Mistystar’s Omen

TALLPOPPY—long-legged light brown tabby she-cat

SNAKETAIL—dark brown tom with tabby-striped tail

WHITEWATER—white she-cat with long fur, blind in one eye

WINDCLAN

LEADER

ONESTAR—brown tabby tom

DEPUTY

ASHFOOT—gray she-cat

MEDICINE CAT

KESTRELFLIGHT—

mottled gray tom

WARRIORS

CROWFEATHER—dark gray tom

OWLWHISKER—light brown tabby tom

APPRENTICE, WHISKERPAW (light brown tom)

WHITETAIL—small white she-cat

NIGHTCLOUD—black she-cat

GORSETAIL—very pale gray-and-white she-cat with blue eyes

WEASELFUR—ginger tom with white paws

HARESPRING—brown-and-white tom

LEAFTAIL—

dark tabby tom with amber eyes

ANTPELT—brown tom with one black ear

EMBERFOOT—gray tom with two dark paws

HEATHERTAIL—light brown tabby she-cat with blue eyes

APPRENTICE, FURZEPAW (gray-and-white she-cat)

BREEZEPELT—black tom with amber eyes

APPRENTICE, BOULDERPAW (large pale gray tom)

SEDGEWHISKER—light brown tabby she-cat

SWALLOWTAIL—dark gray she-cat

SUNSTRIKE—tortoiseshell she-cat with large white mark on her forehead

ELDERS

WEBFOOT—dark gray tabby tom

TORNEAR—tabby tom

CATS OUTSIDE CLANS

SMOKY—muscular gray-and-white tom who lives in a barn at the horseplace

FLOSS—small gray-and-white she-cat who lives at the horseplace

OTHER ANIMALS

MIDNIGHT—a star-gazing badger who lives by the sea

Maps

Chapter 1

Mistyfoot stood at the edge of the rock and watched the water swirl below her paws. It was brown and thick with debris—twigs, scraps of leaf, even a knot of roots that had once held up a tree—and however hard Mistyfoot stared, she was unable to glimpse the stones on the bottom of the lake, or the distinctive flash of silver that gave away the position of a fish. She stretched down to lap at the surface with her tongue. The water tasted bitter and muddy.

“It’s not the same, is it?” Leopardstar commented beside her. Mistyfoot raised her head and looked at her leader. Leopardstar’s golden fur looked dull and dusty in the gray dawn light, and the dark spots that had inspired her name seemed to have faded in the last moon. “I thought when the water returned that everything would be as it was before,” Leopardstar went on. She dipped her paw in the lake, staggering a little as she straightened up again, and watched the drips fall from the tips of her claws onto the stone.

“The fish will come back soon,” Mistyfoot meowed. “Now that the streams are flowing, there’s no reason for them to stay away.”

Leopardstar gazed at the ruffled water. “So many fish died in the drought,” she sighed, as if Mistyfoot hadn’t spoken. “What if the lake stays empty forever? What will we eat?”

Mistyfoot moved closer to her leader until her shoulder brushed Leopardstar’s fur. She was shocked to feel the she-cat’s bones sharp just beneath the skin. “Everything will be fine,” she murmured. “The beavers’ dam has been destroyed, the rain has come, and the long thirst is over. It’s been a hard greenleaf, but we have survived.”

“Blackclaw, Voletooth, and Dawnflower didn’t,” Leopardstar snapped. “Three elders lost in a single season? I had to watch my Clanmates starve to death because there were no fish to catch, nothing left in the lake but mud. And what about Rippletail? He was as brave as any of the other cats who went to find where the water had gone—why didn’t he deserve to come back? Did he go too far beyond the sight of StarClan?”

Mistyfoot let her tail curl forward to rest on Leopardstar’s back. “Rippletail died saving the lake, and all the Clans. He will be honored forever.”

Leopardstar turned away and began to pad up the shore. “He paid too high a price,” she growled. “If the fish haven’t returned with the water, we’re no better off than we were during the drought.” She stumbled, and Mistyfoot jumped forward, ready to support her. But Leopardstar shrugged her off with a hiss and continued over the stones, limping.

Mistyfoot followed at a respectful distance, not wanting to fuss over the proud golden cat. She knew Leopardstar was in pain most of the time now, worn down by a sickness that had resisted all of Mothwing’s medicine skills, although it wasn’t unknown: the ravaging thirst, the dramatic weight loss in spite of constant hunger, the growing weakness that dulled a cat’s eyes and hearing. Mistyfoot felt her gaze soften as she watched Leopardstar reach the end of the pebbles and push her way into the ferns that ringed the RiverClan camp.

Suddenly there was a muffled cry from the depths of the undergrowth.