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The Heir of Mistmantle
-mistmantle-chronicles-book-three-
Published: September 2007 (original edition)
September 2022 (Purple House Press)
Number: Third
Languages: English
Illustrator: Omar Rayyan
Narrator: N/A
Preceded by: Urchin and the Heartstone
Succeeded by: Urchin and the Raven War


Synopsis[]

A squirrel baby girl had just been born...

...to King Crispin and Queen Cedar. She was called Catkin, the heir to the throne of Mistmantle. Everyone on the island gathered for the joyful celebration of the Naming Ceremony. But that night, the princess suddenly disappeared.

All clues pointed to her caretaker, Linty, a mother squirrel who had gone mad with grief because of a tragedy that occurred during Husk's evil reign. the Islanders fell into a crisis as a mysterious illness took hold and began to spread. Tensions mounted as strange sightings were reported-

Could Husk still be alive?

Plot[]

The book begins with a baby squirrel being born to Queen Cedar and King Crispin . The delivery goes off without a hitch, and the island rejoices at the birth of the new heir of Mistmantle. As is customary, a Naming Ceremony is thrown, where she is officially named as Princess Catkin .

Exhausted from the celebration, Cedar puts Catkin in the care of the tower maids. In order to reduce the amount of overall work for each individual maid, they work in short shifts, rotating out after a few hours. Due to the fact that the caretakers have to take care of Catkin in addition to cleaning up the Tower, volunteers are sought from around the island. One of the animals who volunteers is a female squirrel named Linty . Without her having any experience in the Tower, Urchin leads Linty up to the room where Catkin is cared for. Linty is then left alone until the next animal enteres the room for their shift, when they discover that both Catkin and Linty have gone missing. Linty, it is later found out, was spooked, and climbed down the side of the tower via a window. 

Catkin's disappearance leads to a massive search effort from almost the entire island. Unbeknownst to any other animal, however, Linty had built two incredibly well-hidden hideouts during Husk 's reign of power, one in the Tangletwigs and one along the shoreline, the former being the one she ran off to. This resulted in almost all of the search efforts being in vain. While the search is going on, certain animals, looking for an explanation for such an unexplained event, begin to toss around the idea that Husk was back, citing the fact that nobody had actually seen him die. These rumors were obviously false, but it is enough to sow the seeds of doubt into the minds of the animals on Mistmantle. 

Damson, suspecting that Linty was hiding somewhere underground, starts speaking into the ground as if she was speaking to her. Linty, hearing and recognizing Damson, ultimately decides that she will return Catkin to The Tower the following night. However, as she is about to leave her hideout, she overhears certain animals gossiping about the rumors that Husk is back. This causes Linty to panic, making her paranoid and pushing her mental instability further. While at first she mainly distrusted members of the Circle and Captains, after hearing the rumors of she loses trust in everyone, including Damson.

While the hunt for Linty continues, Crispin leads many of the efforts. He constantly scans much of the island, getting very little sleep. Cedar, wracked with grief, slept very little as well. Seeing their King and Queen in such states, animals begin to question their authority.  Animals such as Hobb and Yarrow are both heavily critical of Crispin and Cedar, blaming many of the island's problems on them. These rumours spread further, on top of the rumors about Husk, furthered the discourse on Mistmantle.

While this is happening, a mysterious sickness begins to appear on Mistmantle. Strangely, there are no otters catching the sickness. Cedar, with her knowledge on sicknesses and medicine, identifies it as Fouldrought, and begins to educate the healers of the island how to treat it. She also recommends that every animal stay in their home and only drink water from a verified safe source, in addition to keeping paws clean, in order to prevent the spread of the disease. Since she has the most knowledge on Fouldrought, she leads the efforts to treat animals with the sickness, leading to many sleepless nights. Meanwhile, animals of the Circle organize efforts to search for the source of the disease. As a result of the animals staying inside, however, the search for Linty is temporarily halted.

