The dragon is dead. After eleven years of isolated captivity, Queen Othyli Yratmena is finally free. She is free to rejoin her people, her court, her kingdom; free to rule without messenger birds carrying every petition and reply; free to celebrate, marry, and enjoy being a respected and honored queen. The foreign tyrant who Sent the dragon did not defeat her, did not defeat Cockaigne. The curse is over. She should be thrilled. She would be thrilled… if it were all not an utter lie.
Othyli lost her mother to fever when she was eight years old, her father in battle when she was barely sixteen. When she inherited the throne, no one suspected that her sanity was already under siege. No one knew that the dragon had been Sent to protect Cockaigne from her growing madness, and only one wizard knew that the Sending had been arranged by Othyli herself; but the dragon has died, and now another must be secured before anyone learns the truth.
Disguised as a traveling mercenary, with fighting skills she had eleven years to hone, Othyli reenters her estranged kingdom to find the sole wizard who can restore her sanctuary. Only hours into her quest, Othyli discovers what the message scrolls never revealed. Cockaigne is under attack, and the wizard has fled; her people are in danger, and her kingdom's peace is collapsing. The land is beset by a plague of Dark Riders, proliferating bands of savage killers
who violently force their victims to either join them or die. Across the country, wizards have disappeared without a trace, and her people live unprotected as the Dark tide grows.
Faced with the awful reality of her people, Othyli finds herself fighting an enemy that defies precedent; and the Riders are not the only threat. Under the strain of the attacks, the traditional governance is crumbling and conspirators grasp for political control. Against the Riders and dissenters stands only the rumor of an underground Resistance, a network of courageous rebels as elusive as ghosts. Determined to save her kingdom from the impending collapse, Othyli searches for answers, her wizard, and the rebel leader.
Under the cloak of her alias, Othyli experiences her country in a way previous monarchs never could, and realizes both the beneficial and detrimental effects that her long seclusion produced. She becomes disconcertedly aware that even if Cockaigne regains its absent Queen, the monarchy cannot resume unchanged. Othyli's probing also reveals the true, malignant nature of the Rider threat. Arbitrary as the attacks appear, the brutality flows systematically from clan territories north of Cockaigne. In that ice-swept land, a savior has come, and this Seer avers that the gods are angry, that he has been sent with the way to save
all people from destruction, and conversion to his doctrine is the only way to be spared in the Cleansing that comes. The Dark Riders are the chosen apostles of this urgent mandate, and they pursue success at any cost.
Overwhelmed by the prospect of confronting a faith-fueled war while her government splinters from within, Othyli's only hope is to find a solution that not even the Seer can presage. As she searches for insight, her inadvertent actions sow seeds of lasting change: Rider victims are rescued, enemies revealed, allies united, and friendships forged. When unforeseen hazard threatens her progress, Othyli is obliged to accept the dubious aid of a profligate puppeteer. Proud of both his insouciance and devout dereliction of duty, the entertainer also hunts a missing wizard, and hides secrets and scars that rival Othyli's own. Yet his irritating amity might just be the catalyst for her success.
As word of Othyli's unintended heroics spreads, a new legend is born; but to accomplish the deeds she alone can fulfill, Othyli must finally face both the horrors of her past and the demons in her present. She must become the leader Cockaigne so desperately needs. The Dragon Queen will show everyone, including herself, that there is a road to both restoration and peace, that the legend is not a lie.
