Page 1 of Between Flames and Deceit (Dragon’s Heart Duology #1)

Prologue

Kallias

M olten wax surged around my signet ring, binding Radaan’s fate. My blood pulsed, humming through my veins as I lifted the ring, revealing the precise, crisp edges of my seal.

It was done.

Months of preparation, tedious negotiation, and decades of war—all culminated in this moment.

Beside my signature, scrawled across the scroll in jagged crimson strokes, a name forged in blood.

Nereus, Dragon King of Draconia, Lord of the Wild Shores.

Above it, sketched with the same harsh strokes, Nienna, Dragon’s Heart .

A tremor passed through me as I scanned the oath one final time. This was the last chance to cast it into the flames and start anew. Yet as I read, there wasn’t a single thing to change. Nienna, daughter of the dragon king, would be given to my son in exchange for a grain tithe and the exemption of taxes on Radaan’s goods.

In return, Nienna would bring the dragons’ power to Radaan—with the promise that if war called, they would ride to her aid.

I sighed, leaning back in my chair, gaze drifting to the treaty of Vellos beside the contract. After seventeen years of conflict—over three of failed negotiations, countless deaths and sacrifices—at last, we reached terms with the Velli.

And it all hinged on this contract with Draconia .

The Velli were unyielding, starving, pushed beyond their limits. No matter how hard I tried to project strength—pretending we could endure the war, that our soldiers and supplies were infinite—I knew the truth.

My people were battered, spread too thin. Women tended the fields well enough, but I lacked the men to pull the harvest. Crops rotted in the autumn rains, sowing next spring’s wild growth.

Children went hungry, fatherless. Widows struggled to survive. A generation passed, knowing nothing but war.

I promised the next would know nothing but peace.

Radaan needed dragons—power to deter Vellos from invasion. Without them, another attack was inevitable.

Triumph stirred within as I studied the scrolls side by side. It had taken me a lifetime. Finally, finally, I would know peace.

Nienna

Wind whipped through my hair as a black-tipped tail snaked around my knees with a quiet hiss.

“I only want to see!” I protested, bracing against the purple-hued appendage.

As I leaned over the Nest’s edge, the updraft slammed into me, stealing my breath. It thrummed with power, urging me to leap, to feel wind tear at my skin, to soar like my dragons.

Behind me, the dragon queen huffed, her tail coiling tighter around me like an unyielding vise. I was her wingless hatchling, the Dragon’s Heart.

Far below, the cities appeared as fragile toys, dwarfed by the height of the Spire. The Nest sat at the highest peak of Draconia’s dark palace, where bones littered the floor and the biting wind stung my skin. Yet in that stark, chilling expanse, a strange calm settled over me, as though the winds themselves cradled me. There was no place in the world I felt safer.

Argos swept through the sky, his massive shadow blotting out daylight, a blur of green and blue followed close in his wake. Tsunami, irritable, snapped at his tail. My father, a mere speck on Argos’ back, seemed almost swallowed by the distance. Behind them, ridden by my brother, Gyrak—small and black as night—spun through the air, spewing a jet of flame at the wild blue .

Tsunami ducked, dodging the blast before pivoting toward the Nest, earning a grumble of displeasure from the dragon queen at my back.

“They’re just playing,” I mused, scanning the sky.

Riderless and restless, Tsunami refused to leave our land. Instead of venturing to the Wild Shores as other wildlings did, she prowled our skies, a constant thorn in our side. Even the Dragon Riders struggled to keep her in check.

To contain a ship-sized meddling beast was a full-time job.

A flash of white streaked across my vision. I clenched the muscled scales beneath my fingertips, my heart lurching into my throat. That was not a rock gull’s mottled hue, but the unmistakable gleam of a dove—a symbol of peace.

Although the sight of it eluded me at this distance, I knew a scroll was attached to its foot. It flew with purpose, soaring toward home, to the loft where the message would be read.

That parchment carried my future—a promise that I’d sail to another nation and marry a stranger to save my people. Signed in blood, a Draconis oath could only be purged by dragonfire.

Tsunami lurched, caught the updraft, and veered toward the dove.

“No!” I screamed, but the queen was already moving, already scrambling to the edge. Her massive form blocked my view as she towered over me, a deafening roar ripping from her throat.

Jaws snapped just shy of the poor bird, and it plummeted.

Gyrak shot between Tsunami and the dove, his wings a blur. Argos flew toward the Spire, and his enormous paw snatched the falling creature out of the air.

The great black dragon hovered a breath, and I locked eyes with my father across the expanse. Sorrow darkened his gaze, lips twisting into a pained smile before his beast descended, spiraling toward the earth. They pulled up at the last moment and veered for the landing, a jagged outcrop that led to the throne room.

My father had not surrendered me willingly. I saw it in the tightness of his jaw, the way his hands shook before he shoved it behind a mask of stoicism. To ask me to marry a prince in a foreign kingdom wasn’t a decision he made lightly. It was a sacrifice that weighed heavy on him—on both of us. Our people were starving, their bellies hollow, their strength faltering.

Our island could only sustain so much. Any crops we managed to grow withered beneath the relentless seasonal whirlstorms. The wind tore through the fields, as though the earth itself was protesting, scattering the seeds before they could take root. And with each passing season, it became harder to coax life from the soil.

My people needed food to survive, to push into the Wild Shores and expand. They depended on me to forge alliances and secure their future .

No, it wasn’t an easy thing for the Dragon King to give me away, but it was his duty to use me.

Just as it was my duty to marry the prince of Radaan.