Wyvern's Shadow

By: A.D. Sterling

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

In a world rewritten by poison and deceit, honor is the first casualty.

Captain Stede Blackwood, a Naval Knight of the old guard, has lived his life by a simple, unbreakable code: strength, duty, and honor. His ship, the Valour, is a bastion of order in a kingdom crumbling from a magical Blight. But a new kind of rot has taken root, one that cannot be met on the open sea with courage and steel.

Governor Maarten van der Huis, a ruthless political operator, wages a new kind of war—a battle of whispers, traps, and psychological torment, where compassion is a weakness to be exploited and honor is a myth to be mocked. When Van der Huis springs a devastating trap, slaughtering Stede’s men and proving his noble code obsolete, the Blackwood legacy is brought to its knees.

But the lion of the sea has a son, and the son has the heart of a fire.

Calico Blackwood, a swashbuckling rogue with a fencer’s grace, sees the brutal truth his father cannot: to fight a serpent, you must become one. When he learns his mother, the Lady Seraphina, has been taken prisoner in her own home—a gilded cage guarded by the Governor himself—the war becomes a deeply personal rescue mission. Forced to choose between his father’s law and his mother’s life, Calico commits an act of mutiny, embracing the dishonorable tactics of a pirate to do what the knight cannot.

He is not alone. To pull off an impossible infiltration, Calico must lead a fellowship forged in desperation:

• Laeron, an ancient elven phantom whose twin blades are whispers of death and whose strategic mind sees every angle.
• Anya, a half-orc shieldmaiden, an unstoppable force of nature who is both the crew’s anchor and its avalanche.
• Maeve, a displaced druid who weaves the fog and sea into a cloak of deception, her magic a subtle, deadly weapon.
• Father Elias, a battle-worn priest whose divine power can conjure pillars of holy fire or a bubble of absolute, tactical silence.

Their infiltration is a suicide run into a fortress of paranoia. Governor Van der Huis’s elite Wyvern Guard are more than soldiers; they are extensions of his will, hunting through a city choked by a web of spies and political treachery. Calico’s team must navigate this labyrinth of lethal force where the slightest misstep means not just failure, but a brutal, public execution. They are ghosts in a city that holds its breath, a dagger aimed at the heart of a tyrant who sees everything.

As Stede is forced to watch his son become the very thing he has always fought against, Calico walks a razor’s edge, knowing that the key to his mother’s cage is also the bait for a trap that will slam shut behind him forever.

A.D. Sterling’s explosive fantasy channels the epic world-building of J.R.R. Tolkien with the relentless high-seas action of Wilbur Smith.

• High-Stakes Naval Adventure: Embark on a thrilling journey of high-seas action, where tactical ship combat meets sword & sorcery.
• A Gripping Father-Son Conflict: Delve into a powerful family saga as a noble father and his roguish son clash over the meaning of honor in a brutal world.
• Special Operations Fantasy: Join a team of skilled warriors—an elf, a half-orc, a druid, and a priest—on a desperate, black-ops rescue mission deep in enemy territory.
• Ruthless Political Intrigue: Navigate a labyrinth of spies, assassins, and psychological warfare orchestrated by a cunning and sadistic political mastermind.
• Intense Tactical Combat: Experience the thrilling clash of blades in duels to the death and the strategic execution of a high-stakes infiltration against impossible odds.

If you love stories of family legacy, gritty action, and a fellowship of heroes fighting for survival, you must continue the saga with the third book in the Chronicle of the Withered Hand.