Paul Russell Garrett

Hirka has always been a little bit different, ostracized because her tail was cut off when she was an infant, so it is unexpected that she's summoned to take place in this year's Rite -- and even more shocking that her adoptive father reveals she is a tailless, powerless, human whose kiss rots flesh. The Rite also looms for Rime, a popular young man whose discovery of Hirka's secret threatens his destiny on the Council, and Urd, who would literally...

"Hirka has been sent to the world of the blind, a powerful and immortal people whom she has been taught to fear since infancy---and who now see her as their only chance to reignite a thousand-year-old war. The blind will use Hirka's ability to travel between worlds to return to Ym, the land where Hirka grew up and where the blind were betrayed all those years ago. And this time, they will prevail"--