Chapter 18
I narrowed my eyes, flexing my claws in and out, as I stared between the bone walls of my cage out into ShoreClan camp.
The warriors had all congregated together near the base of several dark black rocks. Dewstar, naturally, sat at the top of the heap of stones. Narrowing my eyes further, I could see the Shimmernight at the base of her cream tabby paws, emanating a sinister dark hue, brighter than I had ever seen it before.
"I still can't believe she let me off alive that day."
I turned to see Littlepaw padding up to me. The pale dawn light which shone sparsely through the bones above us highlighted her wide amber eyes, and quivering whiskers. She sat down next to me with a resigned sigh.
"What are you talking about?" I asked, turning back to Dewstar.
Now the warriors were bowing to her. Most prominently, I noted Honeypaw, now an apprentice, bowing so low it looked as though her muzzle was buried in the sand. Beside her, Bushpaw sat uneasily, fiddling with a sprig of some sort of herb.
"I'm talking about the night we returned home," Littlepaw began. "When Dewocean had me at claws' length, up on rocks like those. I still don't understand why she didn't kill me..."
"If we can call this cage a home," I muttered darkly, "then I truly am a whale."
"Ferretpaw," Littlepaw's tone was gentle but bracing as she continued. "We all established that Dewocean has some sort of power where she exploits the weaknesses of cats to make them rely on her." She paused. "Don't these cats bring you some but of happiness?"
I shrugged helplessly.
"Puddle and Bubble liked the concept of ShoreClan when I told them how it was before," Littlepaw continued gently. "I mean, if we defeat Dewocean...We'd have a new leader and deputy..."
"She's 'Dewstar' now, though," I grunted at length.
Perhaps I would have still had the confidence to call Dewstar by her former name, if not for all the time I'd been spending with her as of late. We had a sort of ritual at this point; Dewstar did her clan summons, then she would take me and sometimes Ripplepaw or Shadefang (as they were also disgraced kin of Night), trying to goad us into fury, which seemed to be the sole way the stone revived from whatever shadowy place it had originally existed.
"Have you figured anything out about Dewoc-star and how to eliminate her," Littlepaw asked cautiously.
"Well," I said with a sigh. "The Shimmerocean basically makes her able to control water, the Shimmermoor gives her extreme speed and agility, the Shimmersalt gives her telekenetic and earth power, and the Shimmernight..."
"So she's basically ridiculously overpowered."
I glanced up to see Bubble watching me keenly, paws pressed up against the bone bars of his own cage. I noted that Puddle was still sleeping. There was a limp sparrow beside him, but I knew from watching the two toms that Bubble and Puddle only ate together, as though they found solstice in that.
"Yep," I grunted. Then I let out a long sigh. "I'm sorry for dragging you into this. You really only came to help Washer, right, and now you're stuck with us-"
"It's Whisper," Bubble eyed me keenly. "And honestly, she's either fine or...er..." he paused. "And there are far worse cats to be stuck with."
I nodded somewhat reluctantly. I could see, though, the way that Bubble's whiskers drooped as he turned to look at Puddle. My head spun with the half-baked ideas of how to defeat Dewocean that had been swarming in my head for the past quarter moon.
Each time, the voice in the back of my mind would say it's impossible, or, too risky, but in spite of the thousands of errors, I kept trying to think of a plan, for my friends' sake.
"It doesn't all rest on your shoulders, you know," Littlepaw meowed gently
I nearly jumped out of my pelt, surprised at how easily my friend could pick up on my emotions. Then, I gave my head a tiny shake, not sure if I was saying no to Littlepaw...or the voices in my head.
"Littlepaw's right," Ripplepaw glanced up at me from where she lay in a heap of sun-bleached white fur. "StarClan, Ferretpaw, we're all here for you. A plan doesn't have to be something where we come off as heroes either, this isn't a story." she eyed me sharply. "Sometimes things are complicated, and just so long as we survive-"
"Yes I know we're not in some story," I responded flatly.
"I'm glad you do," Littlepaw said calmly.
After that, the three of us, as well as Bubble settled into a sort of uneasy silence. I could tell we were all desperately racking our minds to think of some solution where all of us escaped...alive. For just a heartbeat, I understood why Bubbleburst had defected to his mother's side; it was perhaps the only way to stay alive.
"WHAT IN THE FOXDUNG-"
I nearly jumped out of my pelt as I heard a ferocious screeching yowl. Littlepaw, in fact, did jump, so high that her head crashed with a thud and proceeding rattle against the top of our cage. She fell back, and Ripplepaw closed in on her, murmuring reassuringly, though her blue eyes were wide with fear.
I swiveled my ears, trying to figure out where the yowl had come from. Not a second later, I noticed Shadefang, struggling against Bubbleburst and Strikeclaw as they tried to bring him to the ground. Strikeclaw had something odd and shiny in her paw.
"Hello, darling."
