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PROLOGUE

four years ago

As dawn began to approach, the celebration finally wound to a close. Even though I had been working for over twelve hours, I felt wide awake and even a little buzzed, like I’d gotten a contact high from the energy around me, not to mention the thrill of completing my first real assignment as a tracker.

Since my graduation was still several months away, I hadn’t been given any major detail or heady responsibility. My duties for the night involved standing at attention during the formalities, and surveying the rooms for signs of trouble the rest of the night, which mostly meant directing the increasingly inebriated party guests to the bathroom.

But still, I had been here, working alongside other trackers and even the more elite Högdragen—the guards charged with protecting the Kanin kingdom. That’s why at the end of the night, despite the growing ache in my bare feet, I was a little saddened to be relieved of my duties.

King Evert and Queen Mina had opened the doors to all the Kanin in our capital of Doldastam, and there were over ten thousand of us living here. With that many people streaming in through the doors for an impromptu party, the royal couple needed all the hands they could get, including trackers-in-training.

We’d just gotten word a few days before that another tribe, the Trylle, had defeated our shared enemy, the Vittra. For the past few months, our King and Queen had been quietly preparing the Kanin.

If the Vittra had taken out the Trylle, we would have been the next logical target, since we were wealthier and more powerful than the Trylle. We were too strong and plentiful for the Vittra to go after first, but once they conquered the Trylle and turned their army to Vittra, they would be strong enough to go after us.

But when the Trylle did away with the Vittra King and his entire army, they did away with our impending war as well. So naturally our good King Evert found reason to celebrate, which was how I’d ended up working a party until the early hours of the morning.