cover the pertinent pieces of her body, but she was tired of being pushed around.
“You are.” He leaned forward, invading her space. She stiffened but didn’t back up. “You will also have them on in the next five minutes so we can leave.”
She didn’t think so.
“You will not like it if I have to come back in here.”
With those ominous words, Trenton exited, leaving Shea fuming in his absence. After a long moment, she moved to comply, pulling the clothes on with angry movements.
Dressed, she took a deep breath and composed herself. It took a long moment and several deep breaths before some of the anger melted away and a bit of perspective to creep back in.
Only when she had control of herself again, did she exit.
Trenton led her out to the very edge of the camp where a crackling fire waited. Meynard and Caden sat on smoothly worn stumps on either side of the fire.
It seemed odd for a fire to be going full blast in the middle of day, especially when it was this warm out.
Trenton prodded her forward when she hesitated.
He maneuvered her until she stood on the other side of the fire. She coughed as a gust of wind blew smoke in her face.
Meynard lifted his arms and proclaimed in a voice as ageless and old as the mountains, “Shea of the Highland people, you come seeking to mingle your being with that of the grassland people.”
Shea coughed again as a deep burning spread down her throat. Had she inhaled ash?
“The grassland people are fierce with roots dating back to the beginning of time. You are either born of us or become one of us through fire.”
Shea didn’t know what he was talking about. Grassland people?
“Fire is the great catalyst. It can destroy, but it can also be an instrument of change and bring forth the seeds of a new beginning. It is life.”
The world around her rippled and then tilted. A burst of light flared behind Caden’s head and then Trenton’s. She fell to a knee as she looked around in confusion.
The old man was droning on and on. “You must survive the fire and be reborn to be fully accepted as one of us.”
She didn’t want to be one of them. She liked herself just the way she was. Shea, a pathfinder of the Highland guilds, a scout for the Dawn’s Riders.
The burning in her lungs intensified, and she coughed hard, nearly choking. A sweet smell, like that of vanilla, invaded her nose. Its scent so strong she almost imagined she could see it carried along on the breeze in ever widening arcs.
The strength left her body, and she rolled onto her back. The blue, blue sky looked down at her. It smiled at her with a delicate slice of cloud right before a bunny hopped across, leaving trails of white tufts floating after it.
There must have been something in the smoke, she realized finally.
After that she didn’t do a lot of thinking, but simply experienced things with a wide-eyed wonder as images and thoughts raced by. Sometimes these things collided in a brilliant cascade of color and light.
The first warp took her back to her childhood.
She was holding tight to a woman’s hand. In Shea’s eyes, that woman was the most beautiful woman in the world. Shea paid close attention as the woman explained the difference between a thistle thorn paw print and that of a red tail’s.
“Understand, Shea?”
“Yes, Mommy.”
“Lainey, are you teaching that girl tracking again?” a deep voice asked affectionately.
Shea’s mother gave the man a crooked grin. “It’s never too early to start. Huh, sweet pea?”
Shea was engrossed in studying the paw print her mother had pointed out and her little forehead puckered as she concentrated.
The man slung an arm around Lainey’s chest, pulling her firmly against him as he settled his chin on her head.
“I see you’re determined to have her follow in your footsteps.”
Shea’s head shot up, and she frowned at him. “I’m not going to be like Mommy. I’m going to be a gatherer and go on many adventures where I learn things nobody else knows.”
“Are you now?” Shea’s mother asked.
Shea nodded once, firmly.
Both her mother and father laughed. Her father leaned down and scooped her small body up.
“I guess you’d better soak up everything your mom has to teach you, then. It’s even harder to become a gatherer than it is a pathfinder.”
The world froze before twisting and bursting into a starburst of bright light.
“Pick up the