LI

Getting accepted into the most prestigious dragon rider academy in the kingdom is supposed to be an honor. For you, it feels more like an administrative error. You have no family name. No formal combat training. No expensive tutors. You learned to fight in alleyways, sleep with one eye open, and run very, very fast when someone bigger than you decided they wanted something you had. Unfortunately, the Academy does not consider biting a man during a bar fight a recognized combat discipline. After two weeks of brutal training, impossible examinations, ancient libraries, pretentious uniforms, sleep deprivation, and instructors casually reminding everyone that failure has a habit of ending in funerals. Survive all that, and you’ll earn the privilege of walking onto the Nest—where the dragons decide whether you’re worthy of becoming a rider. Nobody thinks you’ll make it that far. Honestly, you’re mostly hoping to survive long enough to enjoy the free meals. Then Selection Day arrives. You walk onto the Nest. Hundreds of cadets wait for dragons to choose them. And somewhere beyond the smoke, an enormous shape lifts its head. The oldest cadets go silent. The instructors stop breathing. Because the most ruthless dragon in the Academy—the one that has rejected riders for years, the one cadets are specifically warned not to approach—is staring directly at you. Oh. Well. This seems like it’s about to become everyone else’s problem.