Before They Could be Blades... They Were the King's Daggers. Young Stalwart, known as Wart to his fellow students, is expelled from the academy for King's Blades, only to be plunged into a current of breathless intrigue and danger. Together with Emerald, a former White Sister, Wart must survive sorcery, swordplay, ambush, a chimera, a quagmire, and more, "and" uncover a devious plot to assassinate their king...and prove himself worthy of a place among the King's Blades.

Sir Stalwart and Emerald set off for an ancient lord's house known as Smealey Hall, where they believe the source of evil—in the form of murder—lies, and along the way they are joined by Badger, a Blade-in-training.

The world's most deadly assassin has been hired to kill King Ambrose. Once again King's Daggers are plunged into danger, because only White Sister Emerald can identify the killer's magic and only Sir Stalwart knows what he looks like. The two must trap the killer before he can strike the king—or at them. As the trial of death leads back to Ironhall, the swordsmen school Stalwart so recently left, he finds he is a boy sent to do a man's job—and Emerald is a girl sent to do a boy's.