About this ebook
Saritrah cannot allow herself to fall in love with the Oracle, a woman who cannot hold a spear and who hesitates to kill. Before their deaths during the insurrection, Saritrah's parents taught her three things: loyalty is greater than love, trust no one, and only the strongest deserve to live. Saritrah is on a quest to take back her kingdom, and her people need a warrior queen—not someone weakened by love.
The Oracle has given her a path back to the throne: find a lost city, obtain an ancient artifact with unimaginable power, and kill those standing in her way, even if it might set a disastrous prophecy in motion. But the insurrectionists are not her only enemies. Her brother also survived, and he wants the artifact. While Saritrah seeks to avert calamity, he is courting it.
Saritrah must give up everything—her beliefs, her vision of the future, and perhaps even her crown—if she's to save herself, her kingdom, and the Oracle.
Smoke and Steel is part of the Scions and Shadows series but can be enjoyed as a standalone novel. It is perfect for fans of Xena: Warrior Princess who enjoy morally gray lesbians on a journey of redemption with lots of action, romance, and intrigue.
Discover more
Ratings and reviews
- Flag inappropriate
About the author
Dax is an award-winning author of revolutionary fantasy that focuses on trauma, healing, and leftist political advancement. After realizing their dream of being a curmudgeonly hedgewitch in the woods of Western Pennsylvania was not possible due to the construction of a Dave & Busters, Dax took up a new form of sorcery, where they whispered to rocks in arcane languages and taught them how to spy on you, colloquially known as software engineering.
But this new career lead to an epic battle between the valiant forces of Ethics and all-powerful legion of Student Loan Payments, and Dax left that behind to join the magical order of word-placing. Today, they can be found waiting on the two god (ie: cat) who has allowed them to live in their abode and use their word-magic to make others cry.
Dax studied political science and creative writing at Allegheny College in Pennsylvania and is a member of the Editorial Freelancers Association. When not writing, they can be found at the Crystarium in Norvrandt.
