Nate went first. The roughly six-foot rectangular bed of glowing coals threw shadows on his face. Drawing in a concentrated breath, he calmed himself, and in the next second he was off, briskly walking barefoot across the coals.

Francis stood in front of the coal bed next. The glow drenched his white undershirt with a vivid, flickering orange.

Images of fire blasted into Kayla’s thoughts, seeming to collide with one another. She saw again that searing fireball racing up the hallway of her house. The dream image of her mother, hair ablaze, returned to her with shocking force. She saw her own face alight with flame on the billboard in the night.

Francis took off his wire-rim glasses, drew in a very long breath, and stepped out onto the coals.

Feeling too shaken to watch, Kayla turned away from the group and walked into the desert on her own. A slight breeze carried the pleasant smell of a plant she couldn’t identify. The sky was a vast blanket of brilliant stars. In the dark she couldn’t see the distant mountains, which made the desert floor seem to stretch on to infinity. She was aware of the low, encouraging murmurs of Drakians behind her, but the farther she walked, the more deeply she was engulfed by the immense silence surrounding her.

Ahead in the distance she spied a flickering spark of light. Curious, she walked toward it. When she had advanced several more yards, she thought she saw a dark figure sitting in front of the light, which she now could smell. A fire.

Something was burning in the fire. It reminded her of the plant smell she’d noticed earlier. As she closed in on the person, she heard a low, rhythmic chanting.

She knew the voice.

“Eutonah?” she spoke into the darkness.

The woman sat in front of the fire, looking very much as she had the first time Kayla had encountered her. She wore a cowboy hat that boasted a wide band of gorgeous feathers. Her tank top and jeans were faded and plain. “The sagebrush makes a nice smoke out here in the desert,” she observed calmly, lifting her eyes to watch the rising white smoke.

Kayla crouched near the fire, gazing at her mentor’s regal face and fathomless black eyes. “They released you?” she asked.

“They don’t have to release what is already free,” Eutonah replied.

“You’re still in the Global-1 prison?”

“Part of me is, but my spirit can travel, as you know.”

“Eutonah, who is looking for me, and why?”

“I have no new information, but I’ve come to tell you that I have had a strong dream of you. I saw you as a tree with many parts. Lightning struck, and the parts splintered into scattered branches. All the branches came alive and began screaming to be reunited. You are a being that is calling to itself, longing for itself. You must do things you will find terrifying. You must prepare for this by conquering your fears.”

“Kayla!” The voice carried through the still night, and she turned toward it. Someone from the group was calling to her. When she turned back to Eutonah, the wise woman was gone. Only her small campfire remained. The scent of sagebrush lingered.

“Kayla!” Someone was walking toward her, calling her name. As the figure grew closer, she recognized the voice as Jack’s. She met him halfway. “Why don’t you try the fire walk?” he urged when they faced each other. “There’s nothing left to be afraid of once you conquer your fear of walking on fire.”

Eutonah had dreamed of her as a tree struck by lightning. More fire. She’d instructed her to conquer what she feared most. There were many things she feared. Was fire the greatest?

 

Wild terror arose inside Kayla. The desire to run away was close to overwhelming. A fierce heat emanated from the glowing coals, giving her the sensation that her bare feet and ankles were already burning.

She remembered the dream in which she’d gone up in flames. The crowd of Drakians eagerly watched her in silence, no one encouraging her to go forward onto the coals until she was ready. The only advice she’d been given was that once she started she mustn’t allow herself to become paralyzed with panic or even to hesitate. “Just keep going, no matter what,” Nate had told her.

Like jumping off a high place, she stepped out into the unknown. Her mind was a blank as she moved quickly across the coals.

The soles of her feet were immediately hot, but she wasn’t aware of pain. Her only reality was the need to move.

Move!

Move!

Movement became all she was. There was no other Kayla other than Kayla in motion.

And then it was over.

Leaping from the burning coals, she stumbled to her knees and began to sob uncontrollably. If anyone came forward to speak to her, she wasn’t aware of it. She buried her face in her hands as wave after wave of powerful emotion threatened to swamp her, to engulf her into their depths.

It was everything. Everything.

Her father’s suicide. Her mother, burned to death. Mfumbe gone. Betrayal everywhere. Confusion! The world! How had the world turned into this world? How could she live in such a world as this?

She lay on the dry, sandy dirt and drew her knees into a fetal position. Closing her eyes, she fell instantly asleep. And she dreamed.

She dreamed she was on a raft, swirling in a tempestuous storm of raging waves and howling winds. A wave lifted her on its cresting edge only to fling her with reckless abandon into the valley of the next swell. As she clung desperately to the side of the wooden raft, the immense force of the ocean roared around her on all sides.

The raft tilted abruptly just as a jet of flame sprang up at its center. The fire spread in a line, burning upward as the raft was sucked down into a whirlpool, spiraling with increasing speed into the center of the raging sea.

 

The first heat of the morning desert awoke Kayla. Coming slowly to consciousness, she realized that she was still outside the cave, lying on the desert dirt. She had the sense that she had washed up on some distant shore within herself — a place inside where nothing was any longer as it had been.