his reply.
One battle had been averted, but was another one still loom-ing?
“We would have done the same for any cat,” Lionpaw mewed flatly.
Pain flashed in Heatherpaw’s eyes. “You’re going to be a great warrior, Lionpaw.”
Lionpaw watched as she leaped the gully and disappeared into the shadows. Then he blinked at Firestar, his eyes expressionless. “Are we going home now?”
Firestar nodded and began to lead his Clanmates away.
Hollypaw dug her claws into the soft, wet earth. Lionpaw had learned his lesson. The warrior code was more important than any friendship. It guided their paws in everything and it stopped more battles than it started. Jaypaw could get away with testing the code’s limits—he had his own mysterious relationship with StarClan—but she and Lionpaw were warriors. Without the code, they were nothing.
Muscles aching and paws weary, she followed her Clanmates into the forest. She could sleep soundly tonight.
Chapter 21
But Lionpaw’s heart ached to the point of making him fidget and shuffle his paws in the dried-up moss in his nest. Finally, he gave up trying to get comfortable and pushed his way through the barrier of thorns, into the forest.
“You need to stretch your legs?” Brook’s mew surprised him. Lionpaw had been lost in thought as he padded out of the camp entrance. The evening sun was glittering through the trees as it sank toward the horizon.
“I’m bored with resting,” Lionpaw told her.
“You look better,” she commented. “Last night you looked like you’d been as far as the mountains and back.”
Lionpaw looked at his paws. “The kits were hard to find.”
“But you found them,” Brook reminded him.
“Yes,” Lionpaw murmured. He began to pad up the slope, treeward.
“I’ll watch for you!” Brook called after him.
“I won’t be long,” Lionpaw promised.
He headed for the tunnel entrance, weaving slowly through the trees. As he saw the brambles that guarded the tunnel entrance, the pang in his belly grew stronger. He wriggled beneath the prickly branches and climbed the slope, pausing in front of the small burrow where Heatherpaw had once called to him. He imagined her now, her blue eyes shining with excitement.
He would never see her again in that way. As a friend. As a fellow member of DarkClan with their own hidden territory.
He couldn’t have all that and still be a loyal ThunderClan warrior.
He closed his eyes, imagining he could still smell her scent drifting from the tunnel entrance. He knew that was impossible. A mudslide blocked the way now. It marked the end of the most precious friendship he’d ever known.
“Good-bye, Heatherpaw,” he whispered into the tunnel, hoping the wind would carry his words through the darkness, picturing her waiting at the other end. . . .
How could he turn his back on their friendship?
He had to.
So must she.
A half-moon hung in the sky as Lionpaw headed home through the shadowy forest. The wind brushed the treetops, and the ferns crackled as they slowly began to unfurl bright new leaves.
Fur brushed his flank.
Lionpaw jumped, tail bristling.
“We’re proud of you.” Tigerstar’s mew drifted on the evening air. Lionpaw turned his head and saw the dark warrior’s shimmering outline and his amber eyes glowing in the twilight.
A second pelt brushed his other flank. Hawkfrost.
“You made the right decision,” the tabby warrior told him.
He nudged Lionpaw with his shoulder, and Lionpaw shivered at his ghostly touch.
“I’ve lost my best friend,” he murmured. “I never thought I would feel so empty.”
“Friendship is worthless,” Tigerstar growled. “You have learned an important lesson, one that I could never have taught you. But I will teach you much more. There’ll come a day when you’ll be so powerful, you’ll have no need of friends.
And when that day comes, I promise you will never regret that you chose to be a warrior.”
