Blood & Steel
With her death foretold, Althea Zoltaire only has three years to become what she’s always dreamed of being: a warrior legend. Women are forbidden to wield blades, so she has trained in secret her entire life. Now racing against the clock, she fights to secure her place in the elite guild charged with the protection of the five kingdoms. The sparring and hazing of the new trainees border on deadly, but even more dangerous is her growing attraction to Wilder Hawthorne, her unwilling warrior chaperone. All around them, schemes are afoot and darkness looms. Will Althea pass the perilous initiation test and take her place as a champion of Thezmarr – or will the invading evil snatch away her dream before it starts?
A warrior-in-training racing a foretold early death to earn a place in the elite guild defending the five kingdoms of Thezmarr, in a world where women are forbidden to fight.
The youngest of Thezmarr's Legends, assigned as Althea's reluctant and standoffish warrior chaperone during her guild trials.
Althea's sister, raised with her as an orphan in the Thezmarr fortress, where she trains to become an alchemist.
A fellow trainee at Thezmarr and one of Althea's closest friends, teasing and joking with her through the guild's brutal trials.
A fellow trainee at Thezmarr and, alongside Cal, one of Althea's closest friends through the guild's brutal trials.
Blood & Steel is the first book in Helen Scheuerer's The Legends of Thezmarr series, followed by Vows & Ruins, Fate & Furies, and Shadow & Storms.