The Shaping Trip: A Story of Courtship on Grigory IV
Young Sethlan leaves on his shaping trip with his brother and the other boys from town. They won’t come back until they’re proven adults…and many won’t come back at all.
Shaping trips are the ritual journeys that impulsive, violent young Tachba boys take when they come of age. They leave their families to see the world and fend for themselves, and the boys that return are considered sane and safe enough to join society.
On his shaping trip, Sethlan finds himself facing the most dangerous adversary on the planet: a young Tachba woman of marrying age.
Ponym Paramadon is clever, cruel, and utterly captivating, a prize in a world where only one boy in dozens ever has a chance to marry. Courtship among the Tachba is more like warfare, and Sethlan’s friends besiege the Paramadon compound. It’s all very violent and respectable—except Ponym is having none of it. She has plans of her own and refuses to be married.
Set in the “Lines of Thunder” universe, The Shaping Trip is a standalone story featuring a younger Sethlan Semelon from the novel The Eternal Front.
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