Root and Branch

Noah Woodsman learned early that the world takes what it can and calls it justice. He keeps his head down, hunts quietly, and sleeps with one hand on the ground—listening to the trees that whisper him warnings. The old woman who raised him calls it wood magic. Everyone else calls it witch work, and in these lands, that’s reason enough to hang a man. So Noah stays invisible . . . until two soldiers ride out of the dawn, tied to their saddles—one dead, one dying—and trouble follows their blood like wolves on a wounded stag.
Lieutenant Lang Gorlan should’ve died on the border. Instead, Noah hauls him to a healer’s shack and buries the bodies that come looking to finish the job. The killings buy time, not safety. Rich men grow richer on other people’s graves, bounty hunters sell misery by the head, and every road leads to someone who wants Noah’s coin, Noah’s work, or Noah himself. When a freed man with a slave collar and a wagon full of spoils attaches himself to Noah, the forest boy finds he’s building a family whether he wants one or not.
River Bend offers no welcome, only a baron’s contempt and a city full of eyes. A “haunted” farm on crown land promises shelter, but curses don’t keep the living out—only the hungry do. And when war whispers from Carengard, Noah is pushed into deeper work: scouting, spying, stealing truths that can’t be spoken aloud.
In a country that fears mages and feeds on the weak, Noah must decide what kind of monster survival will make of him.