**Back cover:** Rafi has spent his whole life preparing for the Byrval - the Vardori coming-of-age trial that will earn him his place in the tribe. When the time comes, he doesn't accept the task he's given. He requests the brown bear. Alone. No Vardori hunter has ever taken a brown bear by himself. Even the great Varek nearly died trying, and he had help. What follows is one moon cycle in the wilderness of Norrheim - a trial that will test everything Rafi knows about hunting, survival, and the difference between skill and judgment. The bear is larger than he imagined.

The plan fails on the first day. And the lessons he spent years resenting may be the only things that bring him home. *The Byrval* is a story about what it costs to prove yourself, and what you leave on the mountain when you do. --- **ISBN summary** (short descriptor): A young Vardori hunter enters his coming-of-age wilderness trial demanding the most dangerous task his tribe has ever assigned - a brown bear, alone, in the mountains of Norrheim. What he finds there will test everything his mentors gave him and everything his pride refused to hear.