paw steps came from the top of the slope, followed by the rustling sound of a cat pushing their way through the bushes that surrounded the hollow of the Moonpool.

Leafstar sat back down as Puddleshine emerged into the open. His eyes were wide, his fur bristling with shock, and his breathing came fast and shallow.

He’s given up on Tigerheart at last, Violetshine thought despairingly as a murmur of sadness arose from all the cats around her.

But then there was a second sound of rustling. Puddleshine stepped aside, and a cat stepped into the open. His muscles rippled under his brown tabby fur, which gleamed in the silver wash of moonlight, and his eyes were shining.

For a heartbeat Violetshine didn’t recognize him, because she had never imagined that she would ever see him again.

It can’t be . . . yes, it is Tigerheart!

For a moment Tigerheart remained motionless; then, with a sudden leap, he launched himself down the rocks to land in the middle of the ShadowClan cats.

Yowls of amazement broke out as Tigerheart’s Clanmates clustered around him, eagerly questioning him. Dovewing pushed through the crowd until she stood beside him.

“You’re alive!” she gasped.

Violetshine withdrew to the edge of the group, beside her father and the other SkyClan cats, not wanting to disturb Tigerheart’s reunion with his family and his Clanmates. She caught only snatches of what they were saying as she stared in confusion at the strong, healthy cat. “Maybe—maybe he wasn’t dead after all,” she stammered to Berryheart.

“Oh, yes, he was,” Berryheart responded. “I know what a dead cat looks like.”

Violetshine had to believe her. Even if Puddleshine had managed to revive Tigerheart, he should have been weak and wounded, not standing there as if he was ready to leap down the hills and run all the way around the lake.

The first joy of the ShadowClan cats was dying away, and Violetshine spotted uneasiness in their eyes, as if they were asking themselves the same question. Then Tigerheart seemed to stand taller, his gaze sweeping around his Clan.

“I left you,” he meowed evenly. “But now I’ve returned. I bring with me cats who will make our Clan strong again. Accept them as I accept you. Give them your loyalty as I give you mine. I am ready to lead you.”

Lead you? Violetshine could hardly believe what she was hearing.

For a moment there was a frozen silence among the ShadowClan cats. Then Juniperclaw’s voice rose up to the glittering stars. “Tigerstar!”

“Tigerstar! Tigerstar!” The rest of the Clan joined in, their voices echoing around the rocks.

As the clamor died away, Tawnypelt pushed her way through the crowd to her son’s side and pressed herself against him, purring as if she was going to burst. “Tigerstar, tell us what happened,” she begged at last.

It was Puddleshine who replied. “StarClan brought him back and gave him nine lives. He is the new leader of ShadowClan!”

“Yes, it was . . . amazing.” Tigerstar’s voice was full of wonder. “I found myself on a grassy slope, with the sun shining and a stream running around the bottom of the hill. I thought I was in StarClan—and I was, but I didn’t expect what happened next.”

“Go on . . . ,” some cat breathed out.

“I was transported to a different place,” Tigerstar began. “Rocks beneath a night sky. Rowanclaw and Dawnpelt appeared, and . . . oh, many more cats. Their fur was shining so brightly I could hardly bear to look at them. Rowanclaw told me I was being sent back to become leader of my Clan. And then they gave me nine lives.”

Standing beside Leafstar and Frecklewish, Violetshine thought that the SkyClan medicine cat looked troubled, and Leafstar’s eyes narrowed as she addressed the ShadowClan cats.

“I’m not going to cross the will of StarClan,” she announced. “But I’m tired of ShadowClan cats treating the SkyClan camp like some sort of temporary nest. RiverClan has gone home, so your old camp is waiting for you. From now on, you need to stay out of SkyClan’s camp for good. You are not welcome there—and we will be patrolling our borders.”

Tigerstar dipped his head to the SkyClan leader with chilly politeness. “You’re right, Leafstar,” he meowed. “It is time for ShadowClan to go home—to the ShadowClan camp.”

Beckoning with his tail, he headed down the steep moorland, and his Clan streamed after him. As she passed Violetshine, Tawnypelt paused.

“Are you coming with us?” she asked. “I know Tigerstar will be glad to have you.”

“No, I’m SkyClan now,” Violetshine replied, with a glance at her father. “I want to stay with Hawkwing. But thank you for asking me.”

She watched sadly as the ShadowClan cats walked away. Tigerstar had been kind to her when she was a kit. And she had admired Tawnypelt for her strength, and for her commitment to her Clan despite everything she had suffered. The cats of ShadowClan had been Violetshine’s Clanmates for a long time. For the first time, Violetshine thought she understood a little of what Twigbranch had felt, torn between two Clans.

Something moved uneasily in Violetshine’s belly as she wondered what would become of ShadowClan now. Tigerstar is a great cat, but so many bad things have happened. . . .

Violetshine saw that Dovewing was leaving, too, guiding her kits down the slope with sweeps of her tail.

“Hey, Dovewing,” Alderheart called out to her, surprise in his voice. “Aren’t you coming back to ThunderClan?”

Dovewing halted and looked back at him, then shook her head. Her eyes were sad, but her voice was firm. “No, I belong with Tigerstar now. I’ve chosen a mate and kits over ThunderClan. I’m sorry.”

Alderheart blinked in shock, and Violetshine saw his claws extend, scraping on the rock. “But we all thought you were dead,” he protested. “And Ivypool will want to see you. She has kits now, too.”

For a moment Dovewing hesitated, her indecision clear in her eyes. Then, leaving the kits, she bounded down the slope until she had caught up with Tigerstar. They spoke together for a few moments; then Dovewing leaped back up the slope to Alderheart.

“I’ll come and visit ThunderClan before I go to ShadowClan,” she mewed hesitantly, “if you think they’d like to see me. I’ve missed you all terribly. Come on, kits.”

She and Alderheart headed down the slope side by side, both of them helping the kits over the uneven places.

“Well, Violetshine?” Leafstar came to stand beside her, a challenge in her voice. “Are you sure about coming back with us? You can’t be like Twigpaw, or the other ShadowClan cats, and come and go as you please. Either you’re a SkyClan warrior forever, or you need to leave now.”

Violetshine drew herself up proudly. “I don’t have the slightest doubt, Leafstar,” she responded. “I’m a SkyClan cat.”