With the cause of the disease unknown, many animals, especially Hobb and Yarrow, searching for a scapegoat to blame the cause on, start to spread rumors that the animals from Whitewings were the originators of the disease, animals such as Scatter and Cedar, despite the fact that Cedar is native to Ashfire. This furthers even more the discord on Mistmantle. The small animals on the island are placed in quarantine in the Old Palace.

Fingal, suspecting that he is immune due to himself being an otter, leaves in search of the source of the disease, following a stream up to its source. He is joined by his friends Scatter and Crackle, both squirrels. They eventually come across a decaying fish, the source of the pandemic. Fingal removes it from the water, and tells Crackle and Scatter to run to the tower to inform the King. He has a harder time trying to get Scatter to go, eventually having to yell at her in order to get her to go. Unbeknownst to Fingal, however, Scatter doubles back to keep an eye on him. In order to safely dispose of the fish, he decides to burn it, but while he is burning it the wind suddenly turns on him, causing the fire to catch to his back. Scatter, seeing this unfold, puts out the fire, saving Fingal. With Fingal being safe, they wait for the fire to burn down, then head back to the tower.

With the source of the pandemic gone, the amount of new cases decline, although the island is still in lockdown, due to the fact that fouldrought can be spread through direct contact. Cedar and the tower animals continue to treat the animals afflicted. Among the animals being treated are Yarrow, Hobb, and Damson. Yarrow is extremely reluctant to receive care due to his distrust of animals from the Tower, but is pushed to do so by his family. Ironically, the only animal available to treat him is Cedar herself, but he turns her down, preferring to have no treatment instead of being treated. However, she does later treat Hobb, at the request of his wife, Hammily. Both Yarrow and Hobb make full recoveries.

Damson's condition, in contrast to Yarrow's and Hobb's, begins to worsen. Being very old and having pushed herself the previous days, within a few days she is close to death. Knowing this, she calls for Brother Fir to confess her secrets, but Juniper is sent instead. She mistakes Juniper for Brother Fir, confessing to him that he is Husk 's son, and that Husk attempted to murder him and his mother, the latter of which he succeeded in doing. She then sees Juniper, not knowing that she confessed everything to him, and tells him how much he means to her, before dying in Juniper's hands.  Juniper, shocked after learning this and the death of his foster mother, begins to feel as if he has betrayed animals close to him, such as Crispin and Urchin, for being Husk's son, and that he is unfit for their company.

As this is happening, a storm begins to brew outside Mistmantle. Predicting landslides, and having experienced them in the past, Crispin begins orders for animals to relocate burrows and evacuate to higher ground. Captain Lugg, being the mole with the most power and knowledge on the island, leads the efforts for relocating animals and strengthening tunnels, in addition to providing insight into where the landslide may occur. Simultaneously, Padra leads efforts to dam Mistmantle's major rivers and streams to prevent flooding. However, as they both are going about this, the storm hits Mistmantle, bringing with it torrential rains and winds. With efforts to evacuate the lower parts of the island still underway, work continues, despite the storm. Linty, her hideout being flooded, moves Catkin to her hideout on the shore.

Urchin assists Lugg in last-minute evacuations, despite the landslide being due to strike at any minute. Without any more available support beams to hold up tunnels, Urchin heads into the tunnels alongside Lugg. Hearing that Urchin is putting his life on the line, Juniper rushes to help him, intending to sacrifice himself to "make up" for his past, and joins Urchin in the burrows. Just as Urchin and Lugg evacuate the last burrow, the landslide strikes. Urchin barely makes it out of the burrow, but Lugg is trapped. Juniper is almost swept away by the mud, but is saved by Urchin. Just as the animals realize what happened, however, Lugg reappears, having escaped the collapsed burrow through a hole that was opened up during the landslide.

