The Oathbreaker's Shadow **SAMPLE COMPLETE**

Part 7 - Chapter 4.1

Shell-shocked and still gaping, Raim stumbled out of the royal yurt only to be accosted by his grandfather.

'Raim,' Loni hissed. 'I told you to come straight back home after the ceremony. I've spent the past hour looking for you.'

'Why didn't you just send an errand boy? You could've saved yourself the trouble,' said Raim, desperate to have a moment to think over what he had just seen.

'Because,' Loni took a few more steps until they were well out of earshot of anyone else exiting the royal yurt. 'Yasmin has returned. With the aksha herb. Now, we can brew memory tea.'

The news stopped Raim in his tracks. They had been waiting for Yasmin the healer for over three months, so long had passed since her last visit.

They hurried to where they had camped, a temporary settlement for the twelve families that made up the Moloti tribe and the other, smaller group of five Temu yurts that had brought Solongal. Raim was unsure whether the chills running up and down his spine were from the early evening air or from excitement over the sage's visit . . . and now Yasmin's. Raim was surprised at how quickly the air cooled near the mountains. His ignorance of the weather cycles made him uncomfortable. This area was not like the rest of the steppes, where his tribe spent most of the year. In the steppes he knew everything, from when the sun would rise to when the rains would fall. Every Darhanian knew. They grew up learning about the land and their environment. Here, in this unfamiliar and rarely visited mountain place, the rocks sapped the heat from the air as soon as the sun disappeared behind the lowest peak and Raim was not prepared for the sudden cold.

Their yurt had been set up far apart from the rest of the village. It was a good thing too, Raim realized, as the stench that reached his nostrils sent his senses reeling. Drinking memory tea would not be a pleasant experience, he predicted.

Loose pebbles clattered over his thin shoes, sent flying down from above. He looked up at the mountainside, a sheer rock face that served as shade from the heat. His eyes traced the line of smoke that led up from his own yurt to a jagged ledge almost half way up the cliff. There, almost completely concealed by the rock, were six or seven people. They stood rigid like statues, backs pressed stiff against the cliff, and had veils of grey cloth over their faces, leaving only slits for eyes.

Raim's eyes widened. It was Yasmin's clan of healers: the Otoshi. She really had come.

Smoke unfurled from the base of the yurt as his grandfather held open the curtain door. Raim pivoted around when the thick, wool cloth cascaded shut behind him. His grandfather was staying outside, keeping watch so they wouldn't be disturbed.

The strange, sickly sweet scent made his own home feel uncomfortable, like he didn't belong. It stung his eyes but through the smoke he made out the cross-legged silhouette of Yasmin. He picked up a cushion from the floor and moved it so he sat opposite the old, sun-ripened woman dressed in grey.

Yasmin was Loni's partner, and therefore Raim's adoptive grandmother. But she was a renowned shaman and the greatest healer in Darhan. Her immense skill with herbs and poultices, combined with her vast stores of knowledge, made her invaluable to the tribe of healers. She was not allowed to retire and look after Darhan's youth, like Loni had after he had grown too old to continue his job as a tracker in the army. But she had kept a closer eye on Raim than would normally be expected throughout the years, all because of the little indigo string bracelet Raim wore on his wrist.

He had come to them as a baby, the string tied around his chubby wrist, and his grandfather had only noticed it when he'd first unwrapped him from the torn and dirty linen cloth he'd been bundled up in. It was traditional for elders to remove all traces of a baby's ancestry, so that the child's future did not have to be tied to their parents' past. Loni had tried to cut the string off with shears, but it refused to slice.

Loni had worried, then. He had worried so much he had tracked down his long lost partner, Yasmin, to seek her advice. Even when Raim had only been a young child, he had noticed the whispered conversations and darkened looks exchanged between them when his little bracelet was concerned.

His life apart from that remained unchanged. He still trained to join his chosen clan - the Yun - and prepared for his Honour Age. But the bracelet was like a shadow over his achievements. Yasmin visited them at least three times a year, from wherever they were in Darhan, no matter how far they had to travel. And always with the same purpose: to try to remove the knotted bracelet.

After Yasmin had left them the last time - after new meditation tricks designed to unlock his mind had failed - Raim had slipped his Yun training dagger beneath the string and tried to slice through it. It didn't break, or even fray. But in a way he was glad. Someone had given this to him, and he wanted to keep it for just a little bit longer. To everyone else - the other tribe members, Mhara, Khareh - he claimed the bracelet was a good luck charm from his sister Dharma that he would remove once he joined the Yun.

There was a small fire between them and on top of it sat a squat, round black pot. Yasmin did not look at him as he sat, but continued to stir the contents, occasionally sifting in more of a powdery green substance with her other hand. After a few moments, more thick white smoke appeared at the rim of the bowl. She blew it, hard, into his face.

Immediately he reeled back into a vision: a memory.

Thanks for reading this exclusive extract of The Oathbreaker's Shadow! I am posting every Tuesday and Friday until May 22nd, when The Oathbreaker's Shadow is finally released in paperback. If you can't wait, it's available in hardback and ebook from now. 

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