Chapter Eight

Alright, one reviewer has seen through my Shadowpaw plot twist. I'm not going to spoil you by telling you who it is, but if it's you I think you'd know *cough cough*.

But don't worry. I solemnly swear that I will make more plot twists. And so sorry for the short chapter.

Shadowpaw's fever didn't go down in the next few days. In fact, it only got higher. They could add vomiting to his list of sickness now. Nothing the medicine cats did seemed to work. Ice grew more worried and worried by the second. Was there something wrong with Shadowpaw? Did it have something to do with her memory gap?

Every time she visited, Shadowpaw was either deep asleep or vomiting, so they couldn't talk about it. But today, when she arrived, she found the medicine cats blocking the entrance.

"I'm sorry, Ice," Reedpaw meowed. "But Shadowpaw's not healing. We've tried basically everything, but it's a sickness we've never encountered before. It's up to StarClan now."

Ice stopped hearing after 'Shadowpaw's not healing.' Her heart pounded in her chest, as her vision swam. "No," she breathed. She pushed past Reedpaw, and ran into the medicine den.

She knocked over a bundle of herbs in her haste, but she didn't care, for all she saw was Shadowpaw. He was sleeping as usual, but his sleep was distressed and restless, his moss disturbed by his turning around.

He was mumbling something. "No, Bluestar, no, send me back," Ice could faintly hear. Bluestar? Who was that?

His breaths, which were long and steady before and the only thing that reassured Ice started to shorten, and Shadowpaw began to gasp and rasp in shallow breaths of air.

Then his flanks stilled.

"No," Ice muttered again. "No!"

Reedpaw came beside her. "He's gone now—"

"No, no, no! Get out!" Ice screamed finally, pent up emotion bursting from her. Luckily, she was feeling red-hot rage and fury, so her ice did not burst out. But trails of frost started creeping towards the prone body of Shadowpaw, unnoticed.

Reedpaw and Dawnstripe dipped their heads and backed away, knowing she needed some space to grieve.

"You're not gone, Shadowpaw," Ice said fiercely. "You're strong. You haven't even done your warrior assessment yet!" she felt tears prick her eyes. "Don't go."

Her eyes pricked, as Shadowpaw didn't move a whisker. A tear, cold and frozen, trickled down her cheek, and splashed on Shadowpaw's unmoving and cooling fur.

Ice collapsed next to Shadowpaw's nest, feeling cold for the first time. Ice and frost burst from where she touched, but where she'd seen beauty was now a curse. A horrible, frozen curse she was born with.

Shadowpaw was her closest friend. And yes, Ice would admit that at times her heart would flutter nervously when he was around—not that it had anything to do with Shadowpaw. But right now, seeing him so still and…

Ice wasn't sure whether in her grief she had imagined Shadowpaw twitch. But there it was again, more like a spasm. Shadowpaw drew in large gasping breaths, and Ice sobbed in relief. "I knew it," she was murmuring, "I knew you wouldn't leave me like that."

The medicine cats came running in, shocked to their bones at the sight of a living and completely healed Shadowpaw, with Ice sobbing at his side.

But Shadowpaw hadn't escaped death unscathed. Trailing down his muzzle was a strip of silvery white, a side effect of Ice's icy magic combined with the might of StarClan. Yet he said nothing.

Unbeknownst to all, Dawnstripe was staring at the scene with horrified eyes. Five words leaked out of her mouth.

"Something's coming. StarClan help us."