desert. She was surprised to find so much life energy within the desolation of the desert. Her senses skated along the sands. She didn't know what all the energies were, but she knew they existed.
The auras surrounding her companions were storms of emotional energy, which gave her a strong sense of their moods. She had always been sensitive to people's feelings and tried always to ascertain people's mental states in order to understand them. Posture, stance, and movements were all indicators, but none had ever given her such clear insight as she had now. Oddly, her new sense felt completely natural, as if it had always been a part of her, latent, waiting to be recognized and used. But it was also a burden. It made the fear and anxiety surrounding her companions almost palpable and impossible to ignore. Devoid of any means to assuage their fears, she simply accepted them and let them be.
A vibrant burst of energy off to her right caught her attention. It burned with life. She used her eyes to identify the source and saw an emerald hummingbird visiting the flowers of a trumpet vine. As if sensing her scrutiny, it flew in front of her face and hovered there. After a brief moment, it chirped, backed up, and darted into the azure sky. Catrin's impression of the hummingbird-vibrant and alive-stayed with her, its bold curiosity refreshing.
The more she used her new life sense, the easier and more natural it became. She found that, after a while, she could sense it without focusing on it, though it was most intense when she concentrated, just as she could hear without consciously listening.
New sensations invigorated her, as if feeling a cool breeze on her face for the first time, and she was exuberant. Another small life force moved nearby, and she was surprised to see a honeybee. It did not seem angry or aggressive, as she had always perceived stinging insects; it was just going about the business of being a honeybee.
There was an abundance of life in the soil itself, including things too small to be seen. Catrin saw the ways death served to feed life. Deciduous trees shed leaves, which fell to the ground and decomposed. Organisms that used the decaying leaves as food aided the decomposition. Their waste and the decayed matter become soil, which, in turn, nourished the trees and plants. Catrin had never recognized the chain of life as a varying cycle of composition and decomposition before, and such realizations were rapidly changing her perception of the world around her.
Nature, in all its majesty and glory, was beginning to be revealed to Catrin through senses she had not been aware of before. For the first time, she saw the ecosystem as a unit and saw how each part of the system contributed to the whole; without any one component, life could fail. Predators could not exist without prey, and herbivores would die without plants, and plants would shrivel without materials provided by the death and defecation of animals. When she considered how many factors had to be in place for life to endure, she was amazed it existed at all, and yet it flourished, even in the harshest of environments-simply astounding.
Involved in her thoughts, Catrin was surprised when Benjin selected a place to camp. Most of the day's hike was a blur to her, and she had to reorient herself with the landscape. The mountains cast long shadows over the grassland as the sun set; the air cooled quickly, and it was almost chilly by twilight. The campsite Benjin selected backed up against the rock face. Although a few trees dotted the area, they were weathered and twisted. It was not much cover, but it was certainly better than the open desert.
'I've been thinking about what Osbourne said about an ambush,' Benjin said as they ate. 'If there's a trap, I think it would be best to spring it without Catrin with us,' he continued. 'There shouldn't be many places for the Zjhon to hide near the cove, and if I make it that far without seeing anyone-'
Catrin cut in. 'So your plan is to go into an ambush… alone? Without me?'
'Now, Catrin, please understand, it's to protect you,' he began, but Catrin silenced him with a look. He clamped his mouth shut, his eyes down, and waited silently. Catrin knew she was being unreasonable, but the thought of him walking into an ambush was horrifying. Some other option must exist, one without Benjin as bait. No one spoke until Benjin drew a breath, but Catrin cut him short again.
'You'll think of another plan,' she said with a sharp nod. 'Our only recourse cannot be a suicide mission for any of us. I will not accept that.'
'Why, yes, of course. There must be a better way,' Benjin replied without looking at her.
Catrin looked out into the night, terrified by the thought of being without Benjin. He made her feel safe. Without looking at the others, she went to her bedroll. She knew her anger was driven by fear, and that was the only way she could hide it.
'Now what do we do?' Chase asked once it appeared Catrin was truly asleep.
'For now we just have to keep moving toward the cove,' Benjin said. 'We have few other options.'
'Maybe you and I should leave now and scout the way,' Chase said.
'I don't like that idea at all,' Strom said.
'There has to be something we can do,' Chase insisted, his own desperation driven by fear. Survival almost seemed too much to hope for given the circumstances.
'When we get closer,' Benjin said, 'we can sneak away to spring the trap. We'll speak of it no more until then. Catrin won't like it, but it's what's best for her.'
'And what then?' Strom asked, anger clear in his voice. 'You go off and spring the trap and die, and what happens then? Catrin, Osbourne, and I go off and fight the world? Cat's right; you're both being idiots. Should we run through the desert to see if it's hot? No.' He paused a moment to return the stares currently aimed at him. 'When we get close, we watch and we wait. If we're clever enough, we'll see some sign of activity before they see us. I'm not sure what we do from there, but that's a far cry better than running in there and jumping around like a couple of idiots with torches and getting yourselves skewered.'
There was a long moment of silence when Strom finished speaking. He crossed his arms and dared anyone to challenge him.
'Nobody said we were going to go running in there,' Chase said, slightly downcast. Strom glared at him.
'Especially not jumping around with torches,' Benjin added.
Chapter 16
This life is but a brief tenure, one of many perspectives a spirit must experience in the quest for eternity.
The clear skies and cool air would have been perfect for hiking, but they were accompanied by gusting winds. Funneled closer to the sands by the narrowing grassland, Catrin and her companions were relentlessly pelted with stinging sand. They held pieces of clothing over their faces, but their eyes still suffered.
'Be watchful for water. We need to replenish our supply as often as we can,' Benjin said. They saw troughs left by a previous deluge but no water. Catrin mentally explored the landscape as they traveled, hoping to find a spring, but the only water she sensed was deep beneath the sand.
'Do you see that dark column of rock? Is that a waterfall?' Strom asked.
'If it is, it's awfully small,' Chase said.
Catrin cast her senses toward where Strom indicated, hoping she would detect water. She tried not to be upset when she found nothing, but she realized she had truly expected to be successful. Determined to make a thorough examination, she tried running her senses across the distant soil from another angle. Her spirit soared when she felt the slightest pressure of resistance.
Focusing on that place, she sensed a very small amount of water, but water it was. 'You are both correct. It
