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  “THERE WILL BE THREE, kin of your kin, who hold the power of the stars in their paws.” Firestar received this prophecy from Skywatcher, the last surviving link to the original SkyClan cats. He waited a long time for three kits to be born, wondering all the time what exactly the prophecy would mean.

  When Squirrelflight and Brambleclaw announced the arrival of their kits, Firestar knew that these were the cats of the prophecy. Each of the kits turned out to have unique strengths and abilities. Lionblaze seemed the most likely to play a role in saving the Clan because from the start he was exceptionally strong, skilled at fighting, and as brave as Brambleclaw’s father, Tigerstar. Which could be why Tigerstar sought him out in his dreams, walked beside him as he slept, and trained him to be even more fearless and ruthless in his fighting.

  Lionblaze rejected Tigerstar’s bloodthirsty words of encouragement when he realized that the old cat only wanted revenge on Firestar. He didn’t need Tigerstar’s mentoring anyway, because Lionblaze soon realized he had a unique ability to fight in the midst of any battle and escape without a scratch on his pelt. As a warrior, he was invincible.

  His heart was less so and he fell in love with Cinderheart. But when she learned about the prophecy, about the responsibility Lionblaze bore for every single one of the Clans, she saw herself as nothing more than a distraction from his greater destiny. Lionblaze had to fight one of the hardest battles of his life to make Cinderheart understand that they could choose their own destinies and that being together would not diminish his strength in the final confrontation with the Dark Forest.

  HOLLYLEAF

  FROM THE MOMENT SHE opened her eyes, Lionblaze’s sister was the thinker, the politician. She was sensitive and cunning and aware of all the different consequences that might come from a single action. For her, the warrior code lay at the root of every choice a Clan cat had to make, and she was willing to tread the hardest paths to defend it. Even before she heard the prophecy, Hollyleaf was determined to serve her Clan in the best way she could. She started training as a medicine cat with Leafpool, but Leafpool soon realized that Hollyleaf’s heart lay in the life of a warrior, defending her Clanmates with tooth and claw rather than repairing the damage done in the battles of other cats. So Hollyleaf dedicated herself to becoming the most skilled warrior ThunderClan had known, training harder and longer than the other apprentices, even her brother, Lionblaze.

  When she learned that she and her littermates might one day be more powerful than StarClan, Hollyleaf began searching for the way she would fulfill her destiny. Lionblaze had his unconquerable fighting ability, Jayfeather had the gift of sight in his dreams and the ability to walk in StarClan whenever he chose. Hollyleaf found her strength in her absolute faith in the warrior code, and her courage to defend it to her dying breath.

  Hollyleaf was utterly broken by Squirrelflight’s revelation that she and her brothers had been born to different cats. Was Hollyleaf nothing but a sordid secret, hidden from her own Clanmates? She was terrified that Ashfur would tell the rest of the Clan and that she’d be driven out for being an aberration, a demonstration of what happened when the warrior code was trampled over. Hollyleaf knew she had to make Ashfur keep the dreadful secret, whatever it took. She didn’t mean to kill him—she struck, he slipped, and when he fell into the stream with blood streaming from the wounds in his throat, she knew he was beyond saving. There seemed no point in telling Firestar what had happened. She was being punished enough by her conscience—the warrior code said no cat must kill another—and by her fear that the truth would emerge anyway.

  When she and her brothers discovered that Leafpool was their mother, and Crowfeather, a WindClan warrior, was their father, Hollyleaf was overwhelmed by the size of the secret she was trying to keep. The only way she could master it was by revealing everything herself, announcing the truth to a startled Gathering of the Clans, and disgracing Leafpool forever.

  Then came her escape into a tunnel that collapsed behind her, leaving her dead to her Clan and everything she had ever known. But the silence of the underground caverns, the quiet, undemanding friendship of Fallen Leaves, and her endless concern for her former Clanmates sent Hollyleaf back to the hollow, to the place where she had been born. The place where she belonged. She fought to the death saving her Clan from the cats of the Dark Forest, her last desperate plea for a forgiveness that had already been granted.

