K S Nikakis

Heart Hunter K S Nikakis

From the author of the critically acclaimed The Kira Chronicles trilogy, comes a story set in the wild and beautiful ice-bound mountains: the haunt of hunters, wild cats and bears. Fleet is a young Sceadu hunter: skilled, strong, and fast. She hunts deep into the ice-bound mountains in a desperate search for meat, for the rains have failed and plunged her people into hunger. Her hunts are long and dangerous but she has much to look forward to. Soon the Sceadu's shaman will gift Fleet her air-name and then she will be free to marry Ashin, the man she loves. But while Fleet is on hunt, the old shaman dies, and the new shaman dreams a very different future for her. Fleet must cross the frozen, impenetrable mountains and return water and fish to the Sceadu's streams-or lose Ashin forever. And there is a second secret quest, even deadlier than the first, that if Fleet fails, threatens the Sceadu's very existence. Fleet refuses the quest for the shaman wants Ashin too, but in a moment of anger and frustration, she breaks the hunter's most sacred law and sets out into the snow-swept mountains to pay with her life. It is the start of a perilous journey that takes Fleet deep into the earth's darkest places, into hostile new worlds, and even into Death itself. She discovers that nothing is as it seems and that to survive, she must draw on every shred of her hunter strength. Doing the impossible, it turns out, is just the beginning.