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Turning back to Bluestar, he saw that her eyes were closing and her breath was coming fast and shallow.
“What can we do?” he asked Mistyfoot anxiously. “This is her last life, and she’ll never make it back to the ThunderClan camp. Will one of you go and fetch your medicine cat?”
“It’s too late for that, Fireheart.” It was Stonefur who replied, his voice low and gentle. “She is on her way to StarClan.”
“No!” Fireheart protested. He crouched beside Bluestar and pressed his muzzle against hers. “Bluestar—Bluestar, wake up! We’ll get help for you—hold on just a bit longer.”
Bluestar’s eyes flickered open again, looking not at Fireheart, but at something just past his shoulder. Her gaze was clear and filled with peace. “Oakheart,” she murmured. “Have you come for me? I’m ready.”
“No!” Fireheart protested again. All his recent difficulties with Bluestar faded away. He remembered only the noble leader she had been, wise and inspiring, and how she had mentored him when he came into the Clan as a kittypet. And in the end StarClan had been kind to her. She had come out of the shadows to die as nobly as she had lived, saving her Clan by sacrificing herself.
“Bluestar, don’t leave us,” he begged.
“I must,” his leader whispered. “I have fought my last battle.” She was panting in her efforts to speak. “When I saw the Clan at Sunningrocks, the strong helping the weak…and I knew you and the others had gone to confront the pack…I knew my Clan was loyal. I knew StarClan had not turned their backs on us. I knew…” Her voice failed and she struggled to continue. “I knew that I could not leave you to face the danger alone.”
“Bluestar…” Fireheart’s voice shook with the pain of parting, and yet his heart leaped to hear that his leader knew he was not a traitor.
Bluestar fixed her blue gaze on him. Fireheart thought he could already see the shimmer of StarClan in her eyes. “Fire will save the Clan,” she murmured, and Fireheart remembered the mysterious prophecy that he had heard from his earliest days in ThunderClan. “You never understood, did you?” Bluestar went on. “Not even when I gave you your apprentice name, Firepaw. And I doubted it myself, when fire raged through our camp. Yet I see the truth now. Fireheart, you are the fire who will save ThunderClan.”
Fireheart could do nothing but stare at his beloved leader. He felt as if his whole body had turned to stone. Above his head, wind tore the clouds into shreds, letting a ray of sunshine strike down and touch his pelt to flame, just as it had in the clearing when he first arrived in the Clan, so many moons ago.
“You will be a great leader.” Bluestar’s voice was the merest whisper. “One of the greatest the forest has ever known. You will have the warmth of fire to protect your Clan and the fierceness of fire to defend it. You will be Firestar, the light of ThunderClan.”
“No,” Fireheart protested. “I can’t. Not without you, Bluestar.”
But it was too late. Bluestar sighed softly, and the light died from her eyes. Mistyfoot let out a low wailing sound and pressed her nose to her mother’s fur. Stonefur crouched close to her, his head bowed.
“Bluestar!” Fireheart meowed desperately, but there was no response. The leader of ThunderClan had given up her last life, and gone to hunt with StarClan forever.
Fireheart rose stiffly to his paws. He had to dig his claws into the earth as his head spun, and for a moment he feared that he might fall into the sky. His fur prickled, and he felt as if his thudding heart would burst through his chest.
“Fireheart,” Graystripe murmured. “Oh, Fireheart.”
The gray warrior had left Tigerstar and walked silently over to watch his leader die. Now Fireheart saw that his friend’s amber gaze was fixed on him with something like awe, and as their eyes met, Graystripe dipped his head in deepest respect. Fireheart stiffened in horror, longing to protest; he wanted the comfort of their old, easy friendship, not this formal acknowledgment from a warrior to his Clan leader.
Beyond Graystripe, he saw Tigerstar staring at the cats huddled on the shore, amazement and fury in his eyes. Before Fireheart could say anything, the ShadowClan leader spun around and raced across the Twoleg bridge, back toward his own territory.
Fireheart let him go. He had to deal with his own terrified, hunted Clan before he tried to settle old scores. But what Tigerstar had done that day would never be forgotten, not by any cat in ThunderClan. “We’ll need to fetch some of the others,” he mewed hoarsely to Graystripe. “We must get Bluestar’s body back to camp.”
Graystripe dipped his head again. “Yes, Fireheart.”
“We’ll help,” Stonefur offered, standing up and facing the ThunderClan cats.
“We would be honored,” added Mistyfoot, her eyes clouded with sorrow. “I would like to see our mother laid to rest in her Clan.”
“Thank you, both of you,” meowed Fireheart. He took a deep breath, drew himself up, and shook his drying fur. He felt as if the weight of the whole Clan had descended on his shoulders, and yet, in a heartbeat, it began to seem possible that he could bear it.
He was the leader of ThunderClan now. With the death of the lead dog, the threat of the pack had gone from the forest, and his Clan was waiting for him, safe, at Sunningrocks. Sandstorm would be waiting for him too.
“Come on,” he meowed to Graystripe. “Let’s go home.”
