Cinderstar screeches as she hits the ground, but says nothing. The only sound is the guttural noises emanating from her throat, her wings of blood now a deep pool, the type in which you feel as if you too, can see your fate reflected within. Even the mindless, half-dead cats seem to notice, their slit pupils wide with fear as their leader bleeds out.

No one moves for a second, and then they see me with my bloody back paws. I realize they expect me to walk over to her. Hesitantly, I get up, striding towards the cat who was once my friend and became my enemy. Who is she now?

Is she anything to me?

Should she be?

In this moment of brutal silence, Everpaw runs towards Cinderstar. His eyes are filled with genuine tears and panic. He walks up to her, looking distraught over the feeble cat who's now progressed beyond the point where her half-dead warriors are into the land of no return.

Cinderstar is watching, but her eyes are not fixed on me. She looks right past me to Everpaw, and feeling like an intruder at a mourning where I do not know the one being mourned (which could be true, in a way), I step away and let her speak.

"Ever... Everstone... Do you think I'll be a falling star too? Like you were?"

Everpaw looks at the bloodied cat, much in the way I once looked at Volcanoheart. She's asking the impossible, forgiveness when there should be none, love when she has no right to cry for it after robbing so many others of the love they once had. He leans down to her, and nods to her as she shudders one last time, the last of the lives given to her on empty promises pouring out of her into the soil like the blood. Besides her, she casts one last look at the already still body of Mothstar.

"Yes." Everpaw says finally, "I think you will."

The sides of Cinderstar's mouth twitch in a feeble smile and she rasps gently, a sound that's almost like purring, which turns slowly but surely to a wisp of sound, then an echo, and then nothing more but air.

Dead.

Her warriors, both the official StoneClan warriors and the half-dead ones, look around in panic, the official ones out of fear of what is to come and the half-dead ones out of fear for what has already happened.

"This begs the question," Moonstar snarls, "What do we do with them?"

"We will not bow to your ways, no, we will not. The Dark-Clan has pride. Much pride." says a half-dead warrior, swelling up his chest, which makes it almost half an inch larger. With the food intake this thing must have to produce the showing, terrifying ribs that the clans fear and hate, it's impressive that he can even manage a half-inch.

Maybe even more so that he's proud of who he is.

"They still have a leader." interjects Bonemoon, "Me."

"You call yourself a leader?!" yowls Flamestar, bristling with fury and hate.

His deputy, Hawkstalker, has to forcefully calm him down so that he can't tear Bonemoon apart.

"For once I agree with the rabid squirrel." Moonstar says bluntly.

"What rabid squirrel?" asks Sunshadow, standing by her brother, both thankfully alive and still well.

Moonstar gestures to Flamestar, who interjects, "Anything better than you, frozen hearted..." Hawkstalker shakes her head and Flamestar sighs and stays quiet.

Bonemoon looks at the spiteful, hateful cats before him, those who's kits he's helped murder, those who's apprentices he's spirited away, and who's warriors now lay before him in the bloodstained earth. His ears slide back defensively, but there's nothing to defend, nowhere to hide, nowhere to run.

"Very well." He says, and then flicks his tail to the others.

"Where do you think you're going?" Moonstar hisses.

"If you object to it, kill us all now. Prove that you too believe that the way the clans founded is the only way. Vengeance, hatred, and neglect. Otherwise, we will move on. I have a child to raise, and it is my hope that she will grow up to be a strong warrior."

"You can't stay here." I insist, my voice the cold yet soulful tone of a leader. It's as if already the starry cats are working through me, deepening my voice.

"No, I don't plan on it. We're going somewhere new beginnings can be a reality."

"What place could hide your crimes, and those of your clan, Bonemoon?" Moonstar asks.

"To the west, there is a place ravaged by death. It is a place where the mountains meet the moon and the remnants of a forest live. Along the twoleg streets, cats as desperate as us lie in wait. Cats who believe, for all their loss, in something. I'm headed to the Western Clans, of course. Will you permit us to leave?"

"I would be a fool to let you do this." Moonstar warns.

Bonemoon turns to look at her, raising an eyebrow in warm curiosity to mask his fear. "And I assume you are no fool?"

"Before the eyes of our ancestors, we are all fools, young as kits. Go on. Take every warrior with you. If we see a single one of them on our territory, they're dead."

My cats look to me as they lead, and my heart rushes with adrenaline. No, they're not just my clan now. They are my warriors.

Firepool starts the cheer, and it spreads through the camp like wildfire. "Icestar. Icestar. Icestar! Icestar!"

I stand at their forefront, nodding to them all with joy flashing in my blue eyes. StarClan can wait, because even without my nine lives, I am now a leader and I stand at the top of my clan.

Behind me, a calico cat with floating whiskers smiles and shakes her head slowly. She disappears like a dandelion, every bit of her floating away into the morning dew as the sun comes up over the trees, painting the clearing with blood.