Champion in the Darkness

Enter the world of Aramatir through the eyes of fifteen-year-old Sword Apprentice Clara, who wants to walk in the footsteps of her Sword Master mother and her unofficial Sword Scout mentor Stelia. Her father’s faithful life as a Shepherd of the Lord is beautiful to her, but she is drawn to the life of the sword. Despite her strict training in weapons-work, she has a streak of restlessness and likes to race through the streets of her home city of Skycliff and pull pranks on unsuspecting nobles with her best friend Salene.
This life comes to an end abruptly on the day she discovers she is destined to become the next Champion of Aramatir, a hero chosen by the Lord only when great evil threatens the world. She cannot enter the Hall of the Swords to receive her blade of power, for the true blade of the Champion will come to her in a time of need, as it has for all Champions. She must give up her pranks and continue her training as a high-ranking Sword Master Apprentice under the tutelage of the grim Sword Master Dantor.
Dantor has seen a vision of Clara as the Champion and he knows she will need rigorous training to overcome the dark forces already gathered at the edges of their small country, Septily, within the world of Aramatir. Septily has lost its allies due to the strange behavior of King Alexandros, and now it stands alone with the mercenary Drinaii and the sorcerous Dark Sisterhood camping out along the border. Dantor must break the news to the Sword Master Council that Clara is the next Champion, and she is in need of more training.
But that isn’t the worst of the news they receive. Stelia, Clara’s unofficial Sword Scout mentor and an ally not trusted by all of the Sword Council, has discovered that Kalidess, the evil Sorceress who leads the Dark Sisterhood, has wormed her way into the heart of King Alexandros of Septily. The strange new guards of the King who have replaced respectable Sword Guards within his castle in Skycliff may, in fact, be Drinaii in disguise. Darkness threatens to overwhelm Septily from within and from without, and Clara is not the Champion yet.
Champion in the Darkness is YA Christian Fantasy, and is the first book in the Champion Trilogy.