Blazing pain dragged Tigerheart into consciousness. Agony seared in his chest and seemed to reach through his body to the tip of each hair on his pelt. He wanted to hide in sleep, but pain forced him awake. Reluctantly, he opened his eyes. He was lying on his side, paws stretched in front of him. Around him, night had swallowed the forest.
“Tigerheart.” Relief throbbed in Dovewing’s mew. He felt her muzzle sink into his neck fur, and he groaned at the weight of it. She jerked away. “Can you move?”
Fighting pain, Tigerheart rolled onto his paws and forced himself up. The world spun as he fought for breath. Stone seemed to grip his chest, while rats gnawed inside his belly. He collapsed.
“Are his legs broken?” Rippletail thrust his muzzle close. He sounded scared.
“Let me see.” Cinnamon ducked closer and began to run her trembling paws over his pelt.
Their voices sounded distant. Through the fog of pain, Tigerheart became aware of cats around him. Cloverfoot, Rippletail, and Sparrowtail clustered beside Ant and Blaze. Hollowkit, Sunkit, and Spirekit hid behind Berryheart. The queen stared at Tigerheart, rigid with shock. Lightkit, Pouncekit, and Shadowkit stood beside Dovewing, fear glittering in their eyes.
Cinnamon sat back on her haunches. “I can’t feel any broken bones.” She lowered her voice so that Tigerheart had to strain to hear. “But there’s swelling in his belly.”
“What does that mean?” Dovewing whispered in panic.
“Something is broken inside.” Cinnamon’s gaze darkened.
“Can you do anything?” Dovewing was trembling.
“I can give him thyme for the shock,” Cinnamon murmured.
Dovewing stared at her. “Didn’t you learn anything else while you were with the guardian cats?”
Cinnamon stared back helplessly. Dovewing’s eyes flashed with frustration. She turned to Blaze. “What about you? You worked with Spiresight. Did he teach you anything?”
Blaze blinked at her nervously. “We never had to treat injuries like this.”
Cloverfoot caught Tigerheart’s eye. “He’s probably just badly shaken. Let him rest.”
He heard the lie in her mew. I’m going to die. He tried to focus on Dovewing, fear flickering beyond the pain. Don’t let the kits see.
Dovewing nudged Shadowkit forward. “Can you treat him?” She stared desperately at the young tom. “You share dreams with StarClan. They can tell you what to do.”
Shadowkit blinked at her, then looked in panic at Tigerheart. “I don’t know,” he whimpered.
Cinnamon eyed Dovewing sternly and wrapped her tail around Shadowkit. “How could a kit so young know how to fix him?”
Dovewing’s eyes misted with grief. “Someone has to help him!” She looked at the stars. “This can’t be happening.”
Tigerheart struggled to speak. So little breath! I’m sorry. For a moment, grief clouded the pain that scorched from his belly to his chest. He was breaking Dovewing’s heart. And the kits’. They watched, their eyes round with fear. He tried to meet their gaze.
“You saved Hollowkit.” Berryheart’s breath bathed his muzzle. She was leaning close. “How can I ever thank you?”
For a moment, the memory flashed in Tigerheart’s mind. Hollowkit had weighed so little when he’d pushed him clear of the owl’s talons. Terror flooded him as he remembered the claws curling around his flanks and the ground falling away. He closed his eyes, trying to block out the thoughts, wishing he could block out the pain, seeking the refuge of sleep.
“No!” Paws shook him. Dovewing was glaring into his eyes. “You mustn’t sleep!” Determination hardened her gaze. Grief was gone. Her green eyes were clear with purpose. “We’re going to get you to a medicine cat.”
“How?” Rippletail gasped in shock.
Dovewing ignored the tabby tom. She was glaring at Shadowkit. “How far is it to the lake?”
“I d-don’t know.” Shadowkit flinched from her. “There’s the Twolegplace and the water and the moor.”
“Tigerheart said no more than two days’ walk,” Cloverfoot reminded her.
Dovewing was still glaring at Shadowkit. “Is that what it looked like in your dream?” she snapped.
Pouncekit darted to her brother’s side. “Don’t scare him.” She stared defiantly at her mother. “He’ll help if he can.”
Dovewing shifted her paws, taking a deep, slow breath. “You’re right. I’m sorry, Shadowkit.”
