When the Draconic Wars led to their near extinction, the Dragonae believe they are cursed by the gods. Maeve, the last female to hatch in twenty-three years, has exhausted every excuse to avoid travelling south to be married. But when her family’s Matron demands Maeve’s compliance in a tournament for her hand in marriage, Maeve finds what little options she had stripped from her. Danger lurks along the route south from bands of Reapers hunting the remaining Dragonae. When Maeve and her family are almost stranded in a desert sandstorm they seek refuge in the Boulden Mountains. Longstanding tensions between houses only increase as it is revealed that House Boulden had been hiding more than their wealth. But most of all the Boulden Heir, Tobian Boulden, irritates Maeve but stirs something deep in her soul. Something forbidden.