Эрин Хантер - Eclipse

“At least I was hunting and not sitting around chatting with my denmates.”

“Your denmates wouldn’t want to sit around and chat with you even if they were here!” Hollypaw retorted. She felt instantly guilty. Even though he was as bad-tempered as his father and twice as smug, she had begun to feel sorry for Breezepaw. Crowfeather treated his son with such scorn that Breezepaw sometimes seemed a loner among his own Clanmates.

Lionpaw jumped down beside her. “Are you okay?”

“Of course she is!” Breezepaw snorted. “She’d be even better if she were hunting like she’s supposed to, instead of getting in my way. The sooner we get this fresh-kill, the better. Then we can go home.”

It had been obvious from the start that Breezepaw hadn’t wanted to come to the mountains. And Crowfeather hadn’t acted like he was glad to have him along. He didn’t seem proud of anything Breezepaw did, unlike Brambleclaw, who made Hollypaw feel like the best warrior in ThunderClan when he praised her. Compassion welled in her chest as she looked at the miserable WindClan apprentice. “We’ll be back at the lake before long,” she mewed gently.

Breezepaw glared at her. “Why do we have to find fresh-kill for the Tribe, anyway? Why can’t they hunt for themselves?”

The compassion evaporated. Hollypaw wondered if she should remind Breezepaw that the Tribe cats were exhausted by their recent battle, and that prey was scarcer than ever in the mountains because of the gang of rogues who had invaded their land and forced them to set borders around their hunting grounds. But if he didn’t know that already, she wasn’t going to waste her breath. Let him figure it out. All she wanted now was to be back home, warm in her nest with a full belly and her denmates sleeping peacefully around her. She glanced at her brother. Would he set Breezepaw straight?

But Lionpaw just rolled his eyes at the WindClan apprentice. “Go catch a rabbit.” He snorted and stomped away across the grass.

Breezepaw curled his lip. “ThunderClan cats think they’re so special,” he sneered before stalking down the slope.

Hollypaw hurried after her brother. He was muttering under his breath as she caught up to him.

“I wish I had the power to shut that furball up once and for all!”

Is he joking? Hollypaw looked sideways to see if Lionpaw’s eyes were shining with their usual good humor, but they were half closed in a frown. She skipped in front of him and blocked his path. “You don’t mean that, do you?”

Lionpaw flicked his tail. “Of course not,” he grumped. “I’m just tired.”

“But do you think that’s what ‘the power of the stars’ means?” Hollypaw persisted. “The power to make any cat do what we want?”

Lionpaw shrugged but didn’t meet her gaze. “I suppose,” he answered. “I haven’t really thought about it.”

“You must have!”

Lionpaw padded around her and kept going for a few moments before he spoke again. “I hope it will make me stronger than any other cat, so that I can always win battles.”

He paused. “What about you?”

“I hope it means I’ll know things other cats don’t.”

“Like what?” Mischief lit his gaze. “How to speak to Twolegs?”

“Don’t be stupid!” Hollypaw’s claws itched with impatience. “I mean the power to understand”—she groped for the words to explain—“ everything ,” she mewed at last.

Lionpaw nudged her shoulder affectionately. “Is that all?”

Hollypaw flicked him away. “You know what I mean.”

They had almost reached the trees before Lionpaw spoke again. “Perhaps each of us will feel the power differently,” he ventured. “Jaypaw can already tell what cats are thinking, can’t he?” He caught Hollypaw’s eye. “He does it to you, right?”

Hollypaw nodded.

“Leafpool can’t do that,” Lionpaw went on. “None of the medicine cats can. Jaypaw is already making predictions about trouble in other Clans, too. That must be his power—to see things other cats can’t.”

“He’s the least blind of us all,” Hollypaw murmured, feeling her pelt prickle the way it did when Jaypaw said exactly what was running through her mind.

Thick foliage grew at the edge of the wood, and she halted to let Lionpaw take the lead. “Have you felt anything yet?” she ventured as he began to nose his way into the bushes.

To her surprise, Lionpaw spun around to face her. His eyes glittered with a strange intensity. “At the start of our journey, we stopped on the ridge to look down on the lake, remember?

Then you went off to catch prey and rest, but I wasn’t hungry.”

He blinked. “As I was looking at the territories, I started to feel… well, kind of strange.”

Hollypaw leaned forward. “Strange? How?”

“I felt like I could do anything!” Her brother’s eyes f lashed.

“Run to the farthest horizon without getting tired, fight any enemy and win, face any battle without being afraid.”

Hollypaw shifted on her paws and realized that she was backing away from him. Something about him suddenly made her feel uncomfortable: the way he had tensed his shoulders so that he looked more powerful than before, the faraway look in his eyes, as though he could see beyond her, beyond the woods, to some distant place where he could take on enemies single-pawed. She thought back to how he had fought for the Tribe; how he had come staggering out of the battle covered in blood—none of it his own—still ready to fight until there were no cats left standing.

The fire in his eyes sent a shiver through her pelt.

How could she be scared of her own brother?

Jaypaw touched his nose to Tawnypelt’s pad. It felt hot and fat. “Swollen,” he pronounced. “The skin’s grazed but not bleeding. But you already know that.” He could hear Hollypaw’s and Lionpaw’s faint mews as they headed away to find prey. Were they talking about the prophecy?

Tawnypelt pulled her paw from under his muzzle. “I knew I couldn’t taste blood, but I wasn’t sure if a stone had worked its way in.” She licked it. “My pads have grown so hard from the mountains, I can’t tell calluses from cuts anymore.”

“No stones,” Jaypaw reassured her. He nodded toward the sound of water babbling over rocks nearby. “That stream doesn’t sound too deep. Go stand in it. The water should ease the swelling.”

He padded after her and heard the splash as she leaped into the water.

She gasped. “It’s cold!”

“Good,” he mewed. “It’ll take down the swelling quicker.”

He pricked his ears. Hollypaw’s and Lionpaw’s voices had faded into the distance. At last he had shared with them the secret he had kept to himself for so long. Telling it had felt like walking through unknown territory, each word falling like a paw step on uncertain ground. Lionpaw had accepted it as though something that had been confusing him had finally been explained. Hollypaw’s reaction had been more frustrating: She only seemed concerned about how they could use their powers to help ThunderClan, and kept fretting about the warrior code. Didn’t she understand that the prophecy meant more than that? They had been given a power that stretched far beyond the boundaries set by ordinary cats.

Tawnypelt’s mew interrupted his thoughts. “This water’s very cold.”

“It’s mountain water.”

“I can tell,” Tawnypelt meowed urgently. “My paws have gone numb!”

“Well, get out then.”

With a gasp of relief, she landed beside him and began shaking the water from her paws, scattering icy drops on his fur.