Bloodsinger

Bloodsinger is set in a dark fantasy world inspired by the Roman Empire, where the ruling patrician class are dragon-shifters organized into noble houses identified by the color of their scales. Emperor Igniculus, a tyrannical red dragon, rules through fear and oppression. The novel opens with a retelling of the myth of Euryale, one of Medusa's sisters, who received from the goddess Minerva the power to control any man whose blood she tastes. This myth establishes the magical heritage of the protagonist.

Lela is a Dacian woman enslaved in Rome, the possession of Consul Valerius of the Chrysocolla dragon house. Captured during a Roman raid on her village on her wedding night, she watched as Quintus, a Roman dragon in half-skin (a hybrid form between human and dragon), murdered her husband Jardani before selling her to Valerius. When Lela first tried to use her latent gift against Valerius, biting him and commanding him to slit his own throat, a body slave stopped the blade. As punishment, Valerius beat and sexually assaulted her, then fitted her with an ornate golden bridle that covers her mouth. She copes with captivity by cutting herself in secret.

At one of Valerius's dinner parties, Lela notices a younger senator from the Sapphirus house who studies her with concern rather than lust. This man, Trajan, is a tribune of the senate. He is secretly conspiring with his grandfather, the elder statesman Gaius Sapphirus Tiberius, and a network of allied nobles to overthrow Emperor Igniculus. Their original plan collapsed when Trajan's closest friend, General Julian (Caesar's nephew), killed another general to rescue his enslaved lover Malina, then fled Rome on dragonback. With Julian in exile, the conspirators lack both a leader close to Caesar and an army.

After the party, Trajan follows Lela's singing to the Temple of Diana in Valerius's home, where he finds her in a trance with blood on her fingers. When she smears her blood on his wrist, he feels a surge of power, and she tells him he will protect her. They meet again at the shop of Euphemia, an elderly medicine woman who serves as a covert relay for Trajan's correspondence with Julian. Lela has come seeking poison to end her life, but Euphemia refuses and performs a divination predicting a journey, a death, and freedom. Trajan spots a wealthy noblewoman named Fausta Ovidius passing Lela a secret note and sends his trusted associate Koska to investigate.

Fausta's note contains veiled quotes about justice and courage from the Greek historian Thucydides. That same night, Valerius summons Lela to his bedchamber, and something shifts inside her. Singing "The Mother Song," a Dacian lullaby about a mother who becomes a beast to avenge her daughter, Lela unlocks her bridle with a hidden key, slashes Valerius, and licks his blood from the blade. Her bloodsinger magic, the inherited power to command anyone whose blood she tastes, surges through the room as she kills him. A sapphire dragon in half-skin lands on the terrace: Trajan, who has independently come to murder Valerius. He warns that Caesar will have her tortured and burned, and after brief resistance, Lela takes his hand. He flies her to his home on Palatine Hill.

The next morning, the city crier announces Valerius's murder and a massive reward for Lela's capture. Trajan nominates Gaius for the vacant consul seat at an emergency senate session, winning an overwhelming vote over Quintus and placing a key ally in position for the coup. While hiding in Trajan's bedchamber, Lela discovers letters from Julian and a banned book, confirming his conspiracy. After being forced at Caesar's palace to mercy-kill a captured prisoner rather than torture him, Trajan confides in Lela and asks for her help in overthrowing the emperor.

One night in the olive grove, Lela challenges his character, insisting all Romans are alike. Trajan cuts his own palm and offers her his blood. Under her magic, he cannot lie: He confirms he intends no harm, wants a free Rome without slavery, and will help her escape regardless of her decision. Afterward, Trajan realizes his dragon has identified Lela as his fated mate, the partner the gods have destined for him. Koska reports that Fausta secretly smuggles slaves and dragon children out of Rome through her grain business.

Caesar's soothsayer decrees that no king may die by Caesar's hand until after Lupercalia, a fertility festival, giving the captured Visigoth king two more weeks to live. During a military triumph, Trajan and Lela infiltrate Mamertine Prison. The captive king, Alaric, is confirmed to be a dragon. Trajan proposes freedom in exchange for Alaric's army joining the coup, and Alaric grudgingly agrees. Back home, Trajan and Lela share their first kiss.

Trajan arranges for Fausta to smuggle Lela out of Rome, but a praetorian guard named Hektor recognizes Lela and raids Fausta's home, executing the noblewoman. Lela's magic erupts: she summons the guards' blood through the air to her palms and commands them to kill each other. Trajan rescues Lela, and their relationship deepens through shared vulnerability and intimacy. He reveals that his father took money from the treasury to cover gambling debts, was publicly flogged, and killed himself; his mother followed with the same dagger. This personal loss fuels his hatred of the emperor.

Events accelerate when Caesar publicly murders Consul Kato and demands Gaius dissolve the senate. Praetorians arrive with evidence of the bloodsinger, and the enraged emperor storms out to hunt for her. Hiding in the nearby woods, Lela discovers Caesar's sister Camilla, a white dragon permanently transformed and chained in a pit after being violated by her own brother. Guards capture Lela, but Trajan kills one while Lela commands the other with blood magic. They flee with Gaius through the Lupercalia streets and board the smuggling ship Mercury.

Trajan transforms fully into his sapphire-scaled dragon, and Lela ties herself to his neck for the flight. They stop in Hispania, then fly to Britannia, where Lela discovers that Julian's wife is her own sister Malina, who escaped their village during the Roman attack. The sisters collapse into each other's arms. Neither Trajan nor Lela had known the connection.

After a brief rest, Trajan and Lela return to Rome to free Alaric. A battle erupts at the docks. Alaric reveals himself as a golden dragon, a species believed extinct, whose fire explodes with devastating force. A centurion drops Lela into the Tiber, and Trajan's dragon dives in to rescue her. When Quintus attacks the ship, Lela unleashes her most powerful magic, summoning his blood through his scales from a distance and draining him mid-flight. Trajan's dragon kills Quintus, and the Mercury escapes to sea under cover of a thunderstorm.

One week later, the reunited families live together in Britannia. Lela and Trajan declare their love and plan to travel to Dalmatia to join Alaric and organize the assault on Rome, committed to building a free Rome without slavery or tyranny.

In the epilogue, a scarred female gladiator named Anya, known as the Viper Queen, hears rumors of the bloodsinger. She recognizes the description as matching the power her grandmother Bunica foretold for her sister. Anya possesses her own dark magic: the ghosts of those she has killed are bound to her permanently. She travels to Alaric's camp on the island of Issa, where he confirms the bloodsinger is named Lela. Anya bargains to stay and train Alaric's warriors until her sister arrives.