Tigerheart could hear that she was forcing herself to be calm. She blurred in front of him. The frozen forest seemed to whisper around him. He could smell frost and imagined it creeping across the grass toward him. He pictured it stealing over his body and drawing the last drop of warmth from his pelt. Tiredness pulled him deeper into the earth.
“Stay awake, Tigerheart.” Dovewing’s muzzle was beside his. Her voice was soft. “We’re going to save you. I can’t lose you. Not after all we’ve been through. There’s so much left for us to do together. Our future is beside the lake. We always knew that. I won’t let that future be snatched away from us now.” Her gaze fixed on his. “Do you want to live?”
“Yes.” He shuddered as he breathed.
“Then you have to get to your paws.” She straightened and swished her tail. “We have to leave now. We’re going to the lake.”
“He can’t walk that far!” Sparrowtail’s eyes widened.
Cloverfoot stepped forward. “He can if we help him.”
“It’s his only chance.” Dovewing looked around the cats, her eyes glittering as though half pleading, half demanding. Tigerheart felt a rush of love for her and pushed himself to his paws. He swallowed back the agonized wail that wanted to escape from his throat. He wasn’t going to let his kits know how much he hurt.
Rippletail leaned against one flank. Sparrowtail pressed against the other. Together they lifted him so that his paws barely skimmed the grass as they began to walk forward. Blind with pain as they moved him, he tried to focus. Trapped in a tunnel of agony, he kept his gaze ahead. The tunnel would end with the lake. He had to make it.
He lost sense of time. Earth passing beneath his paws. Flashes of starlight. Staggering pain. The brush of fresh pelts against his flanks as the other cats took turns to support him. And then dawn. Light seeped across the land. He half expected the rising sun to lift the white-hot agony from his limbs. But the pain stayed, obscuring his thoughts, blocking his gaze.
How long could he bear it? Sometimes he closed his eyes and let his campmates carry him, but each time, Dovewing thrust her muzzle against his and hissed, “You can’t sleep, Tigerheart. Wake up!”
There was such power in her mew. He fed off it like a starving kit, sucking strength from her, holding it deep inside. For a few wonderful moments, it even blocked the pain.
And then he could smell water. “The lake?” He grunted as his campmates lowered him gently to the ground. He gazed across the grass. Birch trees lined a small stretch of water. Hope flickered in his chest.
“We’re not there yet.” Dovewing was beside him. “But look.” She lifted his chin toward the horizon. A hill rose from the valley, and he recognized WindClan’s moor, bending its back toward the sky like the spine of a cat. Through the stabbing in his chest, he felt joy flood his heart. “Home,” he whispered.
He felt Dovewing’s cheek warm against his. “Home,” she breathed.
“Why have we stopped?” Tigerheart tried to make out the others. They were padding away, into the long grass that surrounded the water.
“They’ve gone to hunt,” Dovewing told him. “We need to eat.”
“The kits?” He looked around, searching for Pouncekit, Lightkit, and Shadowkit. They were crouching in the grass a few tail-lengths away. “Come here,” he called hoarsely.
They looked up and stared at him with wide, frightened eyes.
“It’s all right.” Dovewing reassured them softly. “You can come near.”
Tigerheart saw reluctance in their movements as they padded toward him. “There’s nothing to be scared of.”
“Are you dying?” Pouncekit asked tremulously as she reached him.
He reached a paw out to touch hers. “I can’t die now.” He fought for air. “Home is so near.”
“You’ll get well, won’t you?” Lightkit’s eyes misted with fear.
Shadowkit pressed against his flank. “You promised to show us the pine forest.”
“I still will,” Tigerheart promised, focusing through a fresh wave of pain.
Berryheart hovered nearby, her kits clustering around her. “I can try to find some poppy seeds,” she meowed hopefully. “They’ll be hard to find in leafbare, but they’d help his pain.”
“No,” Dovewing meowed sharply. “Poppy seeds would make him sleep. He mustn’t sleep.”
As she spoke, Blaze bounded toward her, a mouse dangling from his jaws. He dropped it in front of her. “For Tigerheart,” he meowed. “To give him strength.” He headed back into the long grass.
Dovewing settled beside Tigerheart and began carefully to strip flesh from the mouse’s carcass.
