Эрин Хантер - The Apprentice's Quest

“You’ll never convince me that those kits are what we were meant to embrace,” Onestar grumbled. “I mean… they’re kits! What do they know?”

“They don’t have to know anything,” Rowanstar pointed out with an irritated lash of his tail. “But StarClan guided us to them, and that’s good enough for me.”

Mistystar nodded in agreement.

“We can’t be sure about this,” Bramblestar meowed, his glance sweeping around to take in the other three leaders. “Not until the kits grow and reveal more about themselves. What is clear is that it’s the Clans’ responsibility to take care of them.”

“That’s all well and good,” Rowanstar responded, baring his teeth in the beginning of a snarl, “but it doesn’t mean the kits need to stay in ThunderClan. Perhaps they belong in ShadowClan with Needlepaw, who helped find and care for them.”

“But they’re happy and safe now,” Bramblestar argued. “It would be cruel to move them.”

“You would say that, Bramblestar,” Onestar hissed. “All that interests you is keeping the kits for ThunderClan.”

“It looks like that, Bramblestar.” Mistystar sounded almost apologetic. “But the prophecy came to every Clan, not just to ThunderClan. You don’t have the right to keep the kits.”

“That’s so unfair!” Sparkpaw exclaimed, but Alderpaw waved his tail for her to be quiet. He didn’t want to miss a single word of the argument.

“I accept that,” Bramblestar meowed, to Alderpaw’s dismay. “And I agree that ShadowClan has a claim to the kits—or at least to one of them.”

“Then the only fair thing,” Mistystar pointed out, “is for ThunderClan to keep one kit, and give the other to ShadowClan.”

Alderpaw glanced down in horror at Twigkit and Violetkit. Splitting them up would be so cruel!

“What’s happening?” Twigkit asked, blinking rapidly in agitation.

“Yes, why is every cat angry?” Violetkit added.

“It’s okay, little ones.” Alderpaw gave each kit an affectionate lick around the ears. “Clan leaders are always arguing.”

The kits grew calmer, accepting what he said, while Alderpaw felt guilty that he might be lying to them.

“You don’t think Bramblestar will really allow them to be separated!” Sparkpaw whispered into his ear.

“I don’t know,” Alderpaw murmured in reply, but inwardly he was afraid that their Clan leader would. He doesn’t really have any choice, with all the other leaders against him.

When Alderpaw was able to listen to the leaders again, Bramblestar was speaking. “I’m not happy about this,” he meowed, “but I feel I have to agree that one kit goes to ShadowClan.”

“But that’s not good enough!” Onestar protested, while Alderpaw felt cold all over with despair. “What about WindClan and RiverClan? Shouldn’t all the Clans try to raise the kits together?”

His suggestion met with silence from the other leaders. “Is he mouse-brained?” Sparkpaw muttered to Alderpaw. “How would that work?”

Onestar just let out a hiss of annoyance and retreated even farther into the leaves, glaring out balefully.

The cats in the clearing were still whispering together. Some of them crowded around to get a good look at the kits. Twigkit and Violetkit shrank closer together, looking even smaller with so many full-grown cats looming over them.

“Back off, flea-pelts!” Sparkpaw hissed.

“You’re scaring them.”

Up in the Great Oak, Mistystar was lashing her tail in frustration. “Is there any other business to discuss?” she called out, trying to make herself heard above the buzz of conversation.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Onestar growled.

“No cat is going to want to talk about day-to-day business after all this!”

“Then I declare the Gathering at an end,” Mistystar announced. She jumped down from the tree and disappeared into a crowd of RiverClan warriors.

Alderpaw’s heart pounded with apprehension as Bramblestar and Rowanstar leaped down together and thrust their way through the clusters of cats until they reached the bush where he and Sparkpaw waited with the kits.

“I can’t believe you agreed to this!”

Alderpaw burst out as his father approached.

Bramblestar’s eyes were grave and he bowed his head as he replied. “There’s no other way. Rowanstar, choose a kit.”

Rowanstar hesitated, and Alderpaw sensed that he wasn’t happy about the solution either.

He would protect the rights of ShadowClan against any cat, but he wasn’t cruel, and he clearly understood what he was doing.

“I’ll take the black-and-white one,” he meowed.

“That’s Violetkit,” Alderpaw told him, unable to stop his voice shaking. “Look after her, please.”

Rowanstar dipped his head. “She will be well taken care of in ShadowClan,” he promised. Then he gently lifted Violetkit by her scruff.

At last the kits understood what was happening. Violetkit began to wail in a shrill voice and lashed out helplessly with her tiny paws.

“No! No! Don’t take her!” Twigkit screeched, flinging herself against Rowanstar’s leg and raking her claws through his pelt.

“Alderpaw! Help me!” Violetkit begged. “I want to go home! I want Lilyheart!”

Alderpaw thought that his heart would shatter into icy splinters. Curling his tail around Twigkit, he drew her back from Rowanstar. “It’s no use, little ones,” he mewed.

“This is the way it has to be.”

“Take her quickly,” Bramblestar snapped at Rowanstar.

Instantly the ShadowClan leader swung around and headed away to where his own Clan were gathering ready to leave. Dangling from his jaws, Violetkit twisted around so that she could still see her sister.

“Twigkit! Twigkit!” she kept on calling until she vanished from Alderpaw’s sight.

Alderpaw imagined himself being separated from Sparkpaw, and how much it would hurt.

But the pain that clawed through him now was even bigger than that. He felt that the Clans were being swept down a long, dark tunnel, and that this terrible separation was only the beginning of even more terrible troubles to come.

I should feel happy, he told himself. I found the kits, and they might be the thing that will save the Clans if we embrace them.

But instead a sense of foreboding hung over him, like a storm cloud that was only waiting for the right moment to release its fury.

He was jerked back to the present by a sharp nudge from Sparkpaw. “Stop dreaming!

Twigkit needs you.”

The little gray kit had collapsed into a heap, letting out a desolate mewling. Alderpaw bent over her and licked her head and her ears.

“Don’t be sad, little one,” he murmured. “We’ll look after you. And you’ll see Violetkit again, when you’re old enough to come to Gatherings.”

“But it’s not the same,” Twigkit whimpered.

“I want Violetkit now! And what will she do without Lilyheart?”

“A ShadowClan cat will look after her,” Sparkpaw promised. “A nice ShadowClan cat.”

Alderpaw stroked Twigkit gently with his tail, and Sparkpaw nuzzled her from the other side, but the little kit wouldn’t be comforted.

“The others are leaving,” Sparkpaw mewed.

“We should go too.”

Looking up, Alderpaw saw that Bramblestar and his other Clanmates were gathering near the foot of the Great Oak, while the ShadowClan cats streamed past them on their way to the tree-bridge. Among them he spotted Needlepaw, with Violetkit riding on her back.

For a moment Needlepaw caught Alderpaw’s eye, and Alderpaw stared back at her. His head was buzzing with questions, like they were bees in a hive.

Did you tell them about SkyClan? Will you? Will you take care of Violetkit? Do you miss me?