Book One – Chapter 15

Jerakill just repeated, “Do you know what happens to them?”

Yu’s stomach dropped. He suddenly had the creeping realisation that they had all just … patiently, politely waited for him to finish. The way you listened to a child, to whatever dumb shit they needed to get out of their system so they would finally shut up.

What the fuck was wrong with them?

“Banished,” Yu snapped.

The silence stretched.

Saltcakes.

It was like throwing saltcakes in front of humans.

Fine. Whatever.

Yes, they got banished. While omira packs lived, hunted and quarrelled amongst themselves, their exiles sought release for their instincts in other ways. Losing their pack did not mean losing their nature. And exiled omira only ever took up one profession. They became assassins.

Untethered from their old lives, they honed their hunting skills into something even more ruthless. They were both paid and feared for their ability to track prey across vast distances with relentless determination.

Tirran had to be an outcast.

But there was no way to know why. Had he failed his Trial of the Hunt? Or had his exile been for something else entirely? Had he roamed the continent as a contracted killer for ten years, or only ten days, before taking up residence with the Albweiss Mountain Guild? There was no way to tell.

But the moment he had loomed over Yu during their introduction, when those erratic, twisting eyes had briefly halted and locked onto him in absolute stillness, Yu had known one thing with absolute certainty. He had to fear Tirran more than anyone else.

Tria had taught him about omira for a reason. Even though none lived in the Barnstream regions, even though none would ever be permitted to settle there or even just to set foot within the villages, she had drilled their hunting practices into him. Because in the lands where omira packs roamed, they hunted fina.

And if Yu was not a bastard wizard, then he was a bastard fina.