  JAYFEATHER

  DESPITE BEING BORN BLIND, able to see only in his dreams, Jayfeather was confident in his ability to also navigate his world when awake. He shared his littermates’ courage and curiosity, which led to an adventure with fox cubs that nearly took all of them to StarClan prematurely. Jaypaw saw no reason why he couldn’t train to be a warrior alongside them, and he was bitter and angry when Firestar insisted on apprenticing him to Brightheart, the one-eyed warrior, in the hope that she could help the blind apprentice become a warrior too. After his disastrous first battle and a dream visit from Spottedleaf, ThunderClan’s former medicine cat, Jaypaw realized that it was his destiny to become a medicine cat and was apprenticed to Leafpool. His memory for herbs and his connection with StarClan made him unusually gifted from the beginning, but Jaypaw still chafed at what he saw as a second-best future, limited to the confines to the territory.

  He found freedom by walking in other cats’ dreams, which is how he learned about the prophecy Firestar had received so many moons ago.

  The discovery that he was expected to have more power than StarClan gave Jaypaw the confidence to challenge his ancestors and also to interfere with the destiny of the Tribe of Rushing Water in the mountains. Jaypaw learned from their ancestors, the Tribe of Endless Hunting, that something dark and terrible loomed for all of the Clans—and that the chance of survival depended on him and his littermates.

  After receiving his medicine cat name, Jayfeather’s destiny became entangled with that of the mountain cats when he walked with the Ancient Clan cats, who had once lived beside the lake, as a long-ago sharpclaw named Jay’s Wing. He fell in love with Half Moon and helped guide the cats to the mountains when their home by the lake was threatened. Knowing that he had to return to his own Clan, many seasons and fox-lengths away, Jayfeather made Half Moon the first ever Teller of the Pointed Stones for the mountain cats and gave to her the seeds of a faith in something more than what the cats could see around them—a faith that would be passed on for every generation to come.

  CINDERHEART

  CINDERHEART WAS BORN TO Sorreltail at the exact moment a badger took the life of Cinderpelt. Perhaps in recognition of Cinderpelt’s thwarted destiny and of her unceasing loyalty to her Clan as their medicine cat, StarClan allowed her spirit to return in the body of tiny Cinderheart.

  Cinderheart became a warrior apprentice alongside her brothers, training hard to learn how to hunt and fight—and never knowing about her connection to the former medicine cat.

  Following an accident in which she fell from a tree while saving another apprentice, Cinderheart’s peace began to be disturbed by vivid dreams where she walked through a forest she didn’t recognize—and yet it was completely familiar. She knew the names of the cats who lived there and could identify the scents of herbs that clung to her pelt. The images felt as real as memories, but she tried to ignore them until Jayfeather walked with her in the dreams and gently showed her that they were memories—from her former life as ThunderClan’s medicine cat. Cinderheart was torn between her ambition to be a warrior and serve her Clan by hunting and fighting, and her responsibility to make use of the medicine skills she had somehow been born with. She felt trapped by the destiny that seemed to have been forced upon her.

  Only Lionblaze could convince Cinderheart that she could choose her own path. Cinderpelt had lived one life, but this was Cinderheart’s life now. And when Cinderheart chose to spend that life as a warrior, alongside Lionblaze, she felt the spirit of the medicine cat lift softly away from her and take its place in StarClan.

  DOVEWING
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br />   KIN TO FlRESTAR THROUGH her mother’s father, Cloudtail, Dovewing was the third cat of the prophecy, in place of Hollyleaf. From the time she was a tiny kit, she could hear sounds from far, far away, even beyond the lake, and could picture what was happening in other territories. Dovepaw assumed that every cat was the same, so it was a shock when she first learned she was the only one after she helped her Clan by realizing that the shortage of water in the lake was caused by big, brown animals—beavers—building a dam of wood to block a stream much farther up. Jayfeather instantly recognized the potential of Dovewing’s gift, but he told her to pretend she had dreamed what was happening, which was something Firestar would understand.

  Although she was still only an apprentice, Dovepaw traveled with cats from the other Clans to find the beavers and destroy the dam, releasing the water back into the lake. She forged a powerful friendship with the ShadowClan cat Tigerheart on the journey, a friendship that persisted and deepened when they returned to their own Clans. Even after she had learned about the prophecy and knew about the role she would have to play in the clash between the cats of the Clans and the Dark Forest, Dovepaw couldn’t resist visiting Tigerheart at night, using her powers of hearing to keep them safe from detection.

