Warriors: The Path of Fire

Chapter Three

A rustle at the WindClan camp entrance made every cat's head turn. Turtlepaw, who sat before her Clan leader Breezestar and was waiting to hear the announcement of her new mentor, twisted to see who could possibly be disrupting her apprentice ceremony. A head appeared, dark stripes streaking through the cat's golden fur.

"Goldenmist?" Some cat in the crowd had meowed the name but Turtlepaw couldn't see who had spoken. She knew that Goldenmist was the Mediator, a cat who traveled between the five Clans and helped resolve disputes.

A few moons ago, when the beautiful golden tabby had stayed with WindClan, she had diffused a long-standing argument with RiverClan over border changes due to the ever-growing Twoleg invasion. Turtlepaw admired Goldenmist's calm yet friendly disposition as she handled business between Clans, never taking sides and always quick to offer reasonable advice.

She was always StarClan's choice of Mediator, the voice purred in her head.

Turtlepaw agreed with her conscious thought. For as long as she could remember, the voice had offered advice and opinions, its soft mew swimming in her mind. There were times her mother Brackenleap and some of the other warriors stared at her when she repeated these thoughts out loud, as though she had grown a second head.

The apprentice was snapped away from her thoughts as her leader spoke. To her disbelief, Breezestar was unfazed by the newcomer's presence and dipped his head to the she-cat. "Welcome to WindClan, Goldenmist," he meowed politely. "I am happy that you received Sedgefur's message."

"Thank you, Breezestar," Goldenmist replied, ducking her head in return. "I was surprised to hear the news, for I am still a young cat. But I am pleased to be assigned to an apprentice sooner rather than later!" She let out a rumbling purr.

Apprentice? Turtlepaw frowned. Am I, or one of my littermates, supposed to be apprenticed to her? She glanced at her brother and sister, though Sunpaw and Tawnypaw looked just as baffled as she felt.

It seems that way, the voice agreed.

"One of these young cats is to be your new apprentice," Breezestar was mewing, sweeping his long, striped tail in a gesture toward the three new apprentices.

Goldenmist padded forward, gazing at each of the apprentices thoughtfully. "Yes... this is a good lot," she murmured softly. "I must give them the Test first before I make my decision."

Turtlepaw's stomach flipped wildly. There's a test to become a Mediator's apprentice?

Surely you knew that.

She frowned at that comment. I was just a kit a few heartbeats ago, Turtlepaw snapped back at the sarcastic meow. I don't know everything!

Sunpaw was kneading the ground anxiously with his forepaws. "I always thought I'd be a warrior someday," he whispered to his sisters, just low enough to not be heard by the older cats.

"Me too," she muttered back to him, while Tawnypaw nodded. The three cats sat up straighter as Goldenmist looked at them again.

"Follow me." The golden tabby flicked her ears toward the camp entrance and began padding away. Giving one last despairing glance toward her littermates, Turtlepaw got to her paws and followed Goldenmist out of camp.

She would normally have felt excited at the prospect of leaving camp and exploring WindClan's territory, which stretched across the rolling moorland. Six whole moons in the nursery were agonizing as she and her littermates daydreamed of patrolling their territory with the rest of their Clanmates.

Now, the small she-cat trembled. What if I'm chosen? she wondered. I'll have to leave WindClan to travel with Goldenmist, only staying with every Clan for a few nights each moon. I wouldn't get to train with Sunpaw and Tawnypaw...