Elara Veyl dedicates seventeen years of rigorous training to avenging her slaughtered parents, raised by the Queen to believe crown prince Kylan Vares reduced her village to ash. When she finally executes the captured dragon heir with an imperial blade, the mortal trauma manifests instantly over her own heart, exposing an impossible physiological connection.
Plunging into Kylan's suppressed memories, Elara discovers the dragon prince once ripped out his primary heart-scale to preserve her infancy. Realizing the royal court manipulated her memories to enslave dragonkind, she defies the sovereign who fostered her to protect the beast whose heartbeat sustains her life.
