Of Wind and Wolves (The Steppe Saga, #1)

***2026 IPPY Award Winner for Historical Fiction***

Anaiti is a hamazan—a woman trained to ride and fight among the horse-warriors of the fifth-century BCE steppe. When her father seeks an alliance with the aging Skythian king, she agrees to an arranged marriage to secure her people’s future. Yet an ancient law stands between her and the wedding: a hamazan must first take an enemy’s scalp.

Anaiti has never killed a man. And she has no intention of starting now.

Instead, she joins the king’s warband, hoping to prove her worth while finding a way to escape the fate others have chosen for her. But the steppe is a world of fierce loyalties and ancient obligations, where every gift creates a debt and every act of defiance carries a price. As Anaiti earns the wary respect of the warriors—and the trust of their enigmatic commander—her struggle for freedom becomes entangled with a growing conflict over the future of Skythia itself.

To survive, she must decide what she is willing to sacrifice for those she loves—and whether surrendering her freedom is the same as surrendering herself.

The first volume in The Steppe Saga trilogy, Of Wind and Wolves is a haunting historical novel inspired by the accounts of Herodotus and the ancient world of the Scythians, whose warrior women helped give rise to the Greek legends of the Amazons.