Bondmarked

BONDMARKED I: ASHES OF THE EMPIRE

Liora Caelwyn grew up learning to hide. Her grandmother carved escape routes into the walls. Her father wrapped her bond mark every morning. Her mother said, "Don't be bullied."

The Draconic Empire has spent decades burning the bonds out of anyone it can catch. Bond marks connect humans to elemental forces the Empire cannot control. Marked children are taken. Families who resist disappear.

When Liora's emberdrake bond flares in a crowded market, her life in hiding ends. Captured and collared at Thornfire Academy, she enters a system designed to grind bondmarked students into obedient tools. She meets Kael, storm-bonded and furious. Thea, earth-bonded and dangerously competent. Rowan, an elite tracker whose loyalties run in directions his superiors wouldn't like.

What Liora discovers inside Thornfire changes everything. The Empire isn't just controlling bonds. It's terrified of what happens when bonds combine. The last recorded Convergence was four hundred years ago, and the entire Imperial infrastructure exists to prevent another one.

With resistance allies, an ancient emberdrake consciousness, and a talent the Empire has been trying to breed out of existence, Liora fights her way free. The harder question comes after: five ancient drakes are waking, the Emperor is more complicated than anyone wants to admit, and Ashkore keeps showing her fires that burn in colors no chart can name.

For readers of Fourth Wing, A Court of Thorns and Roses, and The Priory of the Orange Tree.

Book 1 of 5 in The Bondmarked Chronicles.