Hunter's Heart (Neilson)

Doing the right thing can become...complicated! The Bounty Huntress, Tiel Lambrie, and her companion, a fire-breathing panther named Maestro, accepts a bounty to go into the Watosh, an ageless forest of towering trees and carnivorous plants, to save an abducted villager before he becomes a badoe's next meal. The rescue brings out an acodoe, an ancient serpent clan of immense height and considered to be the mythical creature foretold in the prophesied Day of Renewal. The acodoe's arrival causes widespread panic and quickens the rate that children are being snatched by a mysterious old man. Following a disastrous rescue of some of these children by The Bounty Huntress and the Hunter Clan, ghostly apparitions escape from an unknown prison. Their very presence fills their victims with despair that drowns out hope, love, and shackles the will to live while drawing out the insane Acodoe King. As it becomes clear that one part of the prophecy is being fulfilled, new evidence comes to light that Ecalardia has already experienced one apocalyptic tragedy. Yet, Tiel needs to come to terms with a friend wrestling with a hidden personality, growing opposition within and without the Hunter Clan, find a way to heal the King of the Acodoe, and triumph over her own doubts before she and her loved ones are destroyed. Or are there even more dangers on the horizon?