Garrick

An ancient wolfkin prophecy speaks of a white wolf who will stand at the crossroads of a coming war, with the power to unite the scattered wolfkin clans or lead them to destruction.Her elders believe she may be that wolf.Sera thinks prophecies are nonsense invented by people who have run out of sensible things to do. She has told no one about the prophecy, especially not Garrick, who would undoubtedly take it seriously and begin making plans.
Unfortunately, strange things have begun happening in the northern territories. Wolfkin settlements have gone silent. Travelers report seeing unnatural creatures moving through the mountains. And an old symbol, one thought lost for centuries, has appeared on the doors of abandoned villages.
The past Garrick escaped and the future Sera refuses to believe in may be connected.
And the two of them are about to discover that some adventures cannot be solved by killing whatever happens to be standing in front of them.

Years before Sera's reunion with Garrick, his mercenary company accepted a contract to protect a village caught between a human kingdom and an invading army.
The contract was simple: hold the village until its inhabitants could escape.
The kingdom's commander subsequently ordered the mercenaries to abandon the villagers and withdraw. The settlement was considered strategically unimportant, and the soldiers were needed elsewhere.
Garrick refused.
He and a handful of companions stayed behind, holding the village long enough for hundreds of people to flee. Most of his companions died. Garrick survived, but the experience left him with a deep distrust of those who treated lives as expendable numbers on a map.
He never told Sera the full story.She knows he lost friends. She knows he sometimes wakes from nightmares and sits awake until dawn. But she doesn't know that he still carries the insignia of his fallen company beneath his armor, or that he secretly sends a portion of his earnings to the families of the people who died beside him.Sera has her own secret.She didn't leave the Frostfangs merely because she wanted adventure.

They eventually formed a permanent adventuring partnership.
Garrick brought experience, patience, and overwhelming physical strength. Sera brought speed, intuition, and an uncanny ability to notice things that escaped everyone else. Where Garrick preferred to plan three steps ahead, Sera preferred to improvise and insist afterward that everything had gone according to plan.They became an exceptionally effective team.Garrick could hold a narrow passage against a dozen enemies while Sera slipped behind their lines. She could track a monster through dense woodland while he studied its tracks and predicted where it would strike. In battle, they needed few words to coordinate their movements.Their differences, however, extended well beyond fighting.Sera loved crowded taverns, new acquaintances, friendly competitions, and spending money on things she absolutely did not need. Garrick preferred quiet evenings, good food, a sturdy chair, and a mug of ale large enough to qualify as construction equipment.She teased him about being old before his time.He reminded her that someone had to keep her alive long enough to become an old woman herself.Neither of them would willingly admit how much the other had come to mean to them.

Their paths crossed again in the frontier town of Dunmere, where Sera had accepted a monster-hunting contract far beyond her experience.
The creature was supposed to be a young cave troll.
It was, in fact, an enormous troll that had recently eaten an entire hunting party.
By the time Garrick arrived, Sera was trapped against a rock wall, her armor battered and her weapons scattered across the cave floor. She was still fighting, still swearing, and still refusing to admit that she might have made a mistake.
Garrick killed the troll.
Sera's first words after he pulled her to safety were, "You took your time."
His response was, "I was hoping you'd finish it yourself."
They argued all the way back to town.
By the time they reached the Adventurers' Guild, they had decided on two things. Sera would stop accepting contracts without reading the details, and Garrick would stop pretending he wasn't worried about her.
Neither promise lasted particularly long.

Garrick left first.
He was older than Sera by several years and had always possessed a restless curiosity about the world beyond the mountains. He joined a mercenary company, eventually becoming one of its most dependable fighters. He learned the languages of humans, elves, and dwarves, fought in border wars, escorted caravans, hunted monsters, and discovered that civilized kingdoms could be considerably more dangerous than the wilderness.Sera grew up hearing stories about him from returning travelers. Some described him as a legendary warrior. Others described a frightening black wolf who could cleave an ogre in half.Her favorite story involved Garrick accidentally setting fire to an entire nobleman's stable while attempting to cook dinner.When Sera finally left the Frostfangs herself, she had two ambitions: become a renowned adventurer and discover which stories about Garrick were true.She found out that most of them were exaggerated.The stable fire, unfortunately, was not.

The children of the Frostfangs
Sera and Garrick were born among the Frostfangs, a secluded wolfkin people who lived in the northern mountains beyond the borders of the civilized kingdoms.
The Frostfangs were not a savage people, despite what the stories told in human taverns claimed. They lived in close-knit communities, valued loyalty above wealth, and taught their young that strength existed for the protection of others, not simply to establish dominance.
Their people had an old tradition: when a wolfkin reached adulthood, they could leave their homeland and travel beyond the mountains. Some returned as merchants, scholars, or accomplished warriors. Others never returned at all.

Calm under pressure, with a dry sense of humor and a talent for understated insults.
Protective without believing that everyone needs to be rescued.
Enjoys cooking, sharpening his sword, and listening to stories told by ordinary travelers.
His ears tend to flatten when embarrassed, something Sera considers an endless source of entertainment.
Carries old regrets but refuses to let them dictate who he becomes.

Garrick Blackthorn
The Black Wolf · Veteran Warrior and Reluctant Guardian
Garrick is a formidable wolfkin warrior with long, wavy black hair, a thick beard, piercing blue eyes, and a build earned through years of carrying heavy weapons and surviving battles that should have killed him.
He is patient, observant, and quietly funny. He rarely raises his voice because he has discovered that most people listen better when they realize he doesn't need to. He has a habit of taking responsibility for people who have absolutely no intention of making his life easier.