Princess Caitlyn Silmerhelve is tired of being the "Spare Heir." Seven years ago, her eldest brother was slaughtered in the slums of the capital by a towering, undead monstrosity. Now nineteen and a fiercely trained Paladin, Caitlyn sets out on a grueling religious pilgrimage across the Arrian Empire, desperate to prove her worth and hunt down the nightmare that shattered her family. But the Steel Age is unforgiving, and a shield is only as strong as the vanguard standing beside it. To survive the lethal frontiers, Caitlyn must rely on Cassandra Reyne—a towering, fiercely loyal, and heavily scarred street-fighter who fights for coin, and Adriana Ebonstep, a cynical rogue with a terrifying past. Together, they stumble into a conspiracy far deadlier than a simple monster hunt. An illicit drug cartel known as the Emerald Dawn is poisoning the empire from the shadows. As the squad delves into ancient tombs and labyrinths, they are relentlessly hunted by the cartel's deadliest agents. To break the Emerald Dawn, Caitlyn and her vanguard will have to pay a brutal physical toll. And as the trap closes around the Princess, she is about to learn the most terrifying truth of all: the monsters aren't just waiting in the dark—they are already dining at her father's table.