“I will make final reparation for the crimes of my ancestors. I will be the one to pay the debt.”
So the young soldier, Jhared Denaban, swore to the
demon Cael on the night of his Becoming: he would be the one to balance
the bloody debt earned by his ancestors, the faithless Avelune.
Stripped of his birthright and shackled under the
oppressive laws that protect Avelos from those who bear the Avelune
curse, Jhared enters his country’s service desperate to prove himself
free of an evil legacy. But the memory of betrayal hasn’t faded. His
countrymen despise him and his own kind distrust him. Even those who
raised him cannot hide their fear.
Bound into servitude, Jhared is sent to the border,
assigned to protect Avelos from foreign enemies and devastating magical
forces. But the assignments that matter most are the ones for which he
has no training. As he searches for the source of increasing political
unrest, he must struggle against the instincts that drive him toward
self-destruction and the people who believe his death is the only way
the debt can be paid.
Caught in the plots of the powerful, Jhared finds
the truths of his past and the history of his kind growing more and more uncertain. He must resolve conflicting notions of duty and justice,
loyalty and freedom, reparation and love. If he and his beloved country are to survive, he must confront what it truly means to be Shorn.
