Thomasyn Saye was chosen to protect the Realm before he was old enough to understand what protection meant.

Born during a violent storm in a brothel, Thomasyn loses his mother the night he enters the world. A Wooder waiting nearby already knows the child's fate: Thomasyn will become a Spear, one of the Realm's elite protectors and keepers of its justice.

Taken away and raised by the ancient order, Thomasyn knows no other life. From infancy, his body is conditioned for endurance. As he grows, the lessons become harder. Weapons. Concealment. Law. Discipline. Loyalty. A Spear must be strong enough to fight, wise enough to judge, and willing to place the Realm before himself.

But becoming a protector requires more than surviving the training.

Thomasyn grows among other children facing the same unforgiving path, forming friendships and discovering compassion within a system built around obedience and sacrifice. He also begins to see that those entrusted with shaping the Realm's protectors are not beyond cruelty, ambition, or failure?and that justice and vengeance are not the same thing.

With the Five Gods watching over the Realm and ancient traditions governing nearly every part of his existence, Thomasyn must learn what it truly means to wear the cloak of a Spear.

Because serving the Realm is more than carrying a weapon.

It means deciding what kind of man will carry it.

A New Spear, Book One of The First Book of Spears, begins Thomasyn Saye's journey from a child marked by destiny to a young warrior learning that strength, honour, compassion, and justice do not always demand the same thing.