The Forbidden Prophecies: A New Light

Chapter Sixteen~

Blazing pain dragged Phoenixkit into consciousness. Agony seared in her chest and seemed to reach through her body to the tip of each hair on her pelt. She wanted to hide in her sleep, but pain forced her awake.

Phoenixkit blinked her eyes open, the light causing a flash of white to erupt behind her skull, thorns digging into her temples. The she-kit immediately close the eyelids, grunting at the pain that shot through her chest.

Reluctantly, she opened her eyes. She was lying in her side, paws stretched in front of her. Moss and bracken twisting around her as she squinted, vision blurry. The greenery enfolded part of the world, the rest dark and dreary.

A dark orange shape caught the edge of her vision. Dizzy with terror, she stared as it's amber eyes snapped open with a grunt of surprise.

Phoenixkit rolled onto her paws and forced herself up. The world around her spun as she fought for a breath. Stone seemed to grip her chest, while mice gnawed inside her stomach. She collapsed.

The shape at the edge of her nest moved again. His eyes wide and burnished in the dimly lit cave.

"Phoenixkit." Relief throbbed in the toms mew.  She felt his muzzle sink into her fur, gently pushing her back into her nest, and Phoenixkit groaned at the weight of it. "Are you alright?" He sounded faraway, as if muted by the rumble of a waterfall.

The small kit shuddered with relief, "Alderheart?" Her voice was small and barely audible. "Is Tigerheart here?"

Rustling from farther into the den echoed through the kits mind, her paws shaking with the white fire behind her eyes.

"She's awake?" A sharp grunt of surprise sounded, and Phoenixkit recognized the voice of Jayfeather.

Alderheart nodded, "And in pain."

"We need poppy seeds." The blind medicine cat darted into a cleft in the stone, loose pebbles brushing against his fur as he searched for the right herbs

"Is her back broken?" Briarlight peered over the kits nest. She sounded scared.

Alderheart ducked closer and began to run his trembling paws over her pelt. "I don't believe so. But we'll examine her throughly in the morning."

Their voices sounded distant. Through the fog of pain, Phoenixkit became aware of cats around her. Leafpool was clustered beside the small stream of water that dribbled through a crack in the cave. Soaking herbs in the pool.

Alderheart and Briarlight were staring at her from over the feather entwined nest, their eyes wide with panic. And Jayfeather scrambled towards his apprentice, jaws firmly clamped on a leaf wrap.

He dropped it next to Alderhearts paws, the blacks seed falling slightly as the bag shifted.

"I must go to RiverClan and ask Mothwing for red moss." He mewed, stepping towards the entrance of the medicine den.

Alderheart stared over his shoulder at Jayfeather, eyes narrowed in confusion, "Red moss?"

He nodded, glancing towards Leafpool, who nodded in agreement for his leave. "It's a moss that rests on the banks of the far stream in RiverClan territory. If placed on the spot where the cat is in pain, it supposedly numbs the location without the need for poppy seeds."

"Why is it called red moss?" He questioned, Jayfeather kneading the ground impatiently before he darted out of the den.

"Because the minerals in the water turn the moss red,  and it's usually picked in green leaf, when the dying sun hits that location." Leafpool explained as her son left the clearing, "They only use it for deadly pain or extreme circumstances. It's kind of like how ShadowClan uses death berries, it's only an art that those clans train into their medicine cats."