I whipped around to see Dewstar barely a whisker length from my face. She ran something white and sparkling against the walls of my enclosure, making the bones rattle ominously. I snarled at her, which earned a smile from Dewstar, but internally I was checking my options, seeing if there was anyway I could pin her, allowing Ripplepaw and Littlepaw to flee, even if...
"D-do y-you wan-want me t-to open th-the walls?"
I blinked, finally noticing Bushpaw cowering beside Dewstar for the first time. His dark ginger fur was plastered to the sides of his frame, and he was nearly as tall as the clan leader, though he hadn't filled out yet. Dewstwr shot him a disgusted look, which only furthered his trembling.
"Bushpaw here," Dewstar turned back to me, and her smile broadened. "He has Aquastar's power." She flicked her tail at the moon, still in the sky in spite of the sun also being there. It had clearly been full recently. "I wish his littermate got it," she grunted. "Now Honeypaw...that's a cat I like."
They're also a cat you created with your cursed powers and webs of lies, I thought darkly.
"Oh joy!" Dewstar exclaimed suddenly. "You like Honeypaw too, I see."
Again, I saw her wave the thing in her paw right at my face. I narrowed my eyes, suddenly realising it was a spiky necklace of sorts, with a dark black rock in the centre, which indeed was darker and more solid than ever. The Shimmernight.
Deep breaths, Ferretpaw. Deep breaths.
Too be brutally honest, Shadefang's screaming wasn't exactly helping the calm atmosphere I was trying to create. Nor was the fear scent which radiated off of Littlepaw and Ripplepaw in waves. And it certainly didn't help that Dewstar was a whisker from my face.
"You like the necklace I made for you, Ferret, dear?" Dewstar purred. "You see, I'm gathering all my favourite pets together and we're going to finally put these stones to action, and then we'll take down GladeClan, just for a teensy-weensey celebration."
Ripplepaw let out a little squeak, and I could tell she was thinking about Mistnose and his mate.
I stared at the sharp bones, then glanced to my side to where Shadefang was being corralled out of his den. His amber eyes blazed as he reared. Bubbleburst sent a sharp blow to his jaw, and Shadefang staggered to the ground. I could see blood from where the bones had jabbed into his pelt, and the faint greenish blue hue of the Shimmermoor, the relic he and Bubbleburst had collected.
"You like my necklace?" Dewstar grinned, and my gaze traveled back to my own necklace. "Naturally, I picked the Shimmernight for you to wear, because, well I mean, it quite likes you. And," she added with a grin. "I made it out of ferret bones."
I tried not to recoil. I tried not to shriek and back away. I understood that ferrets were sometimes our prey, but on those rare occasions, we ate the intelligent creatures to survive, not to...
"I knew you'd love it," Dewstar pressed it up close. She sneered. "You want to know a little secret, Ferretpaw?"
No, I thought angrily. No I don't care about your lies. My legs were quivering, my claws flexing in and out, my anger seething through my body.
"You think that you got the name Ferretpaw because you're special or something," Dewstar's eyes glittered with dark joy. "But you didn't. I chose it for you, the night your mother ripped those nasty lines across your face. You attacked me that night, you know?" Her laugh was dry, and her eyes smouldered.
"You're despicable," I hissed under my breath, legs trembling
"I'm not, but you certainly are," Dewstar sneered. "I named you, and I moulded you. In return, you are to be my pet, in this new world, Ferretpaw."
How Dewocean always seemed to make things worse and worse for me, I had absolutely no idea. In fact, the only thing that kept me sane as I walked in her wake up a steep rise, was the thought of my friends back in camp. Littlepaw, Ripplepaw, Bubble, and Puddle needed to be saved, and I had a feeling that it had to be soon, before Dewocean gained anymore power.
"Don't do anything brash," Shadefang grunted to me under his breath. "Just do what she says...I'll find a way to set you free if I can."
I gave him a look at we trudged up the hill, and I narrowly avoided colliding with Dewstar's littermate, Goldspike. The she-cat had the Shimmersalt around her neck, and was glaring intensely at Dewstar, who was wearing the Shimmersea. Both she-cats had a more floral necklace instead of the one of bones that Shadefang and I had.
"It's not me that needs freeing," I said worriedly. "It's the other guys."
Shadefang looked surprised but understanding. "It's you Dewstar wants." he said softly. "Perhaps it would be safer if you just...disappeared..."
I felt my head shaking instinctively. No. I have to be the one to take Dewstar down. I have to fix this. Shadefang looked as though he wanted to say more, as though perhaps he had ideas for an escape, but in the same moment, Honeypaw gave him a push from behind, and he had to keep moving.
For a while, all of us just kept moving. There was one point where I picked up a scent on the wind, one that smelled faintly of how Puddle and Bubble had smelled when they first came to the clan. In the direction of the scent, I saw a flash of reddish eyes, but then I shook my head, and the cat was gone.
"Almost there now, darlings," Dewstar chimed.
"I'm not your darling," Goldhaze growled flatly. "If you call me that again, I swear I'll..."
We padded up a ridge which led to an outcropping of land. Looking off into the distance, I could see an expanse of water, seeming to go on endlessly. I could hear the sound of waves crashing against rocks below. Wind buffeted my face, making my eyes water, so I had to look away.