Tigerheart smelled the warm scent of fresh-kill. “Share it with the kits,” he murmured. “They like mouse.”
Dovewing was chewing a lump of meat. She took it from between her teeth with her paw and pressed it to Tigerheart’s mouth as though he were a kit. “Eat it,” she ordered.
He took the morsel and let it sit on his tongue. He closed his eyes as he struggled to swallow. Pain seared his flanks at the effort. He turned his face away as Dovewing tried to give him more. “Give it to the kits.”
Exhausted, he closed his eyes.
“Don’t sleep!” Dovewing pulled his muzzle toward her. She searched his gaze desperately, as though reaching for something she could not see. “Remember before the cats of the Dark Forest came, when we used to meet on the ShadowClan border?”
He struggled to recall the memory as she went on.
“You were so cocky and sure of yourself.” She purred.
“You were such a goody-four-paws,” he teased, his words hardly more than a breath.
“And the time in the Dark Forest when . . .”
Her mew faded as he drifted into dream. Darkness swirled around him. Stars sparkled, and he opened his eyes and saw sunlit meadows, lush with the richness of greenleaf. His paws pressed into soft grass. Pain faded, distant now, as though pushed beyond the bright green horizon.
A tom padded over the rolling slope, his orange pelt like flame against the grass.
Tigerheart recognized him at once. His heart leaped. “Rowanstar!” His father looked so sleek and strong. He was once more the noble warrior Tigerheart remembered from his kithood. He hurried to meet him. “Is ShadowClan safe?”
Rowanstar stopped and met his gaze, his green eyes flashing. “I’m Rowanclaw now.”
Tigerheart frowned, confused. “Why?” How could a Clan leader lose his name?
“I forgive you for leaving.” Rowanclaw’s gaze fixed unwaveringly on Tigerheart.
Shame flashed hot beneath Tigerheart’s pelt. I left my Clan. He’d forgotten. The pain of the fall had blotted out memory. “I had to,” he blurted. “I was blocking the sun. I needed to give you space to make the shadows strong again.”
“There’s no need to explain.” Rowanclaw’s gaze was gentle now. No recrimination flickered there. “Now that I’m with StarClan, I understand. I see it all, and everything makes sense.”
Tigerheart’s thoughts jumbled. “You’re . . . dead?” He felt sunshine on his pelt. A warm breeze tugged at his fur. “Is this StarClan?” Grief swamped Tigerheart, but he wasn’t sure whether it was pain at the loss of his father or at being here, separated from Dovewing and his kits. “Am I dead too?”
The ground shifted beneath him. Like night rushing in, darkness swallowed the green fields, and Tigerheart found himself engulfed by water. It pulled him down into depths that pressed against his pelt and filled his ears and nose. He twisted, trying to haul himself to the surface. Orange fur moved beside him. Rowanstar?
No. The face that floated before him in the cloudy water belonged to Flametail. His brother’s eyes were wild with panic. Bubbles drifted from his mouth and nose as he thrashed in desperation, falling ever deeper into the murky gloom.
Tigerheart’s lungs burned. As panic lit every hair on fire, he opened his eyes. He was beside the pond once more. Darkness was creeping across the grass, swallowing the meadows around him. Gulping for air, he tried to draw in a shuddering breath. Pain clamped his chest. “I can’t breathe,” he gasped.
Dovewing crouched beside him, fear sharpening her green gaze. Ant and Cinnamon stared in horror. Cloverfoot, Rippletail, and Sparrowtail watched with dark, round eyes while Berryheart tried to shield her kits.
“ShadowClan.” Tigerheart felt darkness pressing at the edges of his thoughts. Rowanstar was dead. So much was left undone. “ShadowClan must survive.” He stared desperately at Rippletail. “You have to save it.”
Dovewing trembled, pressing her flank against his. “Don’t die,” she whimpered. “Please don’t die.”
Shadowkit buried his nose in Tigerheart’s fur. Pouncekit and Lightkit clung to his neck.
“Take the kits to ThunderClan.” Tigerheart breathed the words and could not draw in air for more. I always loved you. Peace flooded him. Pain melted. Dovewing. He regretted nothing except that he would never see his kits grow into warriors. I’ll watch them from StarClan. Like a warrior releasing prey, he let go his grip and allowed darkness to swallow him.