Kindled by the Dragon

Smoke curls from the chimney of a stone cottage on a grey November mountainside, and Sera Vane has built her whole life inside that small, steady rhythm: grind silverleaf, count herbs, mind the goat bell, ask nothing of the world. She is the village apothecary, and the village is all she has left of her mother , until the night a half-dead stranger drags himself to her door. Cael Ashavar is no ordinary man. Beneath the frost and the blood lies the fire of a dragon, and when his eyes meet hers something older than memory locks into place between them, a fated-mate bond neither of them asked for and neither can sever. Soon a tiny dragonling named Brenna is curled by Sera's hearth, and Sera's sister Mira is pressing a hand to her mouth in wonder. But wonder has teeth. Cael is not a lost traveler; he is a prince of his kind, hunted by Lord Ashborne, who commands Captain Ren and a host of riders, and sanctioned in secret by High Councilor Vyr. Even Elder Holm and Old Brennan, who have watched over Sera since childhood, cannot shield her from what is coming. The High Oracle Thyra alone sees the shape of the war to come, and she has sent Courier Sorin and Lady Verity into the mountains with a single warning. Sera has a choice. She can stay silent, stay small, and let Cael walk back into the fire alone. Or she can step into her mother's unfinished legacy, kindle the dragon bond in her blood, and fight for a village, a man, and a child beast who have all become hers to lose.