  But the looming crisis forced Dovewing to reconsider her loyalties, and she knew that defending her Clan—and the warrior code—mattered more to her than anything else. She found a good friend, somewhat unexpectedly, in Bumblestripe and began to see a future with a cat of her own Clan, rather than the tormented and secret love she’d had for Tigerheart. As the echoes of the final battle died away, with the scratches from Dark Forest cats still stinging on her pelt, Dovewing made her choice.

  IVYPOOL

  IVYPOOL WAS DOVEWING’S ONLY littermate and, like Squirrelflight and Leafpool, the sisters were closer than hairs on a vole’s pelt. But their paths began to diverge when, as an apprentice, Dovepaw went on the quest to free the water. When Dovepaw came back, she had distant horizons in her eyes and a connection with cats in other Clans that seemed to stretch the limits of the warrior code.

  Feeling unwanted and left out, Ivypaw continued to train hard, even though Dovepaw always seemed to hear and see things much faster than Ivypaw could; on the occasions when Ivypaw did make a catch first, she knew it was because Dovepaw had let her. When a mysterious dark brown cat with ice-blue eyes visited Ivypaw in a dream and offered to train her to be a better warrior than she ever imagined, Ivypaw immediately said yes. Her new mentor, Hawkfrost, led her nightly into a forest of shadows and black rivers, where cats that Ivypaw recognized from other Clans were taught to fight harder, run faster, attack with more cunning than their daylight mentors allowed. Here, Ivypaw shone. She began training apprentices of her own and was sought out for praise by Hawkfrost time after time.

  But when Tigerstar laid bare the true purpose of training these cats—to destroy the Clans from within, using cats from past and present—Ivypool, by this time a warrior, swore never to return. Unbeknownst to Ivypool, Jayfeather had followed her into her dreams and discovered her involvement with the Dark Forest. He and Lionblaze saw the potential of recruiting Ivypool to spy for them; to Dovewing’s dismay, her sister agreed and risked her life by going back to the Dark Forest to learn when the attack would happen. Despite suspicions from older cats, Ivypool maintained the illusion of loyalty right up until the final charge through to the living Clans. Then she fought with immense courage against cats who she knew had no hesitation about killing to secure a victory.

  Hawkfrost cornered Ivypool at last, hissing vengeance for her betrayal, but Hollyleaf leaped forward at the final moment, taking Hawkfrost’s death blow and saving Ivypool’s life.

  BRIARLIGHT

  BRIARLIGHT WAS THE ELDEST of Millie and Graystripe’s kits, born in the same litter as Blossomfall and Bumblestripe. As a young apprentice, she was bold and adventurous, like her littermates. She also had a healthy curiosity about Jayfeather’s skills as a medicine cat. Near the end of her apprenticeship a storm hit the woods, sending a huge, loose-rooted beech tree crashing down into the hollow. Dovewing heard the tree start to fall and Firestar ordered an evacuation of the entire camp. The blind elder Longtail was killed because he returned to his den to retrieve Mousefur’s fresh-kill. Briarpaw chased after him, trying to fetch him back, but was also caught by the crushing branches.

  She survived, but her spine was broken, leaving her hindlegs numb and useless. At first Briarpaw believed her future to be utterly bleak and pointless, and she even refused to eat, unwilling to take prey that could feed the cats who hunted and patroled for the Clan. It took stern words from Jayfeather to remind her that a Clan cares for all its cats, including kits and elders who are unable to hunt for themselves. If Briarpaw gave up on life, she would be betraying the warrior code itself.

  So Briarpaw started to work hard within the confines of her injury, strengthening her front legs until she could drag herself around the camp and doing breathing exercises to keep her chest strong and clear. Briarpaw helped Jayfeather by sorting and storing herbs, she kept kits entertained, she soothed the elders when they were troubled by bad dreams. And when her littermates received their warrior names, Briarlight was given one too, a reflection of her fierce-burning spirit, in recognition of the unimaginably difficult and unique apprenticeship that she had served.

