First Flight

I came to the Tombs to tend to the dead.
I left the Awakening Ceremony with four dragons that were never supposed to wake.

Seven years I’ve worked the deep levels of Dragonfall Academy — feeding dragons, cleaning roosts, tending the memorial fires where no one else will go. Ground crew. Invisible. The daughter of a dead war hero with calloused hands and nothing to her name but a uniform that smells like dragon musk.

The whispers started when I was a child. Voices in the Tombs, pressing against my mind like grief that isn’t mine. I learned to ignore them. I learned to keep my head down. I learned that no one notices the girl who cleans the bones.

Then four ancient war dragons — Elderwyrms, classified extinct for two centuries — woke from their vaults. The academy selected its four best cadets for the historic bonding. I was assigned to mop the floor.

Bastian — the golden heir with wind in his blood and five generations of legacy crumbling at his feet.
Leander — the scarred strategist whose cold precision cracked the night he realized I wasn’t looking away.
Sable — the healer whose steady hands put me back together every time the academy tried to break me.
Orion — the dangerous outcast from the border who saw what I was before I knew it myself.

The Elderwyrms flew past every candidate without a glance.

They landed around me. Four dragons that should be dead. Four cadets who should hate me. And the academy assigned them all to my wing.

The deeper I go into the Tombs, the louder the dead become. The whispers aren’t random… they’re voices. Spirit dragons, grieving for centuries without anyone to hear them. And someone sealed the evidence of why.

Two hundred years of names. Two hundred years of murder. And my mother’s name on the final page.

First Flight is a scorching fantasy why choose romance featuring dragon riders, a military academy carved into a mile-deep gorge, rivals-to-lovers tension, a fierce underdog heroine, a cliffhanger ending, and a guaranteed happily-ever-after for the series. Book 1 of the Dragonfall Academy series.

Perfect for readers who love:

• Dragon rider academies with deadly stakes
• Why choose romance with four devoted love interests
• Rivals-to-lovers tension that catches fire
• A fierce underdog heroine who reads dragons better than people
• “Touch her and die” — but the Elderwyrms get there first
• Military conspiracies and forbidden tombs
• Found family forged in dragonfire
• Gothic atmosphere and spirit dragon lore
• Slow burn that detonates
• HEA for readers who want it all