A Composition of Scars By Hazel S. Wilkes

Before Draven was the feared captain over one of Bathara’s revered aggregates, he was merely a teenager learning how to better his magic, better his combat, and better himself. With his brothers by his side, Draven battles against a world that has carved out his identity with a ruthless blade—despite the wrath Tynan Dalmar brings down on him each time he falls short of his father’s measure. But after a particularly cruel interaction where the fraying chords holding his family together officially snap, Draven’s mother whisks him away in the middle of the night to finally put distance between them and House Dalmar.

It is in the unsuspecting city of Príth—where colors dance and streets thrum with a living heartbeat—that Draven’s world expands far broader than he ever imagined. And as he watches his mother’s smile return while confronting his deepest fears, Draven believes he has finally found his place in the world. Has discovered the true warmth of a family at last.

Until his father shatters that illusion into a million, serrated pieces.

A Composition of Scars is a novella in the Cadence of the Fallen series that tells the tale of how Draven received his deepest scars. The ones that always remain, alive and bleeding beneath his skin. It should be read after A Requiem for Fallen Stars.