Flames At Night: Book 1: A Shattered Path

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Snowfox

Tiny paws poked Snowfox's cheek as she stirred awake. Kimmy and Quincy were both staring her in the face with worried blue eyes.

"Yes?" she asked, standing and stretching out her legs.

"Ray won't wake up," Kimmy mewed, sniffling. "Is he going to be okay?"

Snowfox stepped quickly over to the nest where the small tom was curled up tightly. Touching her nose to his head, she realized that he was burning with fever and hardly breathing. His wound had a sour smell of infection. "No!"

"What's happening?" wailed Quincy. "Ray!"

Snowfox hushed her. "He'll be alright. We just need to get herbs to treat the infection." But even as she spoke, she doubted her words. She had never learned healer skills, and neither had Fire Lily. They had simply been careful not to get hurt.

The white she-cat sighed. I wish there was another choice. "Come on, kits," she meowed, gently picking up Ray, who was as limp as a wet feather. "We're going to the Clans."

"This way," Asterheart hummed, leading Snowfox through a large clump of heather. The kits clustered at their heels, with Asterheart's apprentice Cherrypaw following behind. The FlightClan cats had been training when they came, and had agreed to bring Ray to camp.

They came into a small, enclosed area with several dens surrounded by a wall made of gorse bushes. A few cats were inside, and they stopped to stare at the newcomers. Snowfox tried not to make eye contact.

A dark brown tom stepped towards them, and the white she-cat instinctively dropped into a fighting stance before straightening up, slightly embarrassed. "What are they doing here?" he asked.

"Can't you see the kit is injured, Brackentail?" Asterheart replied. "Somebody fetch Silkfur."

Cherrypaw dashed off and returned with a pale gray tom. He smiled sympathetically at Snowfox and reached a paw towards Ray.

Snowfox hesitated, then gently laid the kit on the ground. Silkfur sniffed at the wound. "Bring him into my den. He needs oak leaf for the infection and borage for the fever."

"Is he going to be okay?" demanded Quincy, padding up to the medicine cat. Snowfox had always found it unnerving how the blind she-kit still looked in the direction of the cat she was talking to.

Silkfur purred and ruffled the fur on the top of her head with his tail. "Of course. Is he your brother?"

Quincy nodded. "Mine and Kimmy's." She crouched next to Ray and gently touched her nose to his. "We're all going to be warriors together when we grow up."

What? Snowfox carefully moved the she-kit away from her brother. "Quincy... After Ray's better we're going to leave."

"We are?" Quincy blinked up at her. "Why?"

The white she-cat sighed. "I thought I told you. Being a traveling cat is in my blood. Someday, we might come back to the Clans. But I'm never going to stay in one place for too long; my heart prefers to roam."

Kimmy came closer to stand next to her sister. "But we want to stay. We'll all be in the same Clan, and that way we can stay close together. The Twolegs were going to separate us so that we'd never see each other again." She pressed her side against Quincy's.

"I'd never make you go anywhere you don't want to," Snowfox assured her. "We're staying with FlightClan until Ray is better."

Next to her, Silkfur cleared his throat. Embarrassment flooded the white she-cat's pelt as she stepped forward and lifted Ray to carry him to the medicine den. Right. I need to stop saying things like that in front of everyone.

"In here," the pale gray tom meowed, leading Snowfox into a spacious den, made out of gorse and heather. She set the kit down in the nest. Ray stirred and coughed weakly.

Silkfur quickly mixed together a strong-smelling poultice and spread it on the wound. His leaf-green eyes caught Snowfox's. "How was he hurt?"

"A badger," she replied. "We wouldn't have run into it if we had left earlier. My friend insisted on staying." She glanced self-consciously at her paws. "She was my friend."

"Why did she want to stay, if she was a traveling cat like you?" asked Silkfur.
"Surely she gave you the reason," the she-cat snorted. "You must remember Fire Lily."

"Of course I do." Silkfur laughed quietly. "She was funny. The stories were funny, but she kept telling them in such a serious voice. It's no wonder lots of cats believed her." He was silent for a moment. "My sister Skypaw has been going to those meetings. I feel like she has more fun there than at home."

"I only really went because my kits wanted to," Snowfox meowed.

He glanced at the kits. Quincy and Kimmy had climbed into the nest by Ray and were sleeping peacefully together. "Are they your kits by birth?"

"No. I adopted them." She stared into his eyes. "But that doesn't make me any less their mother. And I will still give my life to protect them."