Chapter 12

Swirlpaw stood frozen in amazement as a pale gray she-cat stepped out from the crowd of StarClan cats.

“Heatherfur!” Spiralpaw gasped.

“You have come,” the cat meowed. “You have succeeded. You have found the Crystal Sun.”

A gray-and-white cat with shimmering blue eyes padded forward to stand beside Heatherfur. Swirlpaw’s heart twisted with grief. “Rabbitpelt,” she choked out, gazing at her mother.

Rabbitpelt lifted her face up. “Look,” she murmured, “we’re standing in the crack you jumped over.”

The four friends followed her gaze. Sure enough, up above the sky was a glowing line of blue, blocked by the sharp edges of the crack.

“What?” Pinepaw mewed in outrage. “Seriously? We could have just fallen right into the crack! We didn’t need to escape that dog! We didn’t need to cross that Thunderpath!” His voice rose into a wail. “We did all that for nothing!”

“You didn’t do that for nothing,” a black she-cat with white stripes mewed softly, padding out to stand with Heatherfur and Rabbitpelt. “It brought you together as one.”

“Bladepelt,” Skypaw sighed. Bladepelt glanced at her warmly for a brief moment.

A beautiful golden she-cat leaped out from the crowd, her blue eyes shining. “You’ve done it,” she meowed, her voice as excited as a kit’s on its first day out of the nursery. “You have found the Crystal Sun together.”

Pinepaw’s whole body quivered as he breathed, “Nimblepaw!”

“Go and touch your nose to the Crystal Sun now,” Nimblepaw ordered softly, flicking her tail at the large yellowish crystal that stood at the back of the cave.

The four cats approached it cautiously. “We’ve done it,” Swirlpaw murmured as she pressed her nose against its cool surface.

She was suddenly with her mother, cuddling close to Rabbitpelt’s belly with her sister. She breathed in the warm scent, trying to hold on to it. It vanished as the scene changed, and she was prompting Curlkit to tell her what she had done to the prey in the fresh-kill pile, while her sister answered with a lie.

“Swirlpaw,” a voice–her mother’s–meowed in her head. “With the power of the Crystal Sun, I give you your gift. Use it well to tell apart truth and lie.”

With a jump Swirlpaw realized her friends had been behind her all this time. They had watched the memories as well. She padded back to be in line with them as the scene changed. Pinepaw padded forward, his eyes shining with grief as a golden she-cat faced a dark gray one, her fur bristling angrily, while a younger Pinepaw watched from the other side.

“Pinepaw.” Swirlpaw recognized Nimblepaw’s voice. “With the power of the Crystal Sun, I give you your gift. Use it well to understand every cat’s point of view.”

The image shifted and Skypaw padded forward. A black-and-ginger cat stood threateningly over a smaller Skypaw. A voice–Bladepelt, Swirlpaw guessed–sounded softly.

“Skypaw. With the power of the Crystal Sun, I give you your gift. Use it well to tell good apart from evil.”

The scene changed again, and Spiralpaw padded forward slowly. Spiralkit was curled up next to Ambercloud’s dead body, her breathing slow and even as she slept. Heatherfur’s mew rang loudly and clearly.

“Spiralpaw, you already used your gift. With the power of the Crystal Sun, I strengthen it. Use it well to see and understand different cats’ deaths.”

A shiver rippled along Spiralpaw’s back as she stepped back to her friends. Swirlpaw watched as the vision faded, and then suddenly they were all standing back in the Cave of Stars. Swirlpaw stepped back from the object–no, the Crystal Sun–and glanced at the StarClan cats. They were starting to fade, and her mother’s voice rang one last time as they disappeared into the air.

“Go up, Swirlpaw!”

Swirlpaw let out a yelp of terror as her paws suddenly left the ground. In less than a heartbeat, she was standing on the meadow side of the crack above the Cave of Stars. She glanced back in surprise. They had come up!

“How did that happen?” Pinepaw gasped, echoing her own thoughts.

Skypaw shrugged. “Some kind of magic,” she mewed, then added, “I told you the Crystal Sun was something powerful! Why would you think it was something we had to carry, Pinepaw?”

Pinepaw shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe I had thistledown for brains that time?” he joked.

Swirlpaw couldn’t hold back a purr. Just like Bladepelt had said, they had all come together.

 

Swirlpaw killed the mouse with a swift blow to its neck. She carried it happily back to where Spiralpaw was digging a hole to put the prey in. I hope Pinepaw’s doing better with collecting bedding now, she thought with a purr of laughter. She remembered he had been grumbling and complaining at the beginning of the journey.

“I’ve caught a squirrel,” Spiralpaw announced happily, dropping it into the hole. Swirlpaw murmured her congratulations and dropped her mouse in.

“Let’s catch something else,” Spiralpaw suggested.

Swirlpaw nodded and opened her mouth to taste the air. She breathed in the unfamiliar scent of the trees, so different from home. Hearing the rustling of a shrew in a bush not far from her, she dropped into a crouch and started to stalk it when a sharp hiss made her freeze.

Swirlpaw and Spiralpaw both turned toward the sound. Something was crouched in the shadows of an elderberry bush. Swirlpaw felt her stomach drop as she recognized the sleek, glossy pelt and the piercing yellow eyes.

It was the black cat she’d seen before.