"Welcome to Mothermouth." Silverstar brushed her tail lightly over Poolpelt's shoulder before entering the tunnel. Almost at once, her light-grey tabby coat vanished in the shadows.
With one last glance at the star-filled sky, Poolpelt followed.

Darkness swallowed her, pressing so thick that she held her breath and waited for the blackness to swamp her like water.

Silverstar's paw steps brushed the floor as it began to slope down into the earth, and she padded after her with the blood roaring in her ears.

"Silverstar?" she gasped. Freezing air rushed into her lungs. The taste of water and stone and earth bathed her tongue. Where was she? Her scent was lost in the jumble of strange odors. Crushed by the darkness, panic surged through her pelt. She darted forward, squawking as she crashed into her and bowled her over.
"What in the name of StarClan are you doing?" Silverstar scrambled to her paws, untangling herself from Poolpelt.
Hot with embarrassment, she jumped up, wishing she could see...something. "I got scared." She felt her pelt press against hers.
"We're nearly there," she promised. "I'll walk beside you till it gets lighter."
"Gets lighter?" Poolpelt peered ahead in disbelief. How could it be light down there?
And yet, after a few more paw steps, her eyes detected a glow in the tunnel ahead.

As Silverstar pulled away, Poolpelt began to make out the tall, smooth sides of the tunnel, glistening with moisture. And then the tunnel opened into a cavern arching high above Silverstar, making the IceClan leader look very small.

Vast curved walls reached to a ceiling and there, at the top, a hole was open to the sky. The scents of heather and wind washed down, and moonlight flooded in and bathed the great stone standing in the center of the cave. The stone reached several tail-lengths high, sparkling like countless dewdrops and illuminating the cave like a captured star.

Poolpelt's black paws would not move. She stood and stared, horribly aware of the choking blackness that stood between her and freedom, longing to feel the wind in her fur and frightened by the thought that StarClan shared dreams in this place. Were her ancestors with them now, weaving invisibly around her? She pressed herself against a wall, instinctively backing away from the Moonstone.

"Make yourself comfortable," Silverstar told her with her freaky blood-shot eyes. "I must share dreams with StarClan now."
Poolpelt crouched down, fluffing out her fur to protect her belly from the stone floor. She wondered if snow ever filled this cavern, and she yearned for coldness and brightness to sweep away the eerie glow.

Silverstar approached the Moonstone with her tired, blood-shot eyes, and, crouching beside it, touched the sparkling crystal with her nose. Instantly her eyes closed and her body stiffened. Poolpelt tensed, waiting for sparks or flashes. But nothing moved or changed; the cave was silent but for the wind sighing down around the Moonstone. The journey had been long and she felt tiredness creep through her. Her eyes glazed and grew heavy, and she let them close so that darkness engulfed her.

Dreaming now, she gulped as a creature of nightmares snarled menacingly. Terror and panic surged beneath her pelt as a fierce slashed over her dappled back, blood splattering out.
Struggling against the torment, she yowled and charged forward and went over to bite their shoulder, but the creature simply slashed through her face, flinging her aside.
Poolpelt panted as blood started dripping down her eye.
As she opened her remaining eye, she could see the sun flashing so fast over the creature, and it was like the creature disappeared like smoke.
She woke gasping, her pelt bristling with fear.

Silverstar stood outlined against the shimmering crystal. She stared at her with her narrowed blood-shot eyes. "Nightmare?"
Panting, she nodded and got clumsily to her black paws, still drowsy with sleep and swamped by terror.
"Fresh air will clear your head." Silverstar led the way from the cavern.

Poolpelt followed, too shocked by her dream to speak, the memory of being slaughtered seared in her thoughts. She let her whiskers touch Silverstar's tail and followed her paw steps up the black, ice-smooth tunnel, until at last moonlight washed her black paws and she felt the wind brush her fur.

"We'll rest here till dawn." Silverstar was already curling into the smooth shelter of a boulder just beyond the mouth of the tunnel. It was chilly underpaw, but Poolpelt was glad to be out in the open. Silverpelt sparkled above them.

