Description
In the frozen hills of the far north, children are not raised — they are counted, measured, and sharpened into blades. This standalone side story in an ongoing orc epic fantasy saga follows four assassins through the years that made them: Ziska, an orphan taught to know a room before the room knows she’s in it; Niska and Raska, twins the clan’s ledgers could never quite bring themselves to record as two people; Vorg, the veteran who was already a legend before the others were born; and Rissma, a chieftain’s daughter delivered to the training yard the way a knife is delivered to a whetstone. Ordered to watch one another and forbidden to become friends, they find that loyalty is the one thing a clan of killers never learned how to train out. A grimdark fantasy of found family, cold discipline, and debts that outlive the people who owe them.