Crookedstar's Promise

## ***Warriors:*** ***Crookedstar's Promise*** (Super Edition)

*Crookedstar's Promise*

*Crookedstar's Promise* was released on 5 July 2011. It takes place at the same time as Bluestar's Prophecy and details the life of **Crookedstar**, initially *Stormkit*. As a kit, Stormkit falls into the river after he sneaks out of camp and attempts to chase ThunderClan medicine cat *Goosefeather* away from Sunningrocks, a part of RiverClan territory (at the time). This leads him to break his jaw on a rock. **Rainflower**, Stormkit's mother, rejects Stormkit due to his disfigured appearance and demands that RiverClan leader **Hailstar** perform a renaming ceremony to rename Stormkit to *Crookedkit*. Feeling rejected, Crookedkit is visited in a dream by **Mapleshade**, a *Dark Forest* cat who allows Crookedkit to believe that she is from StarClan. She tells him that she can give him anything he wants as long as he is faithful to his Clan and puts all other things aside. Crookedkit quickly accepts this promise, believing it not to be a difficult promise, as he was already loyal to his Clan, and believes that Mapleshade can help him become leader. Mapleshade then uses Crookedkit's promise to seemingly bring about the deaths of Crookedkit's loved ones. When Crookedjaw is chasing away a dog, the dog knocks his mother, Rainflower, into a river, and she hits her head on rocks. Mapleshade urges Crookedjaw to focus on the dog instead of bringing his mother to the medicine cat, and she dies. Crookedjaw then becomes deputy upon his father **Shellheart's** retirement; shortly after, Shellheart dies of a lump in his stomach. Not long after, Hailstar loses his last life while fighting rats in a barn: although Mapleshade urges him to not protect Hailstar so he can become leader, Crookedjaw ignores her, having discovered that she is actually from the Dark Forest. Nonetheless, Hailstar is killed. Despite his insistence that she stay away from him, Mapleshade continues to haunt Crookedstar: his mate, **Willowbreeze**, dies of a respiratory infection days after giving birth to his three kits, and two of the kits die as well. When Crookedstar confronts Mapleshade, she reveals that she had once been the mate of Crookedstar's great-grandfather. Mapleshade had been a ThunderClan cat, while her mate had been from RiverClan: Mapleshade is rejected by her Clan for taking a forbidden mate, then loses the kits in the river when she attempts to bring them to RiverClan. Her mate blames her for letting the kits drown in the river, and RiverClan, too, rejects Mapleshade. As a result, Mapleshade vows revenge on her mates descendants, one of whom is Crookedstar. When Crookedstar finally reveals his promise and his belief that it caused the deaths of his loved ones, to his medicine cat **Brambleberry**, she argues that the deaths were not in fact Mapleshade's fault. Following the conclusion of the novel, **Oakheart** is killed, then in the manga feature, **Silverstream**, Crookedstar's only remaining kit, dies after giving birth to **Graystripe** of ThunderClan's kits. Mapleshade asserts that these deaths were her doing as well, but Crookedstar tells Mapleshade that she has failed to punish him, as his loved ones live on in StarClan, while she has no one. Finally, Crookedstar dies as well.