Kael caught his first sight of the fortress as the sun was going down.
It jutted from the southern plain like a broken tooth five stone towers, three caved in at their crowns, enclosed by an outer wall that had been white once and was now the dull grey-yellow of old bone. Halt’s Reach had belonged to the Lycans before the war. Kael had come here as a boy, stood on the high parapet beside his father, and watched the western coast burn orange at sunset. He’d believed back then that the world was vast and ancient and waiting for him.
The fortress had sat empty for three hundred years. It wasn’t empty anymore.
Tarn lay in the long grass beside him on the ridge. Brann was on his other side. The three warriors fanned out behind them. Five days of hard riding had brought them here, their horse
