by Dashirun
Kael, the bastard son of Lord Commander Ashford, grew up in a civilization that breeds and controls dragons as instruments of war. When the Bonding Pit rejects him, his father casts him out and his brother comes to end it with a sword. Fleeing through the tunnels beneath the Pit, Kael discovers something kept hidden: a relic. Ash-black, scarred, and sentenced to death. Thirty riders tried to bond with it and none of them survived. Kael does. Which makes him the most wanted fugitive in the Four Empires.He escapes to Saltmere, a free port beyond imperial reach, where a young pirate takes him aboard the Blacktide. What starts as survival becomes something the Four Empires haven't faced in centuries: a war from below. And this time something could tip the balance: a pirate with a dragon.
