Chapter 1: The Day the Sun Came Down

On the morning of the harvest festival, the sun rose twice over Kesaripur.

The first sunrise was the ordinary kind, pink and gentle over the mustard fields. The second came an hour later, from the west, and it had wings.

It was a dragon, gold from snout to tail, so bright that the palace guards had to squint up at it through their fingers. Its scales threw light across the marketplace like a thousand polished coins. Where its shadow passed, the air grew warm enough to ripen every mango in the royal orchard at once.

"SuarJ," whispered the old gardener, dropping his rake. "The sun-dragon of the Burning Peak. I thought he was a story."

The dragon circled the palace three times. Then he landed on the highest balcony, where Princess Meera had been standing with a cup of tea, trying to decide whether the festival speech needed more jokes.

"You shine," SuarJ said to her, in a voice like a furnace door swinging open.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Your crown. Your bangles. Your eyes, a little. I collect things that shine." He tilted his great golden head. "You're coming with me."

Before a single guard could draw a sword, the dragon closed his claws gently around the princess, balcony railing and all, and leapt into the sky.

The tea cup fell. It was the only thing in the kingdom that moved for a full ten seconds.

Then everyone began to scream at once.