From debut author Deborah A. Wolf comes an epic fantasy in the tradition of Guy Gavriel Kay and Jacqueline Carey. “A world of large-scale epic fantasy... This is a rare find and not to be missed.” New York Times bestselling author Barb Hendee. Far below the desert, the Earth Dragon slumbers fitfully. From the darkness of her dreams come whispers of war… and death. Sulema is a newly minted warrior and a true Ja’Akari—a daughter of the unforgiving desert. But her people are fading from the world. The warriors and wardens are hard-pressed to protect those who remain, and the vash’ai—great cats who have called the people kithren for as long as there have been stories—bond with fewer humans each year. When a mysterious man appears in her home of Aish Kalumm, Sulema learns that the Dragon King is dying in distant Atualon. As he fades, so does the magic that sings the Earth Dragon to sleep. And, she soon finds, there are some who would have the dragon wake, so they might laugh as the world burns.