Crowfeather's Trial

“I won’t.” The words were breathed out so faintly that Crowpaw could scarcely hear them. “I’ll always be with you. I promise.”

Then Feathertail’s eyes closed, and she did not move or speak again.

Crowpaw turned to look at Sharptooth’s body, bloody and growing cold. Feathertail had killed the lion-cat, fulfilling the Tribe’s prophecy, but nothing about it felt right. What good was saving Crowpaw and the Tribe if Feathertail had to give her life to do it? He flung his head back and let out a wordless wail, which echoed off the cave walls, an outpouring of all his love and anguish. Then darkness swirled around him and he crouched beside Feathertail in a tight knot of grief. He felt as if all the light in the world had been snuffed out. How could he live with this loss?

Voices drifted past him in the dark: He heard Stormfur, blaming himself for bringing Feathertail back to the Tribe. He turned his head to look up at the RiverClan cat. “It’s my fault.” Crowpaw’s voice was a hoarse whisper. “If I’d refused to come back to the cave, she would have stayed with me.”

“No…,” Stormfur said softly, reaching out to Crowpaw, who could only bow his head.

He could hear Brook and Stoneteller trying to comfort Stormfur, but there would be no comfort for Crowpaw now — maybe not ever.

“The Tribe of Endless Hunting spoke truly,” said Stoneteller. “A silver cat has saved us all.”

Yes, thought Crowpaw, but no cat saved her, and now the Clans will never be the same. Never. The word echoed around Crowpaw until he felt his heart would break. We’ll never be mates or have kits together. I’ll never see her again. Never…

Crowfeather woke, shivering. His pelt was soaked with early-morning dew, but that wasn’t the reason for the chill that struck deep within him. It had been countless moons since Feathertail had died killing Sharptooth, but in his dream it had felt as if it were happening all over again. The pain of losing Feathertail felt like a fresh wound.

I thought I would never love another cat, he thought. And yet now…

He glanced down at the small tabby-and-white she-cat who was curled up beside him underneath the thornbush. His grief for Feathertail had consumed him, and it had taken him many moons to find the path that would lead him out of darkness. Now he could not understand how Leafpool had made her way into his heart, filling him with more joy than he had ever hoped to feel again.

Like Feathertail, she was a cat from another Clan. But unlike Feathertail, Leafpool was a medicine cat, and had vowed never to take a mate. This made their love even more impossible than his first. I certainly know how to make things complicated, Crowfeather thought with a wry twitch of his whiskers. The only way he and Leafpool could be together was to make a huge sacrifice — to leave the Clans and everything they had ever known.

But they had decided to take the risk. Amazingly, Crowfeather thought, watching Leafpool’s chest rise and fall, we could have had a future together.