Blazing Sword: The Last Female Samurai Book 1

Blazing Sword: The Last Female Samurai A stolen past. A forged destiny. Only the truth can set her blade free. Lady Hana has lived her entire life as the Scarlet Blade, loyal daughter and elite warrior of the powerful Lord Kaito. Trained to perfection and raised to obey without question, her world begins to fracture when a mission brings her to a remote mountain temple—where she encounters the reclusive warrior monk Oda Benkei. In his quiet hermitage, Hana learns a truth she was never meant to discover: she is not Kaito’s child at all, but the last surviving heir of the noble Ichi clan, whose downfall Kaito himself orchestrated. Shaken but resolute, Hana returns to confront Lord Kaito with the truth. Instead of answers, she receives chains. Imprisoned in her own home and stripped of her freedom, she faces the crushing reality of the man who raised her—not a protector, but the architect of her stolen life. With the secret aid of her gentle and conflicted brother, Lord Hiroshi, Hana escapes the castle’s walls. But Kaito’s assassins give chase. Hana is hunted through the wilderness, ambushed, and left at the edge of death… until Benkei finds her once again and saves her life. Forced into a political marriage with Lord Suzuki, a principled northern leader Kaito seeks to control, Hana enters a new chapter shaped not by deception but by unexpected compassion. A slow, steady bond forms between them—one built on trust rather than fear. As Hana, Suzuki, and Hiroshi gather evidence of Kaito’s tyranny, they bring the truth to the Shogun’s court, igniting a reckoning that will determine the fate of the Shogunate. Hana’s path is not one of vengeance, but of reclaiming identity, confronting a legacy of lies, and rising into the justice her true lineage demands.