Whiteclaw and Raindapple.
The warm scents of her parents seemed to enfold her, comforting her.
She stopped shivering, but her mind still swirled.

Was she really going to get slaughtered, to be destroyed by teeth as Flowertail had told her?

The rising sun woke her. It felt as if she had hardly slept at all, but her dream had faded and she could no longer taste blood in her mouth. Poolpelt blinked open her eyes and gazed at the milky horizon, watching the pink sun lap the distant moorland.

Poolpelt couldn't wait to be home, back in the ravine among her Clanmates. She paced the rock, sniffing hopefully for prey, while Silverstar stretched and washed and finally set off down the slope.
They skirted the Twoleg nests, and when they reached EchoClan territory they skirted the edge of that, too. Poolpelt felt like a thief, skulking in the shadows beyond the scent markers.
Silverstar hardly spoke.

Poolpelt decided that if she were leader she would not be bullied by EchoClan patrols. The warrior code gave them permission to pass over the moors. No cat had the right to stop a leader from sharing with StarClan.
Then she remembered the hostility in Redstripe's eyes. Did she really want to face that after such a long journey? Her paws felt too heavy to fight and her mind was too sleepy to argue.
She wondered if DawnClan will do the same too.

"Will they hate us forever?" she wondered out loud.
Silverstar glanced at her with her blood-shot eyes and seemed to understood what she meant. "DawnClan?" She sighed, her breath whipped away by the breeze.
"They'll forgive us for the attack, then hate us for some other reason. Just as the other Clans will. The four Clans will be enemies until the end." She trudged forward, tail down.
Though she spoke, she hardly seemed to be talking to Poolpelt at all. "And yet we all want the same things: prey to hunt, a safe territory to raise our kits in, and peace to share dreams with our ancestors. Why must we hate one another over such simple desires?"

Poolpelt stared at the silver haunches of her Clan leader.
Was this really how she saw Clan life? There was more to it than hatred and rivalry! The warrior code told them to protect their Clanmates and fight for what was theirs. Did that mean nothing more than hating every cat beyond their borders?

She remembered the DawnClan battle and the battles over Icerocks.
Maybe that was all it meant. She would hate DawnClan forever.
She would hate any Clan that harmed those she loved, and from what she had seen, the other Clans meant nothing but harm.

They reached the ravine at last and stumbled down on tired paws. Afternoon sun spilled into the snowy camp, lighting the clearing so that Poolpelt could see it flashing through the icy treetops. The familiar scent of home warmed her paws.

"Go rest in your den," Silverstar ordered as they padded through the tunnel. Her tone was brisk; she sounded once more like a IceClan's leader, and the weariness she had heard on the moors seemed to have lifted.

Relieved to be back where things felt normal, Poolpelt felt her belly rumble.
They hadn't stopped to hunt, and she was starving. But exhaustion reached down into her bones. Sleep first, then food.

She scuffed the ground as she stumbled towards the warriors's den and pushed her way in. Someone had added extra-moss to her nest. Gratefully, she sank down into it and closed her eyes.

"You're back!"
A mouse thudded in front of her nose.
Feathershine was circling her nest. "What was it like? Was it big? Did Silverstar dream? Did you dream? What happened?"

Poolpelt lifted her head and blinked at her sister. "It was big and shiny, and Silverstar dreamed."
"What about?"
"She didn't say."

"Is it really far? Did you see any Twolegs? How big are Highstones? Bluefeather says they're the biggest things in the world."
"They're higher than the moorland. And we avoided the Twolegs. And we walked all day."

Poolpelt sniffed the mouse. Her mouth watered at the smell, but she was too tired to chew. "Thanks for cleaning my nest," she murmured, eyes half closed.
"That wasn't me." Feathershine sounded surprised. "That was Braveheart. He'd said you'd be tired when you got back."

Poolpelt closed her eyes, too tired to comment, and felt Feathershine's warm muzzle press her head.
"Sleep well, sister."

Poolpelt heard stone crape as Feathershine left her to sleep and drifted away into a swirl of stars and voices that whispered just beyond her hearing.

And all around her, agony of blood tugged at her pelt and chilled her to the bone.