The Fourth Apprentice

heavy with anger. “They looked as if they were counting every drop!”

Jayfeather’s tail drooped as he stood beside his brother among the sooty remnants of the fire. Around him, cats were beginning to carry the burnt debris out of the camp; the sharp scent made him cough again.

Will the end of the Clans be like this? he wondered. Just like the lake is shrinking? So ordinary, and frustrating, and so bitterly, painfully slow?

Lionblaze touched his nose to Jayfeather’s shoulder in a gesture of comfort. “Remember, we will be Three again,” he murmured. “Whitewing’s kits are Firestar’s kin, too.”

Jayfeather shrugged. “How can we be sure? Why hasn’t StarClan sent us a sign?”

“We don’t know that the prophecy came from them in the first place,” his brother pointed out.

“But they-”

A loud yowl from across the clearing interrupted what Jayfeather was about to say. “Hey, Jayfeather!”

Jayfeather’s whiskers twitched as he recognized the voice of the most annoying cat in the Clan. “What is it now, Berrynose?” he asked with a sigh, heading in his direction.

Berrynose padded up to meet him; Jayfeather detected the scent of Poppyfrost just behind him.

“Poppyfrost is having kits,” the young warrior announced importantly. “My kits.”

“Congratulations,” Jayfeather murmured.

“I want you to tell her she’s got to rest and take care of herself,” Berrynose went on. “Having kits can be dangerous, right?”

“Well…sometimes,” Jayfeather admitted.

“Yeah, I heard that the kits can come too soon, or they can be weak, or-”

“Berrynose,” Poppyfrost interrupted; Jayfeather could pick up her distress as clearly as if she had caterwauled it to the whole camp. “I’m sure I’ll be okay.”

“Or the kits take too long in coming,” Berrynose finished, as if his mate hadn’t spoken.

“There can be problems, but…” Jayfeather padded forward until he could give Poppyfrost a good sniff. “She’s a healthy she-cat,” he went on. “There’s no reason she can’t carry on with her normal duties for now.”

“What?” Berrynose sounded outraged. “That’s not good enough! Poppyfrost, you go into the nursery right now, and let Ferncloud and Daisy take care of you.”

“Really, there’s no need-” Poppyfrost began, but Berrynose was already nudging her across the clearing toward the entrance to the nursery.

Jayfeather stood still as the sound of their paw steps retreated. Why consult a medicine cat if you’re not going to listen, mouse-brain?

Defeat suddenly flooded over Jayfeather like a huge wave. What was the point of having the power of the stars in his paws if even his own Clanmates didn’t listen to him? “I don’t know if we can do this on our own,” he murmured to himself. “Two or three of us…”

CHAPTER 3

Dovekit wriggled with excitement as Whitewing’s tongue rasped around her ears and down her neck.

“Keep still,” her mother scolded. “You can’t go to your apprentice ceremony looking as if you’ve been pulled through the thorn barrier backward!”

Ivykit glanced over her shoulder from where she was crouched at the entrance to the nursery. “The cats are gathering out there already,” she reported, her voice quivering with anticipation. “I think the whole Clan will come to see us become apprentices!”

Dovekit twisted away from her mother’s tongue and scampered over the mossy floor of the nursery to join her sister. “Let’s go!” she urged.

“It’s not time yet,” her mother told her. “We have to wait until Firestar calls the Clan together.”

“It won’t be long.” The gentle mew came from Daisy, the cat from the horseplace. Dovekit understood that Daisy would never be a warrior; she and Ferncloud both stayed in the nursery to help each new queen with her kits.

Now Daisy was curled up beside Poppyfrost, who had moved into the nursery two sunrises before, her belly gently rounded with Berrynose’s kits. Berrynose was Daisy’s son, so these kits would be Daisy’s kin too.

“Are you coming to see us made apprentices?” she asked the she-cats.

“Of course.” Poppyfrost heaved herself to her paws and gave herself a quick grooming to get rid of the scraps of moss that clung to her pelt. “We wouldn’t miss it for anything.”

Dovekit gave her shoulders another wriggle; she felt as if she couldn’t keep her paws still for another heartbeat. She was so excited that she could almost forget how thirsty she was. “I wonder who our mentors will be,” she meowed.

Before Ivykit could reply, Firestar’s flame-colored figure appeared on the Highledge and his voice rang out across the camp. “Let all cats old enough to catch their own prey join here beneath the Highledge for a Clan meeting.”

Dovekit sprang up, ready to bounce out into the clearing, but her mother’s tail reached out to hold her back. “Not yet,” Whitewing murmured. “And you will walk out there like a sensible apprentice, not a little kit who doesn’t know how to behave.”

“Okay, okay,” Dovekit muttered, trying to force down her impatience.

Ivykit echoed her sister, then added, “I think I’m going to be sick.”

“Oh, no!” Dovekit let out a wail. What will the Clan think of us if Ivykit is sick at her apprentice ceremony?

“No, you’re not,” Whitewing mewed calmly. “You’ll both behave yourselves and make me proud of you. Look, your father’s come to get you.”

Birchfall had appeared at the entrance to the nursery, looking down at his daughters with glowing eyes. “Come along, the Clan is waiting for you,” he told them.

Ivykit sprang to her paws, and Dovekit flexed her claws while Whitewing gave her own pelt a quick grooming and came to join them. By this time the whole of ThunderClan had gathered in the clearing, beneath the Highledge. Dovekit felt the gaze of many eyes on her as she padded out of the nursery beside Ivykit, their mother and father following behind. Daisy, Ferncloud, and Poppyfrost brought up the rear, and sat down just outside the entrance.

Dovekit’s heart was thumping so hard that she thought it was going to burst out of her chest, but she kept her head and her tail held high.

“I just know I’ll forget what to do,” Ivykit muttered into her ear.

Dovekit brushed herself against her sister’s pelt. “You’ll be fine.”

Whitewing guided them toward the circle of waiting cats, who parted to let them in. Dovekit found herself standing between her sister and Squirrelflight, who gave her an encouraging nod.

“I’ve called you together for one of the most important moments in the life of a Clan,” Firestar began. “Dovekit and Ivykit have reached their sixth moon, and it’s time for them to become apprentices.” He beckoned with his tail. “Come forward.”

Dovekit wanted to do a big jump right into the middle of the circle, but at the last moment she remembered what her mother had told her and made herself walk slowly forward beside her sister.

“Dovekit,” Firestar meowed, “from this day until you receive your warrior name, you will be called Dovepaw.”

“Dovepaw!” The voices of her Clanmates rang out around her, making her pelt tingle as she heard her new name for the first time. “Dovepaw!”

“StarClan, I ask you to guide this new apprentice,” Firestar went on, gazing up at the hot blue sky above the hollow. “Set her paws on the path she must follow to become a warrior.”

Dovepaw suppressed a shiver as she thought of all the starry cats, her warrior ancestors, looking down on her