Daylight

Chapter 16

The leaders on the rock were practically shadowy silhouettes from where Firepaw sat. The only thing he could see really well was their eyes, and the only reason for that was the fact that they were glowing under the reflection of the pale white moon.

The black-and-white cat, who had announced that the Gathering was beginning, spoke first as Firepaw finished settling in beside Mallowpaw, Dustpaw and Sandpaw on his other side. "WindClan has been doing well. Although we suspect that some cats are trying to sabotage us—" his annoyance was thinly veiled, and grumbles of annoyance and hisses of indignance wrought the cats beneath the rock "—we are well-fed, and we are prosperous, despite the leaf-bare. Three kits have joined our clan, and we are strong enough to defend ourselves if—and when—needed. That is all." He cast a look to a raggedy-looking tom on the other side of the rock, eyes—which were amber, Firepaw now noticed—narrowing at him.

The tom hissed, ears flitting backward, starting forward. "If you have something to say, Tallstar, say it, for StarClan's sake," he growled, one paw going in front of the other.

"Enough! StarClan has sent us this time to be in community, not in animosity!" exclaimed a cream-colored leader, shaggy head going from looking to the ShadowClan leader to Tallstar. "Brokenstar, why don't you go next?"

"I'm not an apprentice, Crookedstar. Why don't you go next?" snarled Brokenstar, bent tail lashing back and forth, its motions spasmatic and wild.

Mallowpaw leaned closer to Firepaw, voice low. "That's Brokenstar. He's evil," she whispered. I couldn't tell, Firepaw couldn't help but think as Sandpaw scoffed from his other side.

"Of course he is. He's ShadowClan."

"Youch," muttered Wetpaw, who was at the very end of the line of apprentices, wincing at the verbal blow. "Couldn't've softened it any?"

"I'm sure Sandpaw didn't mean that you're evil, Wetpaw," Silverpaw commented, blinking reassuringly at Wetpaw. "And besides, we still don't know how Raggedstar died."

Wetpaw raised a brow at Silverpaw as Sandpaw muttered about how 'you don't know what I did and didn't mean'. "I told you, he died of rat poison. Those two-legs put a bunch of it out, and I guess when the rats bit him, they got it into his wounds."

Grasspaw's brows creased, but she said nothing; she probably didn't want to escalate the already tense situation anymore. Firepaw frowned at it—she knew something, he was confident of it. Why wasn't she saying anything about what she'd seen, though?

He turned his attention back to the leaders, watching with wary anticipation. Finally, Crookedstar steeled himself, setting his crooked jaw and giving a curt nod to Brokenstar. "I will indeed." He turned to face the assembled clans, through which murmurs rippled like water at the shore of a lake. "RiverClan is doing well! It's not cold enough for the river to freeze over, and although the water's a little cold, the fish are still abundant!" Firepaw doubted that. Didn't fish hibernate... or something? "And—we'll soon have three new warriors. Trained by the clan's finest," he said, eyes darting to Silverpaw, Vixenpaw, and Grasspaw quickly before he surveyed the crowd once more.

The assembled clans cheered at this bit of information—ShadowClan less-so than most, but that was what Firepaw had halfway expected—and Crookedstar stepped back, a satisfied look on the tom's face.

Mallowpaw turned to the near-warriors. "Congrats! What do you think your names'll be?" she asked amidst a bit of murmuring from the clans as they awaited the next leader's talking.

"Probably Vixenclaw! Or Vixenstrike. Or Vixenstreak!" exclaimed Vixenpaw, always one of the more outgoing apprentices of RiverClan. She glanced over to Grasspaw who sat quietly next to her, nudging her in a 'go on' sort of way.