by Erin Hunter
The young tom spun around. Approaching him through the grass was a tabby-and-white she-cat with blue eyes; she gave him a friendly flick with her tail as she drew closer.
Featherpaw stared at her. “M-Mallowfur!” he gasped. “I’ve missed you so much!”
“I may be a warrior of StarClan now, but I am always with you, my dear,” Mallowfur purred. “It’s good to see you here, Featherpaw. I hope it’s the first time of many.”
“I hope so, too,” Featherpaw responded.
Mallowfur kept walking, brushing through the grass until she joined a ginger tom at the edge of the trees; together the two StarClan cats vanished into the undergrowth. Close to the spot where they had disappeared, another StarClan warrior crouched beside a small pool, lapping at the water. Heartbeats later, a squirrel dashed across the clearing and swarmed up the trunk of an oak tree, with two more of Featherpaw’s starry ancestors hard on its tail.
Featherpaw heard his name being called again. “Hey, Featherpaw! Over here!”
Featherpaw glanced around the clearing. His gaze fell on a black tom, almost hidden in the shadows under a holly bush. He was small and skinny, his muzzle gray with age.
The dark-furred cat beckoned with his tail. “Over here!” he repeated, his voice low and urgent. “Are your paws stuck to the ground?”
Featherpaw shouldered his way through the long grasses until he stood in front of the tom. “Who are you? What do you want?”
“My name is Molepelt,” the cat replied. “I have a message for you.”
Featherpaw’s eyes stretched wide. “A message from StarClan, my first time here?” he breathed. “Wow, that’s so great.”
Molepelt let out an irritable grunt. “You might not think so, when you’ve heard what it is.”
“Go on.”
Molepelt fixed him with an icy green gaze. “A dark force is on its way,” he rasped, “with the power to pierce deep into the heart of ThunderClan. And it will be brought by a ShadowClan medicine cat.”
“What?” Featherpaw’s voice rose to a high-pitched squeak. “That can’t be right. Medicine cats have no enemies, and they don’t cause trouble for other Clans.”
Molepelt ignored his protest. “A long time ago, I was the ShadowClan medicine cat,” he went on. “My Clanmates and I did a great wrong to another Clan—a Clan that belonged in the forest as much as any of us, but was driven out through our selfishness and hard-heartedness. I knew then that what we did was wrong, and I have waited, my heart filled with dread, for the Clans to be punished.”
“Punished? How?” Featherpaw asked hoarsely.
“The time has come!” Molepelt’s green eyes were wide, and he seemed to be gazing into the far distance. “A poison will spring from the heart of ShadowClan, and spread to all the other Clans.” His voice became a soft, eerie wailing. “A storm of blood and fire will sweep the forest!”
Featherpaw gazed at the old cat in horror. Before he could speak, a powerful black-and-white tom pushed his way through a clump of ferns and padded up to the holly bush.
“Molepelt, what are you doing?” he demanded. “Why are you spilling all this to a ThunderClan apprentice? You don’t know that this is the time!”
Molepelt snorted. “You were once my apprentice, Hollowbelly, and don’t you forget it! I know I’m right.”
Hollowbelly glanced at Featherpaw, then back at Molepelt. “Things are different now,” he meowed.
“What do you mean? What’s going to happen?” Featherpaw asked, his voice shaking.
Hollowbelly ignored him. “There’s no reason to punish ShadowClan,” he continued. “What happened was too long ago. The medicine cat code will keep the Clans safe.”
“You’re a fool, Hollowbelly,” Molepelt growled. “The medicine cat code can do nothing to save the Clans.”
“You don’t know that for sure!” When Molepelt did not respond, Hollowbelly turned to Featherpaw. “Please, say nothing about this,” he meowed. “There is no need to spread alarm, not when the future is lost in mist even to StarClan. Promise me that you won’t tell any of your Clanmates. Promise on the lives of your ancestors!”
Featherpaw blinked. “I promise,” he whispered.
Hollowbelly nodded. “Thank you, Featherpaw. Go well.” Nudging Molepelt to his paws, he led the old medicine cat away into the trees.
Featherpaw gazed after them. After a few heartbeats he scrambled out from underneath the holly bush and staggered into the sunlit clearing. “Even if Molepelt was telling the truth, it makes no sense!” he meowed out loud. “How can ThunderClan be threatened by a ShadowClan medicine cat?”
Chapter 1
“ShadowClan warriors, attack!”
Yellowkit burst out of the nursery and hurtled across the ShadowClan camp. Her littermates, Nutkit and Rowankit, scurried after her.
