Fading Echoes

Yellowfang was trembling with rage. “We have to stay together!” she hissed.

Jayfeather had seen her cranky, but never this furious. That was when he realized how frightened the tough old she-cat was.

He nodded, gulping for air.

“Come on.” Yellowfang began to head away, then paused to make sure that Jayfeather and Spottedleaf were following. They padded through the sucking mud until the fog began to clear.

Jayfeather recognized the trees, the eerie light, the echoing silence. He’d met Tigerstar here once before. Spottedleaf had come and guided him home that time. She wasn’t pleased to be back in the Place of No Stars now, her pelt pricking, her eyes stretched wide. But it was Yellowfang who was really afraid.

Jayfeather glanced nervously at the tattered old she-cat. He’d never imagined she could be scared of anything. But there was a stiffness in her movements that betrayed real terror. He probed her mind.

A flash of panic flooded him. A hulking, dark-furred cat stalked her thoughts. The glow of bright red berries like drops of blood. Searing grief and fury.

Curiosity enticed him on, further into her thoughts. No! He must concentrate on where he was. There was enough danger without losing himself in another cat’s nightmare.

Jayfeather jerked his head as he heard rustling in the sparse undergrowth, the pattering of paws. He glanced questioningly at Spottedleaf.

She shook her head. “No prey here.”

Jayfeather’s fur rippled, chilled by the gaze of watchers in the shadows. He scanned the trees. Eyes glowed from the gloom.

Jayfeather drew closer to Spottedleaf. “Who are they?” he whispered.

“Cats, dead and long forgotten,” Spottedleaf murmured. “Ignore them.”

How? Jayfeather could feel menace in their stares, their minds haunted by evil beyond the reach of every memory but their own.

Yellowfang paused and tasted the air. “We have to find Tigerstar and figure out what he’s up to.”

Spottedleaf blinked. “You think we’re going to stumble over him plotting?” She narrowed her eyes. “He knows this forest too well. He’ll know we’re here long before we find him.”

Jayfeather headed along a trail weaving between the gray, whispering trees. “We’ve got to try. Otherwise, why did we come?” He smelled tom. The scent was darkly familiar, but he couldn’t tell which Clan it belonged to. He glanced over his shoulder, checking that Yellowfang and Spottedleaf were close behind.

Spottedleaf’s mouth was open, her nostrils twitching.

“Can you smell that?” he whispered.

“Wait!” Yellowfang was staring wildly into the trees. “Let’s go back. We can’t do any good here.”

Jayfeather shifted his paws. What was spooking the old cat so much?

“Hello.” A deep growl sounded on the path ahead. Jayfeather jerked his head around.

A huge black cat blocked the way. “What are you doing here?”

Jayfeather froze, the scent of the tom stirring his memory. Where had he met this warrior? He lifted his chin bravely, preparing to answer the tom’s question.

Then he realized that the cat wasn’t talking to him. The warrior’s hard amber gaze was fixed on Yellowfang.

At once Jayfeather found himself plunged into a whirl of memories. Yellowfang yowling as she kitted, squirming in the shadows, hiding from her Clan. A small bundle of fur dropping into another cat’s nest—a queen who did not care for her new charge, who bit it and nipped it and deprived it of milk as punishment for being born at all. Then the kit, fully grown. Brokenstar. The name blazed in Jayfeather’s mind. A strong, well-muscled warrior, fattened by his own hunting skill, as hungry for power as a fox was for rabbit. The death of a leader and darkness descending over a Clan in chaos. Then suddenly he saw Yellowfang again, powerful now; the warrior weak, blind, battered, imprisoned, but still with the murderous glint in his eye. Through Yellowfang’s eyes Jayfeather watched the cat struggle as she forced him to eat deathberries, saw him convulse and die, swearing hatred and vengeance. He felt searing guilt slice through his heart: the guilt of a queen who had brought such a monster into the world. The guilt of a mother who had driven him from it.

I murdered my own son!

Shuddering as he drew in a deep breath, Jayfeather struggled out of the nightmarish visions and back into reality.

This was Brokenstar. Yellowfang’s kit!

The cat was staring at his mother with cold contempt, his bared yellow teeth glinting in the eerie light.

Jayfeather backed away, pressing against Yellowfang’s pelt. “You were his mother?” he breathed. “But you were a medicine cat!”

Yellowfang dragged her gaze from her son and stared at Jayfeather. “Mistakes happen,” she growled.

Jayfeather flinched away. Mistakes happen? Is that how she sees me?

Spottedleaf’s sweet breath brushed his ear fur. “You weren’t a mistake, Jayfeather. Your mother always loved you.” She glanced at Brokenstar. “You were always loved, Jayfeather.”

Brokenstar hissed, “What do you want?”