To my left, I could see an expanse of moorland, rolling hills which went on endlessly. On my other side, there was territory which resembled the sparse, heated land of CaveClan, and facing me, far off in the distance, there wer the beginnings of mountains.
"They say there are winged cats up there," Bubbleburst echoed, gesturing with one black and white paw into the horizon.
"Mousebrain," Dewstar growled to her son, cuffing him over the ears. "Be a good kit and do as you're told, not dream up things that don't exist."
I had never truly appreciated how vast and diverse the world was until that moment, on top of the hill. There was so much more that I had never seen, millions of secrets that I would never even graze the surface of. Could Dewstar truly destroy all of it? One thing I knew; she was certainly going to try, even if it meant destroying the world.
"Why did you bring us here?" I asked coldly, turning my gaze towards Dewstar.
"Because," Dewstar smiled with all her teeth. "This is where everything meets. Don't you see?" she gestured at the world around her.
"The shadows don't meet here," I responded.
"You are sufficient," Dewstar sneered. "You yourself are beast enough for this ceremony."
No you, I thought. I glanced around at the cats who had come to witness whatever Dewstar had planned; Honeypaw, Bubbleburst, Strikeclaw, Shadefang, Goldspike and myself. Looking into all of their gazes, a plan began to form in the back of my mind.
"And what do you expect to do if you finally gain all the power of these relics?" I said, glaring down at the Shimmernight. "Take over the clans? Destroy all of us?"
Strikeclaw was kneading the ground uneasily, while Bubbleburst stared at his mother uncertainly. Mother and son, Goldspike and Shadefang, both glared at Dewstar with undisguised hostility. Perhaps the only cat without an ounce of doubt was Honeypaw, who looked eagerly up at Dewstar as though the she-cat was telling a particularly interesting tale.
"I think," Dewstar said calmly. "First, we will perform the ceremony. Then, we shall discuss further matters."
I narrowed my eyes at the cream she-cat as she padded towards me. It was only when we stood nose to nose that she stopped. A heartbeat later, she beckoned for Goldspike and Shadefang to come closer. Shadefang did reluctantly, but Goldspike reared around, only to come face to face with the other cats, and, with an irritated huff, padded towards Dewstar.
"You better know I'm doing you a favour, Dewy," Goldspike said darkly, glaring down at Honeypaw. "I'd shred you for this if you weren't my littermate. Honestly! Waking me up and shoving some floral necklace on me."
"It's charming, don't you think?" Dewstar said calmly. She clasped her paws together, and narrowed her eyes on me. "The Shimmernight!" She exclaimed. "Yes, it's ready!" Her amber eyes stared at me hungrily. "We all need to touch noses," she announced. "As the four clan founders did, but you must give all your power to me."
I stared into Shadefang's amber eyes. The jet black tom gave me a small head shake. He must think this won't work; Dewstar's a mousebrain, after all. But I shivered as Goldspike touched noses with Dewstar, and a sudden hazy white and blue glow began to emmenate and mingle on the pelts of both cats.
Shadefang touched noses next, and a greenish orange hue swirled to join the blue one, turning Dewstar's pelt a rusty brown. The cream she-cat, now glowing so brightly I wanted to shield my eyes, turned her glare onto me. Do it, her voice whispered in my mind.
I hesitated, and in that moment's hesitation, I heard Honeypaw's claws unsheathing. Before she-cat had the pleasure of forcing me to touch Dewstar's nose, I did it on my own accord.
Instantly, sharp pain permeated my body. I gasped, trying to break contact, but Dewstar's smouldering gaze kept my paws firmly rooted. For several agonisingly long heartbeats, the four of us stood, trembling.
Then, Dewstar crumpled to the ground. The next moment, there was a screech from Honeypaw, and I was being bowled over. I collapsed, shivering. I expected to feel the cold weight of the Shimmernight pressed up against my pelt, but it was no longer there.
"Ferretpaw," I whirled around, stumbling to my paws just as I heard a raspy voice from behind me. It was Shadefang.
"The power...the stones..." Shadefang's eyes were wild and as they focussed on me, I could see how frenzied he was. "Ferretpaw, she absorbed them all."
I recoiled as Dewstar yelped and twisted, another spasm of pain rippling through her body. Behind me, I saw Bubbleburst and Strikeclaw closing in on us, but the majority of their attention seemed to be focussed on their writhing leader.
"I don't know what's happening, but I don't like it," Shadefang's eyes were wide. "Whatever happens when she wakes up...it's not going to be good."
I understood what he meant immediately.
We only would have enough time to maybe free Ripplepaw and Littlepaw before time ran out and Dewstar emerged, more powerful than ever. Even then...StarClan, I can't do this alone.
Shadefang met my gaze, and nodded. "Run."
He lunged at Bubbleburst and Strikeclaw, giving me enough time to dive out of the way of their flailing claws and streak towards camp, heart pounding faster than ever before.