Duskelle padded slowly in a circle around Hawkripple. Her mentor's bright amber eyes were focused on hers, flicking down to her paws at any semblance of movement other than her continual circling.

Until suddenly — she swiped forwards at his muzzle. He leaned back instinctively, but before she could claw at his chest after the feint, he reached forwards and hooked his paw around her front leg, throwing her off balance.

She shook him off and pushed herself off of her hind legs, throwing her forelegs up high and bringing them onto his shoulders, shoving him down. His muscles twisted underneath her, and he blasted upwards, throwing her off of him with pure strength. She landed on the ground, the air thrown out of her.

She had begun battle training in her feline form with Hawkripple. Fighting brought a sense of exhilaration to her entire body, racing through her veins and exciting her muscles.

Duskelle gasped for air, panting. Hawkripple threw himself down besides her and began to groom himself, ducking his head down to lick at his chest fur. "You're improving," he said in between strokes. "You have ingenuity — I like that — and agility, but you need to improve your speed. You've also got to work on getting stronger. Brute strength is necessary to an extent."

She nodded, and pushed herself up to her paws, staring up at the stars that always seemed to twinkle in StarClan. "Hawkripple?" she asked.

"Hm?"

"Is it always night in StarClan?"

He stopped his grooming, and followed her gaze to the stars. "We are the stars, and this is our land of stars. We live in the sky, Duskpaw, too high even for the rays of the sun to reach..."

She cast a sidelong glance at him. "So it's always nighttime? You haven't seen morning since you...died?"

He stepped past her question carefully. "The sky of StarClan is beautiful. The inky dark night, the clarity of the stars' shine, the strong glow of the moon." 

He fell silent. Duskelle stared at him, thinking about how the tom had been been torn away from day and his family at such a young age to live forever amongst the stars.

"But I do miss the sun sometimes," Hawkripple murmured, offering her a warm smile. "But that's enough talk. Let's con-"

Suddenly, he stopped as if struck and an expression of wild confusion filled his face.

"Hawkripple?" Duskelle asked with concern in her voice.

"He's here," he told her, elation in his eyes. "He's here, he's come!" Hawkripple turned abruptly and ran.

Duskelle scrambled to race after him. Where was he going? Who was here? "Hawkripple! Where are you going?"

But she was ignored, and the large tabby tom ran on, jumping over protruding roots and trickling streams. They were going too fast for her to tell if a stream was part of the Astris or not - she had to make sure that she made the jump carefully, that not a drop of the water landed on her fur.

Suddenly, the world around her began to flicker right as she bunched up her hind legs to leap over a wider creek. A patch of blackness opened up in front of her, and she gasped as she passed through it, cold nothingness cutting through her. She stumbled onto the ground, panting, clawing for the air that the emptiness had dragged out of her lungs.

But she couldn't stop — Hawkripple was disappearing into the distance. She picked herself up and began the chase once more. Holes opened up again and again, and she dived and veered to avoid them. More and more of the world around her disappeared, and suddenly she realized that stars were sparkling in the short expanses of darkness. She skidded to a stop as she approached a large jump, and turned to see that beyond a few paw-steps, the forest behind her was gone, filled with nothing but the night sky. Terror began to beat in her heart.

Duskelle turned back, prepared herself, and launched her body over the hole, scrambling for purchase as she landed. Suddenly the trees all around her were gone and there were only patches of grassy earth here and there. She jumped from one to the other as fast as she could, each one crumbling away into nothingness as her hind paws pushed off.

She realized abruptly that something large, something solid, was approaching — an island. There was a large island, as big as the RiverClan camp, ahead of her. Soft light pulsed at its edges, repelling the darkness that wrapped all around, and the sight of it quickened her heart — she knew, somehow, without a doubt, that she would be safe if only she could manage to reach the island.

Duskelle was catching up to Hawkripple. He didn't even look back at her as he crouched, gathering his strength and made a leap that should not have been possible, floating through the air all the way from his perch to the island. She watched, open-mouthed as his front legs landed on the rocky sides of the island and he pulled himself up. He turned back to look at her, his bright amber eyes sharp, and then he disappeared into the trees.

Was this some sort of test? Was he playing with her?

The thought brought fury to Duskelle and power to her paws. She began again, jumping from patch to patch in short bursts until finally, she too was pulling herself up onto the island.

She lay for a second, gasping for breath, but quickly pulled herself up and made her way into the woods, her paw pads thumping against the mossy ground. She darted in between trunks until abruptly, the ground fell away under her paws and she tumbled into a clearing.

Duskelle raised herself up, eyes darting about as she took in her surroundings. It was a camp, in a clearing made of sandy rock.

To her left, caves protruded from the rock, and cats were pouring out of them in droves, jostling and pushing in a hurry for some known reason. And to her right — she turned and gasped.

The clearing did not extend into trees — instead, it gave way to a collection of stars and clouds, all in the night sky. The crowd stopped a few tail-lengths from the very end of the island, which was upraised just as the leader's boulder in the RiverClan camp was.

Suddenly, the noise receded, and an unknown number of eyes focused on the end of the island, watching with bated breath.

Duskelle turned her attention from the cats as a whole — she realized abruptly that stars beat through their pelts, twinkling on the ends of their fur — and searched for Hawkripple. She found him at the head of the waiting group of cats. It occurred to her that his fur was twinkling too.

