Will dreams of an escape. Hesitant to return home to his cruel, abusive father, the lowly village boy encounters two youths walking his way and is delighted when they engage him in playful sword fighting. And when he joyfully accepts an offer to move to the castle and become a squire, he’s utterly unaware of the deadly perils he’s about to confront.\ Training as a knight-to-be, Will and his companions discover tunnels running beneath the castle and are viciously attacked by murderous exiles intent on toppling the monarchy.

As a 3,000-year-old threat reemerges, only one man has the power to awaken the world’s greatest protectors and restore order to the realm. He just doesn’t know it yet. When Jerrol Haven, a captain in the King’s Rangers, discovers treason at the highest level, he knows immediately that the knowledge puts his life at risk. And indeed, though he expected the ailing King to shield him, the ambitious Crown Prince sentences Jerrol to death. What hold does the Prince have over his weakened father, and who or what is he protecting?

Conrad lives a quiet rural life with his parents in the Northlands. During one fated night, his world is turned on its head, as nightmares become reality. While his Northlands blood cries out for revenge, Conrad’s head tells him surviving is the best he can do. Rescued by a motley band of mercenaries, Conrad embarks on a life he could barely have imagined. As new challenges, friends, and enemies present themselves, Conrad knows that one day he will have to face the evil that so altered his life, and when that day comes, he must be ready.

Hazard King had always wanted to be an Imperial Fleet officer, just like his father. But he’s a Prince of the Realm, which make things a bit more… complicated. And when Hazard’s parents tell him that they don’t trust his older brother and want Hazard to be the Crown Prince—the heir to the throne—things go from bad to worse. Just when it seems they can’t get any worse, the Empress is attacked.

They were once the most powerful mages in the land, but they were betrayed. Their crafted weapons and armor were stolen and they were exiled. Now, with war on the horizon, the king needs them again. But they won't be wielding magic for the king. Not this time. The Lost Mages are coming home, and this time, they're out for vengeance.

War comes for an unprepared squire. Gareth Arban wants to become a knight and win glory enough to marry the girl he loves. But death is the other face of glory. When invaders sweep out of the north wielding mighty dark magic, it will take more than a squire’s bravery to stop them.

Legend. Myth. Nightfall has long been rumored to be nothing more than whispers on the breeze. If only it were so. In those halls of darkness, where children are taken from the world and given to shadow and dust, Asher is destined for that same fate. He will become the myth. He will become the legend. He will become the whisper of Death itself.

Trained as a knight, condemned as a heretic, exiled as a convict, Prentice’s every moment is a struggle just to survive. The Duke is dead and now Duchess Amelia, his young and inexperienced bride, must rule the Western Reach alone. But when an unknown enemy invades her lands, slaughtering all in their path, her knights are too eager for glory to see the danger. She must turn to Prentice, a convict, wise in the art of war and the only one she can trust despite the dishonor it brings.

One hundred years ago, the Eternals, 13 men and women closer to gods than mortals, stood against the greatest threat the world had ever faced. They died. All save for one who managed to flee with the enemy leader’s weapon, a cursed blade of incredible power. This is a battle he fights alone, for after they defeated the Eternals, the enemy used their magic to pose as their conquered opponents, taking over rule of the world in their stead. For the last 100 years, the people have believed that the legendary Eternals triumphed, that they are safe. Only the wanderer knows the truth .

Verdan Blacke is an Imperial Wizard, a researcher by preference but soldier by necessity. Surviving an intense battle, Verdan is cursed by a hex witch in her final moments. Without any good options, Verdan escapes the ever-increasing pain the curse inflicts by performing a self-made stasis ritual.

Kelvin Wiltshire lives the life of a simple cook in a remote village on the far side of Trendham. The townsfolk think little of the man and his son and believe him to be just another refugee from the Terabinian war. On cold winter nights, they share rumors of the bloody conflict and the mysterious death of Will Cartwright, the mighty mage who had the power to command storms. They like the new cook. They fear the fallen king. But the two men are one and the same.

