The Hunt of the Marked Ones

Atlas is the sole heir to the Thoral bloodline, a family who have dedicated their lives to be the leaders of the Acrocoran Hunters, the country's most successful militia that sought to exterminate every Marked One.

Lyra is a young Marked One. A woman with blood ‘cursed’ by the Old Gods with the goal of continuing the rein of destruction brought upon the country of the once ‘virtuous’ Old Gods.

On his seventeenth birthday, Atlas is sent on his Hunt. The trial is meant to prove him to be the worthy future leader of the Acrocoran Hunters. The Hunt is a test that each heir of the Thoral bloodline is required to complete if they are to become the leader. On their Hunt, the heir must hunt down and capture a Marked One, bring her back to the village, and finally execute her in front of the people, only then would the heir be allowed to succeed the leadership when their predecessor’s time came.

In a moment of near death while on the first day of his Hunt, Atlas is saved by a mysterious girl, named Lyra who appears from within the Terminal Forest. Curiosity bound them together, both being intrigued by the other's way of life. But then the Hunter becomes the hunted, and Atlas and Lyra must team up to escape.

When one thing leads to another, Lyra must reveal to Atlas that she is in fact a Marked One in order to save their lives, Atlas’s whole world comes crashing down. For the first time in his life, he had finally met another person who he had felt was able to break down his walls and let him feel alive again. Still, he finds out that she is one of the ‘cursed’ women he has been warned about for his entire life, but if her people were so dangerous, why did she save his life on more than one occasion? Why did she let him live knowing who he was? Where had he come from?

When the heir still hasn't returned home from his Hunt, after a week a fear settles over the town of Aplana. He was the only heir, what was going to happen if he never returned from his Hunt? The Acrocorans set off to find their heir amidst the chaos, while they are rushing to find the heir, the heir is on his way to them, hand in hand with the girl he is supposed to kill, yet that isn't the reason he is bringing her back to Acrocora.

Destined to be each other's worst enemies. On opposite sides of a war, a deep connection, one that is so deep it feels unworldly, makes the fight even more dangerous. In a mission to reveal the truth of the Marked Ones and be able to choose their lives for themselves, Atlas and Lyra must fight for their love and their lives in a world that wants anything but that.