Lark Hollowmere has one goal at Duskmere Aerie: survive recruit trials, bond a dragon, and disappear into the ranks where no one asks questions about the orphan girl from the border villages. She doesn't need friends. She definitely doesn't need Commander Cassian Vayle — decorated war hero, ice-eyed and unforgiving, who makes it very clear on day one that he has no patience for a recruit with no bloodline, no sponsor, and no business being at his war college.

Then her hatchling breaks its shell black as midnight, and Cassian's own dragon roars a bond-answer no one has heard in a generation — a true-tether, unbidden, unbreakable, and utterly forbidden between a commoner recruit and the Aerie's highest-ranked commander.

Lark doesn't want a fated mate who looks at her like she's a problem to be managed. Cassian doesn't want a bond that could end his career, resurrect the bloodline that haunts the crown's nightmares, and expose the one secret he's spent ten years burying. But the tether doesn't care what either of them wants — and neither does the faction quietly hunting anything that burns black.

As Lark claws her way up the recruit ranks with a found family of misfits who'd rather die than let her fail alone, the truth of who — and what — she really is starts clawing its way to the surface too. By the time the crown finds out, it may already be too late to protect her.

Tropes: 🐉 Dragon Riders • 🔥 Fated Mates • ⚔️ Found Family • 🏔️ Remote War College Setting • 😤 Grumpy Male Lead • 🗝️ Hidden Past