The Storm Runner

The figure darts into the trees, and Zane chases it to a clearing, where a rope leads down into a hole in the ground. He climbs down, finding a pool with flashing lights and a cave entrance. He enters the cave despite his terror.

The Sparkstriker is in the cave. She gives Zane a metal cane that makes his limp disappear and will respond to his commands. Next, she instructs him to choose a lightning bolt from the pool so that she can hammer it into his leg and awaken his dormant powers. Zane protests because his leg is already weak, but the Sparkstriker tells him that his leg “is the most powerful part, […] not the weakest” (357-58).

The hammering process sends Zane to the place where he first met his father. He is once again in jaguar form, and his power is revealed to be fire, which starts to cook him from the inside. Desperate, he runs for the water, but his father stops him, ordering him to release the power on his own. His father states, “If you take the easy way out now, you’ll never learn to control it” (365).