What were these cats waiting for? Him. The cat that Hawkripple had mentioned before rushing off — why did he matter so much? Where could he be coming from?

She suddenly saw that a light glow was emanating from the clouds in the distance. As she squinted and looked closer, she realized that the light was moving — seemingly jumping from place to place. It came closer and closer until suddenly, it passed into view from behind a last cloud.

A tom touched down on the stone in front of the waiting cats. Stars didn't tinge his fur like they did the StarClanners—who else could this group of cats be?—but there seemed to be something far more powerful inside him, a strong glow coming from his heart that rippled lightly over his body every time his heart pumped. His fur was a pale tan that darkened into brown as it extended down his muzzle and legs, his ears tipped with black. He had round blue eyes with the largest pupils Duskelle had ever seen.

"Lutes," came some cat's slow and relieved voice, and all of them took up the cry.

"Lutes!"

"We're saved!"

"He's here!"

Lutes—Lutes was the tom that Graysplash and Icebreeze had been talking about in the nursery. He was the one that taught Jay human words—he had to be his father.

"Silence!" came a bellow, and the commotion calmed down. A black and white bicolored tom detached himself from the starry mass and came forwards. He touched noses with the mysterious glowing tom.

"Lutes!" he exclaimed. "We've been waiting for you."

Lutes nodded slowly, his pale gaze sweeping the camp. "What's happened, Badgerstep? You all seem agitated?"

"Agitated? Far more than that!" someone shouted from back in the crowd.

Badgerstep glared in the general direction of the voice disapprovingly before turning back. "Lutes, RiverClan has taken in a Twoleg on the orders of the Ancient Ones."

Duskelle jolted. They were talking about her.

Lutes' face screwed up in confusion. "A Twoleg? Why would they wish such a thing?"

"Her spirit. It's powerful. They want it for sustainment."

His expression became thoughtful. "But to take a spirit from a living being, one that is not a warrior? How—?"

"They want to turn her by removing the spirit from her flesh and assimilate her at the moment it happens," came Badgerstep's uneasy response. They're doing something—we're not sure exactly what—but they're doing something to convince the Twoleg to feel welcome and one with the Clan."

"Do you think they will be able to accomplish this?" Lutes asked, looking Badgerstep in the eye.

The bicolor tom's face was grave. "I do. We were reluctant, but the Ancients have ordered us to stay silent. But we have been watching the Twoleg and we too have started to view her as one of our-"

Suddenly, a rift crackled open in the sky and a wave of energy rolled out. Duskelle flinched as it passed through her.

A peach-colored paw appeared in the pure white beyond the rift, and then another. They tensed, and a cat pulled themselves out.

It was a cream she-cat with gray-patched fur and intense green eyes. She turned and looked directly at Duskelle, locking gazes.

And then suddenly intense pain was tearing through her, ripping through her body, someone was pulling, pulling on a part of her, willing her to rip in two, and she was screaming until suddenly—

Duskelle woke up, gasping for air and hacking, rolling out of her nest. She felt as if she'd been slammed back into her real body, and she lay on the ground, trembling.

What had just happened?

———

"What have you done?" the cream colored she-cat roared, and in a whirl of starry light, Lutes had disappeared into nothingness.

Badgerstep cringed backwards. "Larksong, I-"

"Don't you dare to speak!" the Ancient One exclaimed in a cold, harsh voice. "We've told you this. Do nothing to obstruct the Ancient Ones." She stepped forwards and glared at Badgerstep, whose eyes were wide with fear. "You. Will. Not. Interfere."

"Why not?" came a deep male voice, and a tom-cat with fur the color of a hawk's feathers pushed himself forward through the crowd, amber eyes burning. "Why shouldn't we? Are we not part of StarClan? Are we not meant to counsel our kin?"

Larksong turned to face the new challenger, green fire dancing in her eyes. "You are not meant to go against the will of the Ancient Ones. You are meant to do as we say."

The warrior did not back down. "We are not troublesome kits to discipline, Larksong. You may be leader of the Ancient Ones, but that does not make you any better than us." The StarClanners gathered behind him murmured noises of assent.

Larksong hissed at him, and a wave of power swept out from her, blasting him backwards. He glared at her as he picked himself up, but she interrupted him before he spoke, sweeping her gaze out to meet all of StarClan. "Do you really think that you can stand against us?" she asked, her tone seething. "Do you actually think that you can deny us as your leaders?"

Angry murmurs spread through the cats, but her next question stopped them abruptly.

Larksong's eyes glinted cruelly. "Are you forgetting our power?" 

She was met with absolute silence.

"Are you forgetting that we can take your kin's spirits at their dying breaths? That you would never see them again, never have your promised reunion? That their spirits would crash against the cliffs in eternal waves instead of sharing tongues with you?"

No one made a noise or spoke, and even Hawkripple stood quietly. Fury burning coldly in his eyes, fueled by the fear that had wrapped around his throat and taken his voice.

Larksong's voice became satisfied and her eyes turned smug. "I had thought you'd forgotten. Well, I think the consequences of your rebellion are clear?" She bared her fangs in a threatening smile. "I'll trust you'l remember. Good hunting!"

"Good hunting," came the unwilling response from the gathered, through clenched jaws and gritted teeth. Larksong smiled widely in approval, and with a swirl of wind, she dissipated into the air.