In the aftermath of the landslide, Juniper confesses to Arran , Padra, Crispin, and Urchin about who his parents are, and that he intended to sacrifice himself in the landslide. Urchin reassures him that they will always be his friends, no matter who his parents were, telling him how brave he had to be to tell them this. Juniper's mood begins to improve after this, although he still feels guilty for being Husk's son to a small degree.

After the cleanup of the island, Crispin gathers the animals of Mistmantle outside the Tower to talk about the events that have occured. He publicly recognizes Crackle, Scatter, and Fingal for their efforts in stopping Fouldrought and preparations for the landslide, awarding Crackle and Scatter flowers, and giving Fingal a silver bracelet, and giving him the title Fingal of the Floods. Crispin then moves the subject towards the rumors that have been spreading throughout the island, asking the islanders about them. When he is met with silence, and nobody brings up Husk or Cedar, he directly confronts Hobb and Yarrow, the two instigators. Yarrow begins talking about how Cedar is not in her right mind, but is shut down by Thripple. Yarrow then moves to Husk, but Crispin shuts down that as well.

Juniper, coming to terms with his origins, and realizing that he is the origin for the rumors about Husk, begins his search for a safe way into the Chamber of Candles. Remembering that Twigg found a mysterious door in his new workshop, which was moved to a cave below the tower, he decides to investigate it. He is joined by Urchin and Needle. They meet heavy resistance from the first door. After using an axe to weaken the hinges and a heavy pole as an improvised battering ram, they make it through, and are immediately greeted by a second door. This one proves less difficult to open, however, and they continue. As they continue through the tunnels, the perceived age of the tunnels grows, eventually turning into rough dirt tunnels. 

Unexpectedly, they reach the Chamber of Candles, and Needle falls into the pit. She is injured in the fall, so Urchin and Juniper climb down to help her. At the bottom, they find Husk's corpse, untouched since his fall, his clothing falling apart around his skeleton. Juniper begins tending to Needle's injuries, while Urchin attempts to climb out of the pit in order to send help. He fails to reach the exit multiple times, but finally miraculously makes it out. Urchin eventually returns with help, and gets both Juniper and Needle out of the pit. 

While this is happening, Linty, becoming more stressed due to the landslide, and overhearing otters talking about the coming high tide, decides to leave the coming night. As she is making her escape, however, she is spotted by the Tower animals, and a group of otters is sent out to make sure she doesn't go beyond the mists. Sepia gets into a boat with Fingal and rows to intercept Linty. While initially extremely reluctant to let them on board, Sepia eventually compromises and lets Sepia on to the boat, provided that she rows. 

As Sepia rows, she notices that Linty is becoming tired. Sepia begins to sing a song to put her to sleep, and slowly begins changing direction to go back towards the island, but as she is rowing back, a piece of driftwood stirred up by the storm hits the side of the boat, waking Linty. She realizes that Sepia was rowing back towards the island, and screams for her to get off the boat. As Sepia is forced off the boat, she rushes at Linty, and grabs Catkin, before jumping off the boat. She is then assisted to shore by Fingal. 

After Sepia is gone, Urchin and Captain Lugg board the boat to bring Linty home. Linty was known to distrust Captains, so Lugg took of his captain circlet, but the indent formed in his fur by the ring was still visible. As Urchin and Lugg were rowing back, and without warning, Linty lunged at Lugg with a knife, stabbing him and throwing them both off the edge of the boat. The otters surrounding the boat separate Lugg and Linty, and Urchin brings Lugg back onto the boat. They barely make it to the shore, but Lugg dies from blood loss regardless. Linty is put into the care of healers in the Tower, where Cedar remarks she'll likely spend the rest of her life.

A funeral is held for Lugg the day after his death. As he was a Captain, a replacement for mole captain is sought for, but all of the moles are reluctant to take his place, given how famous Lugg was. Eventually, however, a replacement is found. 


Appearances[]

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Locations[]

Gallery[]

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