Amelia Smith

Once, Iola flew with a dragon. If she can become ambassadress to the dragons' realm, she might fly again, but first she must navigate life as an ordinary priestess. She’s wholly devoted to the dragons, but some of her fellow priestesses are dragon-blind and corrupt. Worse, they think that Iola’s devotions are actually just a sign of greed. The ambassadress returns from the dragons’ realm, too sick to fly again. Iola might have a chance to take her place, but her rival, Tiagasa, was raised in a prince's palace. Tiagasa thrives on political intrigue and gossip, and her lover is about to become governor of the city. Iola’s few friends and allies aren't much more savvy than she is. Still, they hope to persuade the new governor to make Iola ambassadress so that the temple cam be a true sanctuary of the dragons for a few years more.

The Defenders' order is dying, but that's no surprise. They've been in hiding for over a hundred years, and apprentices are getting harder to find – hardly anyone can see the dragons anymore. Eppie is a successful pickpocket. She keeps her cache – and her ability to see the dragons – well hidden. One day she picks the wrong pocket, and the next thing she knows she’s been brought in to a mysterious secret order of swordsmen and swordswomen. She’s their last apprentice, their last hope. With far too little training, she sets out to help save the dragon Tiada, but if her mentor and the others fall in the battle, who will defend the dragons next time?

Myril’s world is sinking before her eyes. Foreign ships flood into the harbor and Anamat’s citizens flee across the sea while the governor helps foreign emissaries steal from the city’s guilds. The guildmaster enlists Myril to help save the Chronicles of Anamat from the pillagers and their local allies. Her old friend Darna returns to the city strangely pregnant – if that’s what it is. She’s also about to become the ruler of Tiadun. Meanwhile Iola, the ambassadress, is determined to fly to the dragons’ realm again, even if it kills her, and the Defenders have more troubles than they can manage. Will any of them survive when the waters rise again? This book concludes the Anamat/Dragonsfall series.

Darna is just a guildswoman, or so she’d like to think, but her alleged father was the prince of a backwater province. Now he’s been assassinated, and her uncle has put a price on Darna’s head to secure his claim on the throne. Darna takes her lover’s place in a job that will take her away from the city and, she hopes, away from assassins’ daggers. Her new employer, the prince, is irate to find that the able-bodied man he hired has been replaced by a limping woman. According to the contract, they’re stuck together for the year. The prince is arrogant, but also intelligent and well-read. As winter closes in, their late night conversations turn from sea walls to more intimate territory. Meanwhile, the province’s lost dragon reappears, and even the prince can see it. This book is the second in the Dragonsfall trilogy. It is recommended that you read The Defenders' Apprentice first. The story also refers back to some events which took place in the two prequel novels, Scrapplings and Priestess.

The dragon flying over Tiadun bay is the only thing that Darna loves in the provinces, and she’s also the only person she knows of who can see it. There’s nothing else she likes about life at Tiadun keep. When she learns that she might be the daughter of the prince, she’s afraid she’ll be trapped there forever so she flees to the city of Anamat. In the city, there will be others who can see the dragons, or so the minstrels say. Along the way, she meets Myril, an older girl with frequent premonitions and an eerie sense of hearing. At the walls, they find Iola, so dragon-struck that she wants to be a priestess, and Thorat, her devoted champion. Despite these newfound friends, life in the city isn’t easy. Darna scavenges for scraps and just about gets by, but when she's offered a sack of gold beads for a small bit of thieving, she takes her chances... and ends up angering the city’s patron dragon.