Forest Of Secrets

As he watched his defeated enemy disappear, Fireheart could not summon up the least sense of triumph. Surprising himself, he even felt a pang of regret. Tigerclaw could have been a warrior whose deeds would have been told to generations of kits—if only he had chosen loyalty over ambition. Fireheart could almost wail aloud at the waste.

All around him talk was beginning to break out again, as cats mewed urgently to one another about the startling events. “Who’ll be deputy now?” he heard Runningwind ask.

Fireheart glanced at Bluestar to see if she meant to make an announcement, but she was slipping around the side of the Highrock toward her den. Her head was down and her paws dragged as if she were ill. There would be no announcement yet.

“I think Fireheart should be deputy!” Cloudpaw declared, bouncing with excitement. “He’d do a great job!”

“Fireheart?” Darkstripe’s eyes narrowed. “A kittypet?”

“And what’s wrong with being a kittypet?” Cloudpaw bristled in front of the much bigger warrior.

Fireheart was about to haul himself to his paws and intervene when Whitestorm pushed between Darkstripe and the young apprentice. “That’s enough,” he growled. “Bluestar will tell us who she chooses before moonhigh. That’s the tradition.”

Fireheart let his shoulders relax as Cloudpaw scampered off to join the other apprentices. He could see that his apprentice didn’t realize the seriousness of what had happened. The older warriors, the ones who had known Tigerclaw well, were looking at one another as if their world had just come to an end.

“Well now, Fireheart.” Graystripe looked up as Fireheart walked over to join his friend and Cinderpaw. “Would you want to be deputy?” There was pain in his eyes, and blood still trickled from his mouth, yet he looked more alive than Fireheart had seen him since Silverstream’s death, as if the battle and the exposing of Tigerclaw’s villainy had taken his mind off his grief for a moment.

Fireheart couldn’t prevent a faint prickle of excitement from creeping along his spine. Deputy of ThunderClan! Then he realized how hard a job it would be, to pull these shattered cats together and mold them into a Clan again. “No,” he told Graystripe. “And Bluestar would never choose me.” He got up, shaking his head as if to put these thoughts out of his mind. “How are you feeling?” he asked. “Are those wounds very bad?”

“He’ll be fine,” meowed Cinderpaw. “But his tongue was scratched, and it’s still bleeding. I don’t know what to do for a scratched tongue. Fireheart, would you fetch Yellowfang for me?”

“Sure.”

The last Fireheart had seen of Yellowfang, she had been dragging Brokentail into her den; she had not reappeared for the condemning of Tigerclaw. He padded across the clearing and into the fern tunnel. As he pushed through the soft green fronds, he heard Yellowfang’s voice. Something about it—perhaps its gentleness, so unusual for Yellowfang—made him stay in the shelter of the arching ferns for a moment longer.

“Lie still, Brokentail. You have lost a life,” Yellowfang was murmuring. “You’re going to be fine.”

“What do you mean?” snarled Brokentail, his voice weak from loss of blood. “If I’ve got another life left, why do my wounds still hurt?”

“StarClan have healed the wound that killed you,” Yellowfang explained, still in the same soft murmur that sent prickles along Fireheart’s spine. “The others need the skill of a medicine cat.”

“Then what are you waiting for, you scrawny old pest?” hissed Brokentail. “Get on with it. Give me something for this pain.”

“All right, I will.” Yellowfang’s voice suddenly turned icy cold, and a ripple of fear coursed through Fireheart. “Here. Eat these berries, and the pain will go away for good.”

Fireheart peered out of the ferns to see Yellowfang dabbing something with her paw. Carefully, deliberately, she rolled three bright red berries in front of the wounded Brokentail, guiding his paw until he could touch them. Suddenly Fireheart was transported back to a snowy day in leaf-bare. Cloudkit was staring at a small, dark-leaved bush that bore scarlet berries, and Cinderpaw was saying, “The berries are so poisonous we call them deathberries. Even one could kill you.”

He drew breath to call out a warning, but Brokentail was already chewing the berries.

Yellowfang stood watching him with a face like stone. “You and my Clan cast me out and I came here,” she hissed into his ear. “I was a prisoner, just like you. But ThunderClan treated me well, and at last they trusted me enough to be their medicine cat. You could have earned their trust, too. But now—will any cat trust you ever again?”

Brokentail let out a contemptuous hiss. “Do you think I care?”

Yellowfang crouched even closer to him, her eyes gleaming. “I know you care for nothing, Brokentail. Not your Clan, nor your honor, nor your own kin.”

“I have no kin.” Brokentail spat out the words.

“Wrong. Your kin has been closer to you than you ever dreamed. I’m your mother, Brokentail.”