Kel has been allowed to continue her training to be a knight. While she has been allowed to continue by Wyldon of Cavall, her stiff, old-fashioned training master, she's still not accepted by many of the male pages. Though she and her friends Neal, Merric, Cleon, and Owen continue to fight the hazing of the first years, the others appear to have lost interest. Kel wonders if she is the only one who really cares. Meanwhile, Joren of Stone Mountain, once Kel's self-acclaimed archenemy, appears to have drastically changed. Ever since he became a squire, he has been civil, almost friendly to Kel and her friends. She does not trust this apparent change of heart at first, but as the years pass, she begins to think that she has nothing to worry about from him.

Udgivet af Laurel Leaf 

Tamora Pierce
Tamora Pierce was born in Pennsylvania in 1954. Her mother wanted to name her "Tamara" but the nurse misspelled it as "Tamora". When she was five her sister Kimberly (who she based Alanna on) was born and a year later her second sister, Melanie, was born. She began reading when she was very young and started writing at about 6 years old. Her interest in fantasy and science fiction began when she was introduced to J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, and so she started to write the kind of books that she was reading. After her parents divorced, her mother moved her and her sisters back to Fayette County in 1969, where she spent two years at Albert Gallatin Senior High. When her family moved again, she spent her senior year at Uniontown Area Senior High School, acting, singing, and writing for the school paper. While at the University of Pennsylvania she wrote the books that became the The Song of the Lioness quartet. The first book of this quartet, Alanna: The First Adventure was published by Atheneum Books in 1983.