Trial by Fire

Some guardians are born. Some are forged in fire.

Sidney Lowell has accepted her role as the guardian of Silver Hollow, but she's far from prepared when an electromagnetic pulse rips through the town at dawn, plunging everything into darkness. The distress signal she senses through her inherited abilities isn't just any creature dying in the forest - it's a phoenix, and its corruption could collapse the dimensional portal forever, trapping her mother and grandmother on the other side.

Ben Sanders came to Silver Hollow as a cryptozoologist chasing legends. Now he's the most important person in Sidney's life, his bioelectric field amplifying her powers in ways neither of them fully understands. When his equipment registers readings consistent with a solar flare - but localized to a two-mile radius - they both know this is no natural phenomenon.

What they discover in the forest clearing is worse than either imagined: the phoenix's fire is tainted with shadows, its natural death-and-rebirth cycle sabotaged by an artificial electromagnetic signal. And the government agency responsible has been watching Sidney all along, engineering her relationship with Ben to weaponize her abilities.

As the phoenix's corruption spreads past the point of no return, Sidney faces an impossible situation - she must merge her consciousness completely with the dying creature to cleanse the fire, risking the loss of her own humanity in the process. With DAPI closing in and the portal network on the verge of cascade failure, Sidney must decide how much of herself she's willing to sacrifice.

Because saving the phoenix might destroy the artificial portal and reunite her family...or it might cost Sidney everything she is, leaving behind only fire and ash.