The Second Blade

In a realm of four kingdoms united by fragile peace, an ancient evil stirs in the mountains. Valeric, immortal, cunning, and believed dead for centuries has built Eydrin, a shadow academy that trains assassins from every kingdom. And he's sending his greatest student to infiltrate Osraed Preparatory Institute with a single objective: retrieve Keyaan Ashford, alive.
Keyaan is the best soldier Osraed has ever produced. At eighteen, he's completed more missions than graduates twice his age, and he's never lost a fight. But when three foreign students arrive at the academy: a composed princess, a reckless fire-born, and a soldier from the mountains...something shifts. The princess reads him like she knows his deepest instincts. The fire-born nearly defeats him in combat. And both of them hide secrets beneath their carefully constructed facades.
As Keyaan struggles to understand why these strangers unsettle him, he begins to notice patterns: missing intelligence, disappearing scientists, operatives moving in the shadows. Something is happening at Osraed, and it's connected to the three students he's been assigned to mentor. The only question is whether he'll uncover the truth before it's too late, or whether the ghosts of his past will destroy him first.