Royal soldiers seek dragons and baby draclings, since anyone who eats a dragon’s heart can’t be hurt by sword or dagger. So when the soldiers want young green-eyed Lyf to call the dragons to her, she hides and runs away, trying to reach her foster-sister Kaeldra who brought the dragon’s milk which cured Lyf of a fatal fever.
Many years ago, dragons left the land of humans in the Great Migration. But dragon eggs take a century to hatch, and mother dragons must return to care for the baby draclings until they are strong enough to fly over the seas to join the others. When a mother dragon is killed by the soldiers, Kaeldra and her husband transport the orphaned draclings to another mother dragon’s mountain cave. Helping them along the way are others who believe that their land’s magic and healing are linked to the survival of the dragons, known by the Sign of the Dove for their bird messenger system.
Lyf finds Kaeldra, Jeorg, and their green-eyed toddler son, Owyn, just as they are leaving to rescue more draclings, so she travels with them, carrying the last unhatched dragon egg with her. When a traitor in their group leads the soldiers to the draclings’ cave, Lyf and Owyn escape – now they must help the draclings get to the last mother dragon, far in the northland.
How can a young girl and a three year old convince a dozen tumbling, hungry draclings to travel carefully and quietly? Will Lyf ever stop hearing the draclings’ echoing in her head? Can they trace their way north from Dove to Dove without alerting the soldiers? Will they ever see Kaeldra and Joremagain?
Told an episode at a time by a harper, like beads on a string, this stirring tale in the The Dragon Chronicles series is preceded by The Flight of the Dragon Kyn and Dragon’s Milk, then followed by Ancient, Strange, and Lovely. 240 pages
Recommended by: Katy Manck, Librarian-at-Large (retired academic/corporate/schoollibrarian), Gilmer, Texas, USA
