Kael Thorne

The villagers called him Kael Thorne long before they knew whether he was a man or a myth. They spoke his name in lowered voices, as though the mountains themselves were listening. Some claimed he had wrestled a frost bear barehanded. Others swore they had watched him walk through dragonfire with nothing but a weathered black cloak and a sword scarred by a hundred impossible battles. When she first saw him, he looked nothing like a legend. He stood alone beneath the shattered archway of an ancient temple, broad-shouldered and impossibly calm as rain rolled from dark hair onto polished steel. A pale scar crossed one eyebrow, giving him a permanently defiant expression. His sharp amber eyes swept across the ruins with the patience of a hunter who already knew where his prey was hiding.