Read Warriors: Power Of Three 2 - Dark River for Free Online Page B

moorland.
    He concentrated on the RiverClan apprentice, sniffing out her emotions as though they were scent. Sure enough, unease enfolded her. Jaypaw tried to delve farther into her thoughts but it was as though she had wrapped herself in brambles.
    Thorny barbs drove him back. Frustrated, he gave up.
    I’ll find out more when she dreams.
    The path had reached the steep rocks that walled the ridge. Conversation died as the medicine cats climbed, their words turning to breathless gasps as they bounded up rock after rock. Jaypaw scrambled ahead of Leafpool. He felt his mentor’s watchful gaze warm his pelt as he leaped onto a tricky ledge. Thankfully, she said nothing. He had been this way often enough to make it to the ridge without help.
    As he hauled himself over the edge he was caught by the fresh scent of the Moonpool. Frost and rock and sky.
    “Look how big it is,” Willowpaw breathed as she climbed up beside him.
    “Meltwater,” Leafpool meowed.
    “It’s wide enough to hold every star in the sky,” Kestrelpaw mewed.
    There is room for all tonight, a whispering breeze sang into Jaypaw’s ears. The voices had come to welcome him. He wondered if they welcomed the others, too.
    “Did you hear that?” he asked casually.
    Leafpool’s gaze scorched his ears. “Hear what?”
    “That’d be the wind,” Littlecloud explained.
    “It sounds different up here because it’s echoed by the rock,” Barkface added.
    Their matter-of-fact tone answered Jaypaw’s question.
    These cats heard only the wind. The voices spoke to him alone.
    Jaypaw thought again of the prophecy he had heard in Firestar’s dream: There will be three, kin of your kin, who hold the power of the stars in their paws. His pelt prickled with excitement.
    This must be part of his power, the ability to hear things no other cat could.
    Willowpaw shifted her weight from one paw to another.
    “Where shall we lie? The water has covered our usual places.”
    Jaypaw heard Mothwing’s tail swish the air. “The rocks are flat over there.”
    He followed Leafpool down toward the pool. The breeze stirred his fur, and the voices whispered in his ear again.
    Welcome, Jaypaw. The stone beneath his paws was dimpled, worn into a pathway by countless paw steps.
    Water suddenly lapped his paws. They were only halfway down the slope! Tingling with surprise, he followed Leafpool around the water’s far-reaching edge and settled on the rock beside her. He heard Leafpool’s breath stir the pool and then deepen as she fell into dream-sleep.
    The other cats lay down, their fur brushing the rock, and soon the hollow echoed only with the sound of breath and wind upon water. Willowpaw was the last to settle. Jaypaw waited while she slid into sleep. Focusing on her mind, he leaned forward and touched the Moonpool with his muzzle.
    Instantly, he was swept away in a torrent of seething water.
    He struggled and flailed with his paws, his heart bursting with terror as he gasped for air. He looked up and saw a stormy sky clouding above him and all around, churning water that stretched to endless horizons. Then he saw Willowpaw’s head bobbing above the waves. She was swimming, her eyes filled with determination, her jaws clutching a mouthful of herbs as her paws churned. Jaypaw clutched at the water, struggling to keep his head above the surface. The water sucked at his hind paws, dragging him down. Water filled his mouth and nose. Splashing, coughing, he tried to claw his way back into the safety of consciousness.
    He opened his eyes. He was lying on damp grass. Trees leaned over him, their leaves blocking out the sun, and ferns crowded around him. Jaypaw struggled to his paws and looked around. Was this Willowpaw’s dream or his own?
    “You must hurry!” A husky mew hissed beyond the ferns.
    Jaypaw stretched warily onto his hind legs and peered over the ferns. A brown tom, stiff with age, was nudging Willowpaw forward. “You must leave,” he meowed.
    “What about my