Nutkit pounced on a pinecone that lay at the foot of one of the pine trees overhanging the clearing. “It’s a WindClan warrior!” he squealed, batting at it with tiny brown paws. “Get out of our territory!”
“Rabbit-chasers!” Rowankit flexed her claws, growling. “Prey-stealers!”
Yellowkit leaped at a straying tendril from the brambles that encircled the camp; her paws got tangled in it and she lost her balance, rolling over in a flurry of legs and tail. Scrambling to her feet, she crouched in front of the bramble, her teeth bared in a growl. “Trip me up, would you?” she squeaked, raking her claws across its leaves. “Take that!”
Nutkit began to scan the clearing, peering around with narrowed amber eyes. “Can you see any more WindClan warriors on our territory?” he asked.
Yellowkit spotted a group of elders sharing tongues in a shaft of sunlight. “Yes! Over there!” she yowled.
Nutkit and Rowankit followed her as she raced across the hard brown earth and skidded to a halt in front of the elders.
“WindClan warriors!” Yellowkit began, trying to sound as dignified as her Clan leader, Cedarstar. “Do you agree that ShadowClan is the best of all the Clans? Or do you need to feel our claws in your fur to persuade you?”
Littlebird, her ginger pelt glowing in the warm light, sat up, giving the other elders an amused glance. “No, you’re far too fierce for us,” she meowed. “We don’t want to fight.”
“Do you promise to let our warriors cross your territory whenever they want?” Rowankit growled.
“We promise.” Silverflame, the mother of Yellowkit’s mother, Brightflower, flattened herself to the ground and blinked fearfully up at the kits.
Lizardfang cringed away from the three kits, shuffling his skinny brown limbs. “ShadowClan is much stronger than us.”
“Yes!” Yellowkit bounced up in the air. “ShadowClan is the best!” In her excitement she leaped on top of Nutkit, rolling over and over with him in a knot of gray and brown fur.
I’m going to be the best warrior in the best Clan in the forest! she thought with glee.
She broke away from Nutkit and scrambled to her paws. “You be a WindClan warrior now,” she urged. “I know some awesome battle moves!”
“Battle moves?” a scornful voice broke in. “You? You’re only a kit!”
Yellowkit spun around to see Raggedkit and his littermate, Scorchkit, standing a couple of tail-lengths away.
“And what are you?” she demanded, facing up to the big dark tabby tom. “You and Scorchkit were still kits, last time I looked.”
“But we’ll be apprentices soon,” Raggedkit retorted. “It’ll be moons and moons before you start training.”
“Yeah.” Scorchkit licked one ginger paw and drew it over his ear. “We’ll be warriors by then.”
“In your dreams!” Rowankit bounded up to stand next to Yellowkit, while Nutkit flanked her on her other side. “There are rabbits who’d make better warriors than you two.”
Scorchkit crouched down, his muscles tensed to leap at them, but Raggedkit blocked him with his tail. “They’re not worth it,” he mewed loftily. “Come on, runts, watch us and we’ll show
you some real battle moves.”
“You’re not our mentors!” Nutkit snapped. “All you know how to do is mess up our game.”
“Your game!” Raggedkit rolled his eyes. “Like you wouldn’t go squealing into the nursery if WindClan really attacked our camp.”
“Would not!” Rowankit exclaimed.
Raggedkit and Scorchkit ignored her, turning their backs on the younger kits. “You attack me first,” Scorchkit ordered. Raggedkit dashed past his littermate, aiming a blow at Scorchkit’s ear. Scorchkit swung away and pounced on Raggedkit’s tail. Raggedkit rolled over onto his back, all four paws ready to defend himself.
Annoyed as she was, Yellowkit couldn’t help admiring the older toms. Her paws itched to practice their battle moves, but she knew that she and her littermates would only get sneered at if they tried.
“Come on!” Nutkit nudged her. “Let’s go and see if there are any mice in the brambles.”
“You won’t catch any, even if there are,” Raggedkit meowed, rising to his paws and shaking debris from his fur.
“I wasn’t talking to you.” Nutkit’s fur bristled and he bared tiny, needle-sharp teeth. “Kittypet!”
For a moment all five kittens froze. Yellowkit could feel her heart pounding. Like her littermates, she had heard the elders gossiping, wondering who had fathered Raggedkit and Scorchkit, asking one another if it could be true that Featherstorm’s mate had been a kittypet. The young she-cat had often strayed into Twolegplace, and she’d never been obviously close to any of the toms in the Clan. But Yellowkit knew that it was something you should never, never say out loud.
