Lillyheart's Secret

Chapter Forty

"Creekstar!"

The word was ripped out of Lillyheart as she dropped down to her leader, panic sticking in her chest, hot and thick and full of tears. "Creekstar, get up!"

She wasn't moving, she wasn't breathing, she wasn't doing anything. Lillyheart choked back a sob as she nuzzled against her mentor, her calico pelt unkempt from too many days alone. "Please wake up," she whimpered, ears pinned back.

Leopardcry raced into the den, nearly falling over Lillyheart, her paws stalling when her gaze caught on the body. The blood. The prey. "No." The word was cut through with pain and disbelief. "No!"

For one, brief, heartstopping moment, there were two. Two, alone in their grief and in their tears and the realization growing between them, the dark head of death rearing up and staring them in the eyes. Just the two of them, and the body on the floor.

Her face contorted and Leopardcry whipped around, tail lashing as she ran, trying to outpace the heaviness clouding the air, that thing that dared to steal their breaths, their thoughts, the world around them.

Lillyheart couldn't, wouldn't, move from her vigil, her silence just as real as the ground beneath her paws, the smear of blood, the coughed up petals. "Why?" She whispered, the scene too bitter, the taste on her tongue. "Why would you just leave us like this?"

The silence shifted, an intake of air, the smallest of gasps. The sound of disturbed earth as paws drew closer into the den, to the two broken forms.

"Lillyheart?"

She looked up to see him, his orange eyes wide as he stared back down, full of shock and hurt and so much confusion. Reedfoot took another step, then halted again, his ears pinning back in dismay. "I can't believe... I mean, I know Leopardcry had said but... I don't—"

Lillyheart drew her tail around herself as she sat up, shuddering slightly at the sight of Creekstar's blank eyes. "It looks like it was something she ate," she said slowly, gaze drawing over the half eaten mouse, the grey-ish blue flower petals strewn around it, just a few tainted with dark shades of blood.

A beat. The silence was stifling. "Do you think she could have done it herself?"

Reedfoot finally approached, his manner stiff and so unlike him, his easy walk and gentle manner. "It all just seems... so unreal." He hesitated, before his eyes grew cold. Unfeeling. "The way she has passed certainly does suggest such a way." He nudged the mouse, so small. "It does not seem as if the herb was hidden within the prey, as it would happen if..."

Reedfoot trailed off, and Lillyheart narrowed her eyes. "As if what, Reedfoot? What is the other alternative?"

He sighed, head dipping. "Someone might have done this to her, but it's so unlikely. Why would they leave evidence of how it happened? And who would even want to do this to Creekstar?"

Lillyheart closed her eyes, the thought too much. "But... she would never— I mean, she was getting better, wasn't she?"

More shuffling of paws. Owltail emerged, the bundle of herbs in his jaws giving the space a strange, musty tang. His wordless gaze said all that was needed.

Lillyheart rose, not looking at either of the medicine cats as she spoke. "I guess I'll be going, then. To tell the others and... and to let you work in peace." She bent briefly to bury her nose in her former mentors fur one last time, then left the den.

Those few warriors who had remained through the day had all hovered just outside, worried eyes and shocked faces, ears pinning and tails lashing and the ever present murmur of disbelief.