#this would also explain any gap after Darius' mentor died

[drachenfalter]

Don't you happen to have theories on the way grimwalkers age and how old is Hunter chronologically?

Okay, so I had theories before it was revealed that Belos made way more grimwalkers than is reasonable.

In Hollow Mind, we only see a bit over 20 grimwalker remains, and Belos started making them roughly 350 years ago, which would give us an average age close to 16 - Hunter's age.

But then we got this:

and this:

That's a lot more than 20.

Which means my old theories no longer work. So let's make some new ones:

In For the Future, we learn that grimwalkers can come out of the mud they grow in fully formed, potentially looking much older than they are - but there is a catch to this.

"It's not ready."

Growing a grimwalker takes a long time.

Belos has been gone from the Isles for just as long as the Hexsquad, so this grimwalker was in the mud for months at least - but the fact that Belos is growing multiple at the same time when he only ever has one around leads me to believe that the process might actually take years.

Well, if you want a grown-up grimwalker, that is.

A baby grimwalker might take a lot less time. And we have reason to believe that Belos at least experimented with that at some point.

Here it is. The baby grimwalker.

Now, Hunter believes that Belos took him in after his family was destroyed by wild magic, and Hunter also is the youngest golden guard and went through the standard Coven Scout training before he took on this role. Which means he was around for a couple of years at least.

So, maybe he came out of the muck as a twelve or thirteen year old, and Belos just told him he lost his memories because of wild magic or something.

But there is one other possibility:

The baby on this page could be Hunter.

After FTF, we know that this book doesn't depict the average grimwalker. That this is a specific experiment.

Maybe Belos decided that getting them out fully grown was the reason they always betrayed him, and so decided to try another tactic.

Let the newest grimwalker grow up like a normal child, take away his (adopted) family and then Belos blames it on wild magic and presents himself as Hunter's savior to inspire loyalty and hopefully make Hunter hate magic just as much as he does.

In this case, Hunter would be really around sixteen years old, and all his memories could be real.