Raggedkit took a pace closer to Nutkit, stiff-legged with fury. “What did you call me?” he snarled, his voice dangerously quiet.
Nutkit’s eyes were wide and scared, but he didn’t back down. “Kittypet!” he repeated.
A low growl came from Raggedkit’s throat. Scorchkit’s gaze darkened and he flexed his claws. Neither of them looked one bit like a soft, fluffy kittypet. Yellowkit braced herself to defend her littermate.
“Nutkit!”
Yellowkit turned at the sound of her mother’s voice. Brightflower was standing beside the thornbush that shielded the nursery hollow. Her orange tabby tail was twitching in annoyance.
“Nutkit, if you can’t play sensibly, then you’d better come back here. You too, Yellowkit and Rowankit. I won’t have you fighting.”
“Not fair,” Nutkit muttered as all three littermates began trailing toward the nursery. He scuffed his paws through the pine needles on the ground. “They started it.”
“They’re just stupid kittypets,” Rowankit whispered.
Yellowkit couldn’t resist glancing over her shoulder as she reached the thornbush. Raggedkit and Scorchkit stood in the middle of the clearing, glaring after them. The force of Raggedkit’s anger scared her and fascinated her at the same time. Behind it she could sense something else: a black space that echoed with fearful questioning. She thought of her own father, Brackenfoot, who told stories of patrols and hunting and Gatherings at Fourtrees, who let his kits scramble all over him and pretended to be a fox so they could attack him. Yellowkit loved him and wanted to be like him.
What must it be like, not to know who your father is? Especially if every cat thinks he was a kittypet?
Then Yellowkit realized that Raggedkit’s gaze had locked with hers. With a squeak of alarm she ducked underneath the branches and tumbled down into the nursery after her littermates.
About the Author
ERIN HUNTER is inspired by a love of cats and a fascination with the ferocity of the natural world. As well as having great respect for nature in all its forms, Erin enjoys creating rich, mythical explanations for animal behavior. She is also the author of the Seekers and Survivors series.
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Other Books in This Series
Book One: Into the Wild
Book Two: Fire and Ice
Book Three: Forest of Secrets
Book Four: Rising Storm
Book Five: A Dangerous Path
Book Six: The Darkest Hour
THE NEW PROPHECY
Book One: Midnight
Book Two: Moonrise
Book Three: Dawn
Book Four: Starlight
Book Five: Twilight
Book Six: Sunset
POWER OF THREE
Book One: The Sight
Book Two: Dark River
Book Three: Outcast
Book Four: Eclipse
Book Five: Long Shadows
Book Six: Sunrise
OMEN OF THE STARS
Book One: The Fourth Apprentice
Book Two: Fading Echoes
Book Three: Night Whispers
Book Four: Sign of the Moon
Book Five: The Forgotten Warrior
Book Six: The Last Hope
Warriors Super Edition: Firestar’s Quest
Warriors Super Edition: Bluestar’s Prophecy
Warriors Super Edition: SkyClan’s Destiny
Warriors Super Edition: Crookedstar’s Promise
Warriors Field Guide: Secrets of the Clans
Warriors: Cats of the Clans
Warriors: Code of the Clans
Warriors: Battles of the Clans
Warriors: Enter the Clans
MANGA
The Lost Warrior
Warrior’s Refuge
Warrior’s Return
The Rise of Scourge
Tigerstar and Sasha #1: Into the Woods
Tigerstar and Sasha #2: Escape from the Forest
Tigerstar and Sasha #3: Return to the Clans
Ravenpaw’s Path #1: Shattered Peace
Ravenpaw’s Path #2: A Clan in Need
Ravenpaw’s Path #3: The Heart of a Warrior
SkyClan and the Stranger #1: The Rescue
SkyClan and the Stranger #2: Beyond the Code
SkyClan and the Stranger #3: After the Flood
NOVELLAS
Hollyleaf’s Story
Also by Erin Hunter
Book One: The Quest Begins
Book Two: Great Bear Lake
Book Three: Smoke Mountain
Book Four: The Last Wilderness
Book Five: Fire in the Sky
Book Six: Spirits in the Stars
RETURN TO THE WILD
Book One: Island of Shadows
Book Two: The Melting Sea
MANGA
Toklo’s Story
Kallik’s Adventure
Book One: The Empty City
Back Ads
Copyright
Mistystar’s Omen
Copyright © 2012 by Working Partners Limited
Series created by Working Partners Limited
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks.
EPub Edition © 2012
ISBN 978-0-06-223290-8
Epub Edition © AUGUST 2012 ISBN: 9780062232908
Version 10122012
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
FIRST EDITION
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