  BRAMBLESTAR’S NINE LIVES: THE RETURN OF HEROES

  THE WATER IN THE Moonpool was so cold that Brambleclaw gasped in shock when it touched his nose.

  “You’ll get used to it,” Jayfeather mewed beside him. “Either that, or your nose will go numb.”

  “Great,” muttered Brambleclaw, trying to lie more comfortably on the stones. Inside, he was quivering with excitement as well as exhaustion from making the long journey to the pool so soon after doing battle with the Dark Forest. Grief for Firestar dragged at his pelt and stung his eyes, but this was a moment that Brambleclaw had always known would arrive someday: his own ceremony of nine lives and the start of his leadership of ThunderClan.

  “Stop wriggling,” Jayfeather hissed. “Close your eyes and wait for StarClan to come to you.”

  Brambleclaw tucked his forepaws under his chest and let his muzzle fall a little deeper into the Moonpool. The shock of icy water briefly did battle with a heavy wave of tiredness that washed over him. He let himself slip into sleep, but almost at once the sound of whispers made him sit up and look around. What was disturbing him? He was supposed to be sharing tongues with StarClan!

  He was still in the rocky hollow that held the Moonpool, round and silver in the moonlight, but now the slopes were filled with rows and rows of cats, glowing and murmuring. StarClan! Brambleclaw felt himself gaping as he saw cats so familiar they tore at his heart: Sorreltail, Ferncloud, and his mother, Goldenflower. . . . Soft footsteps sounded beside him, and he turned to see Jayfeather. The medicine cat’s blue eyes were clear and bright and focused on Brambleclaw.

  “You can see!” he exclaimed.

  Jayfeather nodded. “In my dreams, yes.” He flicked the tip of his tail. “Not that it makes much difference. Now, are you ready?”

  Brambleclaw nodded, trying to ignore the nervous moths that had started whirling in his belly. Jayfeather seemed so old and calm, as if being among the ancient, long-dead cats was as natural as being among his living Clanmates. Brambleclaw looked at the medicine cat and felt a flash of pride. I raised you as my son, he thought. You have done so well, in spite of everything.

  There was a flicker of orange at the far side of the shore, and a cat stepped out of the ranks of StarClan. His eyes shone as green as the forest, and his fur was the color of flame. Brambleclaw felt his eyes fill. “Firestar!” he breathed.

  The orange cat trotted lightly over the stones to meet him. Firestar looked young and strong, with no sign of the terrible, bloody battle he had fought until his dying moments. “Welcome to StarClan, Brambleclaw!” he announced.

  “It is an honor to be here,” Brambleclaw croaked
, hardly able to speak through the lump of emotion in his throat.

  Firestar lightly rested the tip of his tail on Brambleclaw’s flank. “Do not grieve anymore,” he mewed. “We always knew this time would come.”

  Brambleclaw winced. “But not so soon!”

  The orange tom shrugged. “StarClan chooses the moment it wishes us to join them. My lives were long and full, and I had so much happiness. And I chose the best deputy I could have, knowing that you would one day succeed me.” He stepped closer and touched his muzzle to Brambleclaw’s head. “I give you a life with the courage to make the hardest decisions, not just for ThunderClan but for all the Clans. The lake needs four Clans; with this life, serve them all well.”

  A bolt of lightning seemed to shoot through Brambleclaw’s bones, rocking him on his paws. Was this how difficult it would be to honor all of the Clans? He fought for breath until the searing force eased and he was able to open his eyes.

  Firestar had stepped back, and in his place stood a cat with fur the color of ripe barley. She smelled of milk and warmth and safety, and Brambleclaw fought down an urge to curl up at her paws and whimper like a kit. “Goldenflower,” he whispered. “Is it really you?”

  The she-cat’s eyes softened. “Yes, my son, it is. I am so proud of you, my love. And so honored to give you this life.” She leaned against him, and Brambleclaw flashed back to the nursery, tiny and mewling at Goldenflower’s belly, with nothing more sinister than a game of moss-ball ahead of him. “I give you a life for understanding the love of a mother,” she meowed. “But then, you have already known what it is to love as a father. Keep that knowledge, feel its power, and use it to keep all of your Clanmates safe.”