Erin Hunter’s Darkness Within is a tense wild-cat fantasy for 10 year olds about the moment the Clans find out who has stolen their leader’s body.<\/p>\n
It starts at a Gathering on the island. Squirrelflight, now leading ThunderClan, stands up in the Great Oak and says she knows who the impostor is. A dead ThunderClan warrior called Ashfur, who was once in love with her and never forgave her for choosing Bramblestar.<\/p>\n
Plenty of cats don’t believe her. The older ones go very quiet. And the young warriors, Bristlefrost among them, are left wondering how one of their own ancestors could turn on them.<\/p>\n
So Squirrelflight comes up with a plan to make him admit it. It’s a gripping scene in the ShadowClan camp, told through Shadowsight’s eyes, with a staged attack, an empty camp and a cat who is far too calm for a prisoner. She has to pretend she loves him. Shadowsight has to stand there and watch.<\/p>\n
What he hears is awful. The visions Shadowsight thought came from StarClan, the ones that told him how to treat Bramblestar’s fever, came from Ashfur all along. He has to carry that for the rest of the book.<\/p>\n
The other big thread is grief. There’s been a battle between the Clans, and warriors died fighting their own Clanmates. Rootspring, now a SkyClan warrior, walks into a vigil for all of them. SkyClan is mourning Sandynose, and RiverClan’s leader won’t forgive the cats who rebelled.<\/p>\n
Fans will love how much of the old Warriors history comes back here. Firestar, Bluestar and Leafpool watch from StarClan in the prologue, and the older cats remember Ashfur all too well.<\/p>\n
Fair warning, this is one of the darker books in the run. Ashfur boasts about throwing a young medicine cat down a gorge and leaving him for dead, and one leader wants him killed. A fight leaves blood on the ground. His obsession with Squirrelflight, dressed up as love, sits at the heart of it all.<\/p>\n
For a reader who’s been following these cats, it’s a thrilling turn. For anyone new, it’ll be a blizzard of names, because it relies on everything that’s happened so far.<\/p>\n
It’s book four of The Broken Code. Rather than starting here, hand them Erin Hunter’s Into the Wild. That’s where a ginger house cat called Rusty first looks over his garden fence at the forest and the Clans waiting in it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Erin Hunter’s Darkness Within is a tense wild-cat fantasy for 10 year olds about the moment the Clans find out who has stolen their leader’s body. It starts at a Gathering on the island. Squirrelflight, now leading ThunderClan, stands up in the Great Oak and says she knows who the impostor is. A dead ThunderClan […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":13813,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"lr_next_read_post_id":9676,"lr_next_read_anchor":"Into the Wild","lr_seo_hook":"A Gathering, a trap baited with pretend love and a confession nobody wanted.","lr_series_id":203,"lr_series_name":"Warriors: The Broken Code","lr_series_position":4,"lr_series_label":""},"book_tag":[27],"age_group":[29],"book_type":[1044],"book_author":[314],"class_list":["post-13814","our-books","type-our-books","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","book_tag-fantasy-books","age_group-books-for-10-year-olds","book_type-paid","book_author-erin-hunter"],"yoast_title":"Warriors (The Broken Code) 4 – Darkness Within by Erin Hunter | Little Reads","yoast_metadesc":"A Gathering, a trap baited with pretend love and a confession nobody wanted. For ages 10+. 3,000+ books in the Little Reads app. 7-day free trial.","acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n