Nobleman and born soldier Ben Stiger never backs down from a fight. Even as the son of an infamous imperial general, an outcast from society, he refuses to crumble under the unforgiving shadow of his once-powerful family’s disgrace. When he’s reassigned from his crack company to the struggling southern army, he’s eager to help turn the tide against a growing deadly rebellion.

Infused with magic, shadows and starlight, the powerful godblades were believed to be lost nearly half a millennia ago, when the Godswar ended. Now, however, one has been found by the unlikeliest of wielders: Sampson Gaard, a blind but ambitious prince with something to prove. The only question is whether he controls the blade or the blade him. With an insidious evil lurking in the shadows, the answer may very well determine the fate of all Kingfall.

When a high-ranking officer gallops into the quiet Mistyvales, he brings a warning that shakes the countryfolk to their roots. But for Aedan, a scruffy young adventurer with veins full of fire and a head full of ideas, this officer is not what he seems. The events that follow propel Aedan on a journey that only the foolhardy or desperate would risk, leading him to the gates of the nation's royal academy - a whole world of secrets in itself. But this is only the beginning of his discoveries.

In this prequel episode from Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials universe, Lee Scoresby—Texan aeronaut and future friend to Lyra Belacqua—is just 24 years old, and he's recently won his hot-air balloon in a poker game. He finds himself floating North to the windswept Arctic island of Novy Odense, where he and his hare daemon Hester are quickly tangled in a deadly plot involving an oil magnate, a corrupt mayoral candidate, and Lee's longtime nemesis from the Dakota Country, a hired killer with at least twenty murders to his name.

As niece of the king, Elise Lysander cares about two things: sneaking into gambling dens, and avoiding an advantageous marriage at all costs. When her uncle holds the life of her deathly ill father over her head, reluctantly, Elise puts her fate into the hands of Legion Grey, the handsome and mysterious dowry negotiator. He may be arrogant and infuriating, but soon Legion incites a blistering, forbidden passion she can’t ignore.

At 16, Bleak lost the only person she cared for when her mentor died at sea. Now 19, she still misses him terribly. She needs him more than ever. That’s why Bleak drinks. But the haze of the mead and wine has hidden something from her. Her powers have grown more than she knows. Others have noticed. When the king sends his top commander to take her, Bleak is too hungover to resist. But he isn’t the only one who needs her for their plans. What does he want?

They call her Traitor Kate. It’s a title Kate Brighton inherited from her father after he tried to assassinate the high king of Rime. Cast out of the nobility, Kate now works for the royal courier service. Only the most skilled ride for the Relay and only the fastest survive, for when night falls, the drakes - deadly flightless dragons - come out to hunt. Fortunately, Kate has a secret edge: She is a wilder, born with forbidden magic that allows her to influence the minds of animals.

Forced to disguise herself as a boy and serve in the king's army, Alexa uses her quick wit and fierce sword-fighting skills to earn a spot on the elite prince's guard. But when a powerful sorcerer sneaks into the palace in the dead of night, even Alexa can't prevent him from abducting her, her fellow guard and friend Rylan, and Prince Damian, taking them through the treacherous wilds of the jungle and deep into enemy territory. The longer Alexa is held captive with both Rylan and the prince, the more she realizes that she is not the only one who has been keeping dangerous secrets.

Below Forsaken Mountain, a plot is being hatched to overthrow the tyrant king of Trollus, and Marc is the right-hand man of its leader. His involvement is information more than one troll would kill to possess, which is why he must keep it a secret from everyone, even the girl he loves. After accidentally ruining her sister's chance to become queen, Pénélope is given one last opportunity by her father, the Duke d'Angoulême, to make herself useful: she must find proof that the boy she's in love with is conspiring against the crown.

