Tauran Darrica has been retired from the Valreus Sky Guard for four years following the Battle of the Broken Wings that resulted in the death of his dragon. Now, all Tauran wants to do is spend his days forgetting the past and gambling his way to an unsteady income.
So when his old general from the Sky Guard hunts Tauran down to request his help with staving off the increasingly aggressive wild dragon population, Tauran refuses. But a fire ruins his rented room and leaves him without a place to stay, and Tauran finds himself on the road to Valreus, after all.
Tauran is determined to stay as far away from dragons as he can get, but a starry-eyed young man from Sharoani, land of the wild dragons, might just ruin his plans.
Kalai Ro-Ani has spent his life watching the stars, knowing he could never reach them.
With his wild dragon Arrow, he sets out for the city of Valreus in the hope of building himself a better future than he could have stuck at the foot of the Kel Visal dragon temples.
But nobody told Kalai that only the Sky Guard is allowed to own dragons, so when Arrow kills a guard in Kalai’s defense, it looks like his adventure might be over before it can begin. But a chance encounter at the old Valreus archive offers Kalai the future he’d been hoping for. In the span of a single day, he has a home, a job, and a purpose.
In Valreus, something much bigger falls into his lap – along with a tall and striking Valrean man with a rather strange disposition.
A new, LGBT+ fantasy story from Zaya Feli, featuring dragons, aerial battles and epic journeys through dangerous wilderness.
Publisher: Self-published
Release Date: Ebook: August 24th | Print: TBD
Length: Ebook: 189,000 words
Subgenre: Fantasy/Romance
Warnings: mentions of symptoms of depression and PTSD. Medicine addiction and withdrawal.
Amazon – Kindle Unlimited
From the author, Zaya Feli:
The overarching theme is about how healing is possible despite severe damage. That some things may not be fixable, and that simply learning to persevere and find support and happiness where it exists can be enough.
It took Tauran two days to work up the courage to enter the guard grounds.
He knew he was being a coward. That this new place, these new recruits, and the Ground Guard had nothing to do with what had happened at the Solar Tower.
But Tauran’s nerves weren’t so easily convinced.
When he approached the steel gates, he was happy he’d skipped breakfast. He grabbed the string and rang the bell a little too hard.
The hatch in the door opened, and a thankfully unfamiliar face appeared.
“Tauran Darrica,” Tauran said, “here at General Falka’s request.”
The doors swung open with a groan.
And then he was inside.
The atmosphere was such a stark contrast to the gloom brewing in Tauran that he had to pause and take a moment to adjust. It was as if Tauran’s memory of the guard had frozen in the time after the Battle of the Broken Wings, that stunned period full of fear and sorrow and rage.
But in the four years since Tauran had last been surrounded by the guard, it had recovered.
Young recruits ran past him shoulder to shoulder on their way to the first lesson of the day. A pair of older men, captains, judging by their uniforms, sat bent over a table, spending their break playing a game of Isutagi. At a table behind them, a woman with her sleeves rolled up past her elbows focused all her attention on the pistol she was cleaning. Black and copper uniforms dominated the outdoor space. The Ground Guard had always outnumbered the Sky Guard, but the difference seemed even more stark, now.
A brief glimpse of silver caught Tauran’s eye here and there. Messengers, or perhaps weather specialists, on their way to delivering flight reports and air pressure charts.
Tauran took a deep breath of the air inside the grounds and found it didn’t sting as much as he’d feared.
This book (all 764 amazing pages) kept me reading until a ridiculous time in the early hours of the morning to finish. It’s been a while since I was so engrossed in a story. It kept me glued.
Fantasy at its best, and a new to me author I’m thrilled to discover has a backlist.
Two men. One a washed up permanently damaged ex Dragon rider who’s own Dragon died in a terrible war, and one a young innocent-ish geek who happens to have his own wild dragon currently hidden because in their world, dragons are so rare only properly trained riders are allowed to keep them.
The world building is amazing, the relationship between them and their dragons are wonderful, but this isn’t just a sweet romance.
There is evil, betrayal, enemies where you least expect, a wild dragon egg about to hatch, and problems that seem insurmountable. And not everything is black and white. Expect surprises and plot twists.
This will appeal to fans of Mercedes Lackey, Megann Derr, and C.S. Pacat
Five “Dragon’s teeth” (Sounds better than stars)
Zaya Feli grew up in various small towns in eastern Denmark where she spent most of her childhood and youth daydreaming about strange and incredible fantasy worlds. In 2018, she moved to northern Denmark with her pet snake, Helix, to work as a web developer, and is now dedicating all her free time turning the fantasy worlds inside her head into words and illustrations on the page.
An avid sci fi and fantasy fan since childhood, she also has a deep love for history, archery, nature, language and art.
Zaya Feli released her debut novel, Stag’s Run, in November 2016, and has since released four more full length novels and a short story. Her favourite genres are fantasy and sci-fi with a sprinkle of romance.
Connect with Zaya: Twitter | Instagram | Goodreads | Website
