by Tania Richter
A former child soldier gets a chance at a new life as a bonded dragon rider, but first she must earn her place among the Guardians of Azure Keep. Once a civilian in a dragon aerie, Kali is kidnapped at a young age and forced to fight for Gold Keep. A fortunate turn of events gives her back her freedom along with a chance to fulfill her greatest dream - to bond an Ariadeske dragon. To achieve her goal she must join the senior cadet class at Azure Keep and graduate into the Sky Guardians, a force of dragon riders that protect Azure Keep and the Azure territory at large. However, nothing is ever easy. Kali must prove herself with her abilities and somehow manage to fit in among her new team while haunted by memories of her old squadron. But if it means regaining her wings she'll do just about anything to pass. What's in store - *Updates M/W/F*Dragon riders and bonded creatures*The dragons don't instantly grow up*Slow burn story*Secretly OP MC*Found family*High fantasy with worldbuilding side chapters*Did we mention it's illustrated?
No streak history
One state-enhanced oracle order, filtered by each list. Observed Royal Road ranks remain separate ground truth.
Rank updated 2 Oct 2026, 03:58 UTC
Entry forecast updated 2 Oct 2026, 03:58 UTC
Ranking model: rs-public-oracle-state-v1
Forecast model: rs-model-entry-v1
Chart history contains only this ranking model's runs; legacy points are not spliced in.
Coupled 14-day outlook
rs-joint-entry-copula-v1
Any eligible RS entry
3%
Two or more lists
1%
Likely threshold order: Action → Adventure → Fantasy → Main.
Leading bundle: Action (3%).
Estimated from one fitted shared story path; category probabilities are not multiplied as if lists were independent.
Separate entry forecast; this probability does not enter the ranking score.
Overall Rising Stars Shadow RS rank
#1612 of 12,417 · 1562 below RS #50
By genre
beats 96% of similar stories
beats 51% of similar stories
beats 86% of similar stories
Firing on all cylinders
Traffic and conversion are both strong for a story this size. Readers are finding it and sticking — if Rising Stars is the goal, this is the moment to push.
Benchmarks: 8,060 active Royal Road stories, percentiles within the 20–49 chapters band, cohort of 2026-07-02. Conversion is measured as followers gained per 1,000 views over the recent window.
