No one spoke. Time slowed until it froze, cold as the air. Then, paw by paw, Nightsky joined Silentpelt on the Highrock.

"Nightsky!" screamed Phoenixwing as her friend ascended the rungs to the grand rock that stretched to the very heavens.

Nightsky looked back at her friend, tears forming in her eyes as she jumped up.

"Nightsky, no!"

"We trusted you!"

"You can't be one of them!" Sunstrike wailed, "Nightsky, I love you!"

Nightsky hung her head. Silentpelt approached her, and whispered, "So, old friend, do you accept my proposal and my revenge? As the daughter of Thunderstar and Shadowpanther, old mate of Lightningstrike, well... you have a lot of reasons going for you."

Nightsky said nothing.

Silentpelt smiled, "I'll take that as a yes."

He turned to the crowd, "StarClan has lied. But I-I know better. We will make a new world, one founded on our own paws!"

The RainClan cats cheered.

"We will conquer all the limits, all the things they claimed we could not do."

The cheers rose higher.

"We will become mightier than even the stars!"

He lifted his head as the cheers drowned out the sounds of panting and yowls of pain. Cats stamped their paws, some spraying up bloody puddles.

"What do you say to that, Nightsky?"

For one split second, Nightsky was silent as the moon overhead. The snow fell on her shoulders. Phoenixwing looked up at her friend, feeling bitter cold manifest in her heart. Even the warrior who struck like a snake couldn't see it coming.

With one strike, Nightsky punched Silentstar in the face, claws unsheathed. Disoriented, he toppled to the edge, standing his ground, paws balanced precariously above the stony cliff.

"I expected as much." He dodged another blow, and went straight for her paws, knocking her on to her back. He unsheathed his own claws, his eyes bright in the moonlight, his smile stained with blood.

Nightsky was limp. Silentstar pounced, aiming straight for the heart, and Nightsky's back paws hit him straight in the gut. Down he fell, down into the crowd, where with a solid thump his spine cracked, and the claws of Lunastar, the old leader who he wore like a pelt, dug into his neck. Like a guillotine, it had cut off all feeling within minutes.

Everyone crowded around the body, which spasmed once. Twice. Thrice. Four times. Five times. Six, and was as cold and dead as the snow.

Three lives only StarClan was capable of giving.

Nightsky stood over them all, her bloody back paws oozing blood down the rock, her figure silhouetted against the moon.

The two clans of cats counted their fallen as clouds hid the moon again, leaving freezing cold and endless darkness.