Very, very quietly, Fireheart backed into the bracken. The RiverClan warrior had stopped smelling the air, but he was still looking around.
Fireheart turned, still crouching, and began to creep away. He heard a small splash behind him. A cat had slipped into the river. Fireheart glanced over his shoulder, his heart pounding. Through the bracken he could see a silver head bobbing toward him. Silverstream! But where were the two other cats? He circled cautiously, tasting the air with an open mouth. No scent of them nearby. They must have moved on. He looked back at Silverstream, swimming determinedly across the river. For a moment Fireheart wondered if this was a trap, wondered if he should run, but his concern about Graystripe made him stay.
The silver tabby climbed onto the bank and hissed quietly, “Fireheart, I know you’re there. I can smell you! It’s okay, Stonefur and Shadepaw have gone.”
Fireheart didn’t move.
“Fireheart, I wouldn’t let anything happen to Graystripe’s closest friend!” She sounded impatient. “Believe me, for StarClan’s sake!”
Fireheart crept slowly from his hiding place.
Silverstream stared at him, her tail twitching. “What are you doing here?”
“I was looking for you,” he whispered, painfully aware he was in enemy territory.
Silverstream flicked her ears in alarm. “Is Graystripe okay? Has his cough gotten worse?”
Fireheart was irritated by her concern. He didn’t want to know how much this she-cat cared for his best friend. “He’s fine!” he growled, his caution swept away by anger. “But he won’t be if he carries on meeting you!”
Silverstream bristled. “I won’t let anything bad happen to Graystripe!”
“Oh, really?” Fireheart snorted. “And what could you do to protect him?”
“I am a Clan leader’s daughter,” meowed Silverstream.
“Does that give you the power to control your father’s warriors? You’re hardly more than an apprentice!”
“Like you!” she hissed indignantly.
“Yes, that’s true,” Fireheart admitted. “And that’s why I’m not sure I could protect Graystripe from the anger of his own Clan—or yours—if they find out you’re seeing each other.”
Silverstream tried to glare at him, but her eyes were clouded with emotion. “I can’t stop seeing him,” she meowed. Her voice softened to a whisper. “I love him.”
“But the tension between our Clans is bad enough already!” Fireheart was too angry to feel any sympathy. “We know RiverClan is hunting in our territory. . . .”
The defiant gleam returned to Silverstream’s eyes. “If ThunderClan understood why, it wouldn’t begrudge what we catch there!”
“Why?” Fireheart flashed back at her.
“My Clan is hungry. Our kits cry because their mothers have no milk. The elders are dying for lack of decent prey.”
Fireheart stared, taken aback. “But you’ve got the river!” he protested. Every cat knew that RiverClan enjoyed the best hunting of all—fish from the river, as well as woodland prey in the fields beyond.
“It’s not enough. Twolegs have taken over our territory downstream. They built a camp there all greenleaf and stayed as long as the fish were plentiful. By the time they went, the fishing was scarce. And the damage they’ve done to the forest means that even woodland prey is harder to find.”
Fireheart felt a pang of pity in spite of his anger. He could guess how serious this must be for RiverClan. They were used to their rich diet of fish, and grew fat on it every greenleaf so that they could endure the harsh moons of leaf-bare. He stared at the she-cat with new eyes. She wasn’t slim, he realized—she was skinny. As her wet coat clung to her, he could see her ribs. Suddenly he understood Crookedstar’s hostility to Bluestar’s plan at the Gathering. “That’s why you didn’t want WindClan to come home!”
“Rabbits run on the moorlands all year round,” Silverstream explained. “They were our only hope of making it through leaf-bare without losing kits.” She shook her head slowly before lifting her gaze back to Fireheart.
“Does Graystripe know all this?” he asked.
Silverstream nodded. Fireheart looked at her, perplexed for a moment. But he couldn’t let these feelings get in the way of the warrior code—and neither could his friend. “Whatever problems your Clan has, you still have to stop seeing Graystripe.”
“No,” answered Silverstream, lifting her chin. Her eyes flashed. “How can our love do any harm?”
