This volume republishes Derr's first three short stories (circa 2009ish?), an interconnected trilogy of tales about knights in a world divided by four kingdoms named imaginatively enough North, South, East, and West. She does show some solid character building here, but the very shortness of the stories doesn't allow for a lot of depth, both in world building or characters except within the main character. I wish when republishing these, she had taken the time to edit more thoroughly, there were were spelling errors and awkward sentence construction sprinkled through the prose.
The Knight and the Dragon - 4 Stars
Bran is a knight who has been in service to the King of the West for over 30 years. He's just seen his squire killed in action, he's tired of always being on the frontlines, and he wants to retire. He's been given a castle and lands during his service that he's never seen because he's always sent away to do his duty. When he presents his request to leave service, the king says "oh no, you're too much needed, we'll revisit this in 5 years." So when Bran hears about a dragon threatening a small remote town, he volunteers to go deal with it. His plan is to eliminate the dragon, and in doing so, position himself so he dies along with it. Only the dragon Topaz isn't what he expected... and has other ideas, and feelings.
The Knight and the Statute -2 Stars
Set about 5 years after The Knight and the Dragon, Grey (a minor knight) is asked to return to the North castle where he was found as a child, climbing up out of the mists that surround it. It seems Dunstan's family is being plagued by a curse inflicted by bandits, and the family believes Grey can help resolve it. Once Grey arrives, he discovers Dunstan is a statute, surrounded by impenetrable brush of roses, his sister has a painful curse wearing her down, and the bandits are squatting in the castle to prevent anyone from coming to the family's rescue.
There could have been more interaction between Grey and Dunstan.
The Knight and the Prince - 2 Stars
After being bullied again by his fellow knights, Victor (Grey's former squire) escapes in the North woods to calm down. He hears sounds of battle nearby and saves Prince Amir of the East from being attacked by Western soldiers in disguise as Northern Soldiers. Amir was on his way to visit the South Kingdom and somehow they were herded to the North. Victor is sent by Bran and Topaz to assure the Eastern King that Amir is well and okay. The two kingdoms decide to pretend hostilities to flush out the West and their spies. Prince Shahzad is Victor's guide during the months he spends in the castle.
Victor was engaging but there was zero tension here between Victor and Shahzad. This one fell flat for me.
Overall I'd rate this closer to 2.25, but because I generally always find Derr's work enjoyable to read, I'm grading on scale. 3 stars.