His Majesty's Dragon

The first installment of the Temeraire series is set in an alternate version of the Napoleonic Wars in which dragons are real, intelligent, and central to military strategy. Nations breed and harness dragons for aerial combat, and Britain's Aerial Corps serves alongside the Royal Navy to defend the island from Napoleon Bonaparte's forces.

Captain Will Laurence, a respected British naval officer, captures the French frigate Amitié and discovers a dragon egg in its hold. The ship's surgeon confirms the egg will hatch within a week, far too soon to reach land and deliver it to the Aerial Corps. A dragon must be harnessed immediately upon hatching or it will go feral and become useless for combat. Laurence orders his unmarried officers to draw lots, and Midshipman Carver's name is selected despite his known fear of heights.

When the egg hatches on deck, it reveals a pure black dragonet with grey-and-blue wing markings that no one can identify. Carver approaches, but the dragonet ignores him and stops before Laurence, asking, "Why are you frowning?" Laurence names the dragon Temeraire, after a famous warship. The dragon accepts the name and the makeshift harness Laurence buckles onto him, binding Laurence to the dragon and ending his naval career. He immediately transfers command of HMS Reliant to his second lieutenant, Tom Riley.

Over the following weeks at sea, Temeraire grows rapidly, soon outgrowing the cabin. Laurence sleeps beside him on deck, and the two begin to bond. When a gale strikes and a sailor falls overboard, Temeraire leaps aloft with Laurence dangling from the harness. Despite having never flown with a rider, Temeraire learns to tack against the wind at Laurence's commands, and Laurence snatches the drowning man from the waves. Afterward, Laurence praises Temeraire for the first time, and the dragon curls protectively around him. Once the weather clears, they fly together regularly, and Temeraire demonstrates an extraordinary ability to hover in place, a maneuver Laurence has never seen any dragon perform.

At Madeira, Sir Edward Howe, a Royal Society expert on rare dragons, examines Temeraire and identifies him as a Chinese Imperial, one of the rarest breeds in the world. The Chinese have bred dragons for thousands of years and guard their bloodlines jealously; Sir Edward is astonished such an egg was aboard a French frigate. Shortly afterward, Captain Portland arrives from Gibraltar with Lieutenant Dayes, sent to replace Laurence as Temeraire's handler. Portland instructs Laurence to stay away from Temeraire entirely, but the dragon refuses Dayes, who lied about Laurence disliking dragons and tried to take Temeraire's treasured gold chain. When Temeraire offers to accept another handler if Laurence truly wants his ship back, Laurence tells him, "I would rather have you than any ship in the Navy."

Ordered to Scotland for training, Laurence stops at his family's estate, Wollaton Hall. His father, Lord Allendale, who considers the Aerial Corps beneath contempt, tells Laurence to avoid the family homes in future. Edith Galman, a woman Laurence has long considered himself informally committed to, explains she cannot accept the isolated life of an aviator's wife, and they part sadly. Laurence's mother, however, is charmed when she meets Temeraire, who promises to take care of her son.

At Loch Laggan, an Aerial Corps base in the Scottish Highlands, the training master is Celeritas, a dragon of the Reaper breed who commands both dragons and humans. Lieutenant Granby, who served alongside the rejected Dayes, treats Laurence with hostility. Laurence also finds a small Winchester dragon named Levitas being neglected by his handler, Captain Rankin. A crisis forces Granby's reconciliation with Laurence: during a mission to rescue the wounded dragon Victoriatus, Laurence climbs unclipped onto Temeraire's harness to rig an emergency repair and begins to slip. Granby saves his life, and Laurence offers him the position of first lieutenant.

Celeritas pairs Temeraire with Maximus, a dragon of the large Regal Copper breed commanded by Captain Berkley, as a backing force for Lily's formation. Lily is a Longwing commanded by Captain Catherine Harcourt, a young woman, since Longwings accept only female handlers. Training is grueling, and Temeraire learns fast but finds repetitive drills tedious. To keep him engaged, Laurence explains formation tactics, and together they design innovative maneuvers exploiting Temeraire's speed and hovering. A French royalist exile named Choiseul, training with the Corps alongside his dragon Praecursoris, provides a useful rivalry that further motivates Temeraire.

Before the new maneuvers can be demonstrated, urgent news arrives: The French fleet has been penned at the Spanish port of Cadiz. Lily's formation is ordered to the English Channel, while Admiral Lenton sends the dragon Excidium's formation south. En route to Dover, the formation is ambushed by French dragons. A Grand Chevalier, a massive French dragon breed, dives from cloud cover and rakes Lily with its claws. Temeraire attacks the Chevalier, and the French retreat when Excidium's formation appears. At Dover, Laurence meets Captain Jane Roland, Excidium's captain, and they develop a friendship and eventually a discreet romantic relationship.

Lenton then sends Excidium south to Cadiz, a calculated gamble that leaves the Channel vulnerable. One night, Laurence discovers Choiseul holding Harcourt at swordpoint, intending to force Lily to fly to France by threatening her captain's life. Laurence grapples with Choiseul, and Harcourt strikes him unconscious. Under interrogation, Choiseul confesses he has been a traitor since arriving from Austria. Bonaparte originally sent him to retrieve Temeraire's egg, a gift from the Chinese Emperor meant for Napoleon himself. Choiseul also reveals that Bonaparte had him urge weakening the Channel defenses by sending dragons south, a goal already accomplished. News arrives of Nelson's victory at the Battle of Trafalgar, and Choiseul is executed.

Despite Trafalgar, the threat remains. Reconnaissance reveals Bonaparte has built enormous transports designed to carry 2,000 soldiers each, to be flown across the Channel by teams of four dragons. Before the battle, Laurence discovers Levitas dying from wounds sustained during the reconnaissance, alone and untended. Laurence drags Rankin from the officers' club and forces him to speak kindly to the dragon he has long neglected. Levitas, blind and failing, whispers, "You came," and dies.

An easterly wind comes, and the French attack begins. Twelve transports, defended by over 40 dragons, approach the coast. Temeraire and his crew fight past the defensive line, and Granby leads a boarding party onto a wounded carrier dragon, capturing its captain. But the battle turns desperate as the first transport lands, disgorging over 1,000 soldiers with artillery. Maximus destroys a second transport but is too wounded to fly again. Facing two more incoming transports, Temeraire hovers before them and produces a devastating blast of concussive force that shatters the leading transport entirely. He strikes a second, cracking its hull, and coordinates with the British fleet below until the French signal retreat.

At a celebratory ball in London, Sir Edward Howe reveals that Temeraire's ability is called the "divine wind," belonging exclusively to the Celestial breed, rarer even than Imperials and reserved solely for Chinese emperors and their closest kin. The egg was a gift from the Chinese Emperor to Napoleon upon his coronation, and diplomatic complications are inevitable. Miss Montagu, a society figure, informs Laurence that Edith has married Bertram Woolvey, but Laurence finds he can accept the news with equanimity. Temeraire is unconcerned by the revelations, declaring he will never let anyone take Laurence from him. That night, Laurence sleeps in Temeraire's arms at the London covert, falling asleep to the sound of Temeraire's heartbeat, "so very much like the endless sound of the sea."