Lance Morrissey is a middle school outcast with a compulsive need for attention and a penchant for stretching the truth, behavior rooted in the trauma of his mother's unexplained disappearance. One morning, a tree fort appears in his backyard, seemingly out of nowhere. Drawn to it, he climbs inside and falls into the realm of Kairon: a dreamlike world inhabited by talking birds, elves, and pig-people. Here, Lance is told he is the prophesied savior destined to wield psychic power and slay a monstrous seven-headed beast. His face already adorns a sacred mural. The people treat him like a messiah. And the guardians of this world seem to know what happened to his mother.

But Lance isn't the only one wrestling with destiny. Decades earlier, Marissa, a young deaf woman bound to her family's struggling farm, faces an impossible choice-stay and fight for a life that may never be hers or break free before it's too late. Meanwhile, in the near future, an enigmatic agent provocateur operating under the pseudonym "John Nash" makes contact with an African politician named Joseph Mulenga. Together, they become key players in a scheme that crosses continents and extends into the stars. When the world calls for a hero, what happens if the wrong person answers?