The Downs, the poor district of the city of Avarest, is home to cutthroats and thieves, pickpockets and prostitutes, all of whom pay tribute to one of two powerful crime bosses. It is also home to Aaron Envelar, a disillusioned sellsword known as the Silent Blade, who cares nothing for the criminal overlords or their schemes, who only wants to survive and make a little coin. But when a group of thugs steal his mother’s necklace, the only link he has to his murdered parents, Aaron decides that sometimes gold isn’t enough - sometimes, blood is the only payment worth taking.

He is England's greatest knight, the man who saved the life of Alfred the Great and an entire kingdom from a Viking invasion. But when he is called back into service to combat a plague of monstrous beasts known as abominations, he meets a fate worse than death and is condemned to a life of anguish, solitude, and remorse. She is a fierce young warrior, raised among an elite order of knights. Driven by a dark secret from her past, she defies her controlling father and sets out on a dangerous quest.

Seventeen-year-old Ismae escapes from the brutality of an arranged marriage into the sanctuary of the convent of St. Mortain, where the sisters still serve the gods of old. Here she learns that the god of Death himself has blessed her with dangerous gifts—and a violent destiny. If she chooses to stay at the convent, she will be trained as an assassin and serve as a handmaiden to Death. To claim her new life, she must destroy the lives of others.

The only human student at Mather's School of Magick, Phineas Smith has a target on his back. Born with the rare ability to tap into unlimited magick, he finds both Faerie Courts want his allegiance - and will do anything to get it. They don't realize he can't levitate a feather, much less defend the Faerie Realm as it slips into civil war. Unseelie Prince Roark Lyne, Phineas's roommate - and self-proclaimed arch-nemesis - is beautiful and brave and a pain in the ass.

They are the fatemarked. Misunderstood. Worshipped. Hated. Murdered at birth. Their time to step into the light has come. An ancient prophecy foretold their coming, the chosen few who will bring peace to a land embroiled in a century of mistrust and war. When kings start dying, that hope and belief swiftly turns to fear. Roan Loren is one of the fatemarked, but has hidden his mark of power his entire life, fearing the damage it might cause to those around him. A great evil is coming. He can't hide anymore.

Magic needs a spark. And Maggie’s powers are especially fickle. With no one to help her learn to control her magic, the life debt that she owes stretches eternally over her head, with no way to repay it. Until she meets Griffin, the king’s champion, infamous for hunting down the draignochs that plague their kingdom. Neither has any idea of the destiny that they both carry, or that their meeting will set off a chain of events that will alter every aspect of the life they know - and all of history thereafter.

Seventeen-year-old Kiva Meridan has spent the last ten years fighting for survival in the notorious death prison, Zalindov, working as the prison healer. When the Rebel Queen is captured, Kiva is charged with keeping the terminally ill woman alive long enough for her to undergo the Trial by Ordeal: a series of elemental challenges against the torments of air, fire, water, and earth, assigned to only the most dangerous of criminals.

VISIONS OF FLESH AND BLOOD: a Blood and Ash/Flesh and Fire Compendium is a comprehensive companion guide for background, history, reader-favorite information, and reference materials. Combined with original short stories and scenes from some of the world’s most beloved characters, it’s a treat for the senses.

Author Mark Lawrence has won over audiences everywhere with Prince of Thorns, his exciting debut novel. Nine-year-old Prince Jorg is forced to watch as his mother and brother are slaughtered. Fleeing the palace, Jorg joins a bloodthirsty band of thugs. But he’s determined to take back what’s rightfully his, so he returns to the castle a few years later - unaware of the dark and powerful magic that awaits.

The daughter of rich but neglectful parents, Terisa Morgan lives alone in a New York City apartment, a young woman who has grown to doubt her own existence. Surrounded by the flat reassurance of mirrors, she leads an unfulfilled life - until the night a strange man named Geraden comes crashing through one of her mirrors, on a quest to find a champion to save his kingdom of Mordant from a pervasive evil that threatens the land.