Black Shield Virgin

Willow Smith
,
Jess Hendel

From Willow Smith and Jess Hendel comes a powerful and groundbreaking historical epic about an African warrior in a Viking world.

Tradition, legend, and history tell us about the Vikings: warrior kings on epic journeys of conquest and plunder. But the stories we know are not the only stories we tell. There is another story, one lost in the mists of time: the saga of the Dark Queen. This saga begins with Yafo, a rebellious, fiercely compassionate young warrior, who is kidnapped from her home in the flourishing Ghanaian empire and taken as a slave to a far-off kingdom in the North. There, she is thrust into a strange and cold world, a world of monstrous shieldmaids, tyrannical rulers, and mysterious gods. There, she finds something unexpected: a kindred spirit. She comes to serve Freydis, a shy princess who is not so different from the confident Yafo. But they both want the same thing: to forge their own destiny. Yafo inspires Freydis to dream of a greater future than the one imposed on her by the king and queen. With the princess by her side, Yafo learns how to navigate this new world and becomes more determined to become a legendary shieldmaid. Yafo may have lost her homeland, but she still knows who she is, and she's unafraid to be the flame that burns a city until a new world rises from its ashes. She will change the course of history and become the revolutionary heroine of her own legend.