'This startling alternative history takes us to a newly-imagined world... The result is a vivid, ferocious adventure' Kim Stanley-Robinson 'A highly original, vividly-imagined fantasy Roman Empire where oil is power' Ruth Downie A Female Gladiator's Vow. A Stolen Child. A Storm to End Empires In an oil-fuelled Roman Empire which never fell, Arrow – a gladiatrix turned governess – must rescue Livy, the child she never meant to love, a girl who could tear down the world. When Livy is abducted during a devastating Godstorm, Arrow must unleash years of the gladiator training she'd sworn to forget in order to save her. Defying her owner, a heartless Consul, Arrow turns to her ex-lover and the illegal druid underworld in a desperate attempt to rescue the girl she has tried not to think of as her own. Her search will take her across Londinium, a city of petrol-powered chariots, to the pagan Old Town, and eventually the edge of the known world: the Amazon, where destiny and destruction intertwine. Facing battle and betrayal Arrow must choose: reclaim her past as a killer—or risk everything for the child who might call her 'mother.' She is the Sword.