Fireheart returned her stare. Another shiver ran down his back as the cold rain seeped through his thick pelt.
Suddenly Silverstream hissed, making Fireheart jump. “You must leave, the patrol’s coming.”
Fireheart heard a faint rustle on the other side of the river. It would be pointless—and dangerous—to stay any longer. The rustling noise was growing closer. Without saying good-bye, he bounded back into the wet bracken and headed home.
He raced back toward the stash of fresh-kill he’d left beneath the oak tree. Halfway home, the scent of a fresh Twoleg trail stopped him in his tracks, reminding him of Princess. He wondered whether there was time to follow the trail back to Twolegplace. He wanted to know if she had kitted yet. But Princess would probably be safely tucked up in her Twoleg nest by now, and the Clan needed fresh-kill. With an uneasy twinge, Fireheart realized that Graystripe wasn’t the only one with divided loyalties.
Rain began to drip from the ends of his whiskers. He shook the drops away and bounded on toward his hoard of fresh-kill.
The camp was silent by the time he arrived, the cats sheltering in their dens. Fireheart crossed the muddy clearing and dropped his catch on the pile. Taking a piece for himself, he trotted toward the warriors’ den. There was no way he was eating outside tonight.
He pushed his head inside the den. Graystripe was dozing, to Fireheart’s relief. He might actually get better if he wasn’t charging through the forest, looking for Silverstream.
“Yellowfang hasn’t taken any fresh-kill yet.” Whitestorm’s meow sounded from the shadows. “She’s been too busy. I think she would appreciate that mouse you’re carrying.”
Fireheart nodded and backed out again. If Yellowfang was too busy to fetch food, it must mean the sickness in the camp was getting worse. Fireheart raced across the clearing, stopping only to pick up another mouse before hurrying through the fern tunnel.
A tabby kit lay in a nest of moss in the bracken at the edge of the clearing. Yellowfang crouched beside it, trying to persuade it to eat some herbs. The kit snuffled pitifully, blinking up at her with streaming eyes and nose. Fireheart realized this must be the kit with whitecough.
Yellowfang turned when she heard Fireheart arrive. “Is that for me?” she meowed, looking at the mice hanging from Fireheart’s mouth. He nodded and dropped them on the ground. “Thanks. Now that you’re here, why don’t you see if you can persuade this kit to take his medicine?” She padded over to the mice, moving stiffly from her old shoulder injury, and began to gnaw on one hungrily.
Fireheart approached the kit. It looked up at him, opening its tiny mouth in a rasping, painful cough. Fireheart gently pushed a small green herb toward it. “If you want to be a warrior, you’ll have to get used to swallowing these horrible things,” he mewed. “When you make your trip to the Moonstone, you have to eat herbs far worse than this.”
The kit looked wonderingly at him through half-closed eyes.
“Think of it as practice,” Fireheart urged. “Practice for when you become a warrior.”
The kit reached forward and took a tentative mouthful.
Fireheart gave it an encouraging purr.
Yellowfang appeared at his side. “Well done,” she meowed. She gestured with her nose, and Fireheart understood she wanted to talk to him. He followed her to the shelter of the tall rock where she slept. The rain was still falling, and Yellowfang’s matted gray fur was soaked, her sodden tail dragging in the dirt.
“Bluestar has whitecough,” she meowed gravely.
“But whitecough isn’t that serious, right?”
Yellowfang shook her head. “It came on very quickly,” she meowed, “and it’s affected her badly.” Fireheart’s stomach tightened as he remembered the dwindling number of lives left to the Clan leader. “I warned her to stay away from the other sick cats, but she wanted to see them,” Yellowfang went on. “She’s sleeping in her den at the moment. Frostfur is with her.”
The fear in Yellowfang’s eyes made Fireheart wonder if she knew the truth about Bluestar’s lives. Fireheart had assumed he was the only cat in the camp whom Bluestar had shared her secret with. The rest of the Clan thought she had four lives left, but perhaps a medicine cat could sense these things instinctively.
The truth was, if Bluestar lost this life, she would have only one more left.