The Oathbreaker's Shadow

Fifteen-year-old Raim lives in a world where you tie a knot for every promise that you make. Break that promise and you are scarred for life, and cast out into the desert.

Raim has worn a simple knot around his wrist for as long as he can remember. No one knows where it came from, and which promise of his it symbolises, but he barely thinks about it at all - not since becoming the most promising young fighter ever to train for the elite Yun guard. But on the most important day of his life, when he binds his life to his best friend (and future king) Khareh, the string bursts into flames and sears a dark mark into his skin.

Scarred now as an oath-breaker, Raim has two options: run, or be killed.

AMY McCULLOCH is an editor and writer based in London. A pop-culture obsessive, she has published several teen-oriented non-fiction titles under the pseudonym Amy Rickman, including Gleeful! A Totally Unofficial Guide to the Hit TV Show Glee and Blood Brothers, a double-biography of the actors from the hit series The Vampire Diaries. Her love for teen culture is matched only by her love of science fiction and fantasy, which she edits for a major publishing house in the UK. She is originally from Ottawa, Ontario.