The Dragon in the Line

Prince Darius, Blood-Heir to the Dragon Throne, has spent his life mastering one command above all others: feel nothing.

Bound by the rigid laws of the Dragon Line and the paranoia of his father, Darius knows the dark Void within him is a devastating weapon—but wielding it demands that he keep his soul frozen.

Then he meets Mia Twilight.

A fierce survivor of the Red Dunes, Mia fights with raw instinct, a dagger, and a stubborn refusal to bend before royalty. She is everything Darius has been taught to distrust: warmth, rebellion, and a fire he cannot extinguish.

Their first encounter ends in blood.

Their second may cost him his soul.

When Darius, torn by indecision, defies his father, he places Mia and himself directly in the sights of the crown. To King Va’lerius, Mia is not a woman to be loved—she is a threat to the empire.

Determined to purge her influence, the king invokes the Kal-kal’nor: a brutal royal gauntlet where ten lethal warrior women enter the arena, and only one walks out alive to claim the Prince’s hand.

Now Darius and Mia are trapped in the king’s deadly game, where every woman in the arena is a potential enemy—and the crown has made Mia its ultimate target.

Will Darius defy the duty that has ruled his life—or sacrifice the woman who has given him a reason to break it?

Two eras. One impossible choice.

A hundred thousand years ago, Kal'nor and his sons fought a losing war. Betrayed from within as Toval maneuvered to usurp the Val'dora, Commander O'nor arrogantly wielded the Void to secure their empire. His choice set off a catastrophic chain of events. To save the world from the resulting swarm of husks and Shadow Sworn, the First Dragon made the ultimate sacrifice, giving his mortal life to seal the monsters away in the dark.

But the ledger of progress always demands its payment, and the ancient past is bleeding into the bitter winter of the present.

Today, the descendants of the First Dragon struggle with the failures of their ancestors. Darius, Ny'all, and Mia are desperately attempting to forge a fragile trust with their ancient enemy, the Anai. However, Darius’s father, King Valerius, strictly forbids his heir from making the connection, refusing to yield the desires of a second princess he never wanted near his throne.

As the royal family fractures, a nightmare awakens. The First Dragon’s soul has survived the millennia, but his light has been slowly corrupted by the very darkness he imprisoned. Twisted by ages of isolation and desperate to keep the Shadow Sworn locked away forever, the fallen savior has returned with a horrifying solution: he must claim the child of Darius and Mia to renew the seal.

Hunted by a corrupted savior and stripped of their political power, the current heirs of the Dragon Line must wage a desperate war against the ghosts of their ancestors. To save their child, they must defeat the very legend who once saved the world—or watch the Void swallow everything they have left.