Reliquary

The jacket

Three centuries ago, humanity engineered the Anthros to serve them. Three centuries ago, humanity unmade itself with a sterilization plague, a cascade of electromagnetic storms, and a creature called the Velop.

Now, Rain Ström is the smallest applicant at the Shader University Mana Trials, and the most dangerous.

He is fifteen years old in a body that has not aged a day since he was nine, ever since the accident that killed his parents and left a cascade of white fur down the right side of his face. His silver collar suppresses his Mana the same way every other Extreme Hazard Anthro's does, but his abilities are unlike anyone else's, and he is keeping the worst of them secret. Not only can he teleport, he can heal himself rapidly.

For years Rain has wanted to go to Shader University and join the Shadernauts, the order sworn to protect Anthros from the Velops, writhing tendriled wolf creatures. It's also the place his adoptive guardian, the white-furred Dr. Noir, has just been installed as Dean of Medicine, in a position that was mysteriously vacated.

In his first weeks at Shader University, Rain will meet a deer-girl who can see his soul, a wolf-prodigy who can talk to magic itself, and a popular bully whose family name is the most powerful one in the city. He will also be hunted: by a federal agent who wants him in a cell, by a creature that should not exist, and by the thing his guardian has been hiding from him for years.

The first book of a planned series.

“For no reason at all, and for every reason in the world, Rain cried himself to sleep.”