Chapter 1: Cast Out

The sentence was exile, spoken in the tone the wall clans reserved for the already dead. Shen Lie walked out of the last watchtower with a rope, a knife, and a tamer license no clan would honor.

The ashen wilds began where the grass turned grey. Nothing that grew there grew slowly, and nothing that hunted there hunted alone.

On the third night, something small and burning followed the light of his fire. It did not attack. It waited.