On Wings of Blood

The first installment of the Bloodwing Academy series opens with a prologue narrated by an unnamed man who has fed on a woman's blood against her will, acknowledging she will never forgive him and that she is now in greater danger than ever. The narrative jumps back ten months.

Medra Pendragon, a half-fae from a world called Aercanum, awakens on a pile of corpses in an unfamiliar land. She had sacrificed herself to destroy her corrupt, godlike grandfather and expected death to be final. Instead, she has been reborn, stripped of her fae powers, and deposited in a world ruled by vampires. A mysterious female voice plagues her mind, though she dismisses it as a side effect of her traumatic rebirth. Prince Blake Drakharrow, a young vampire noble, discovers Medra among the dead, chains her, and marches her toward the capital city of Veilmar. His secretary, Lucius, excitedly notes the significance of Medra's red hair, and Blake confirms she is no ordinary mortal but refuses to explain further.

Blake brings Medra to the Black Keep, the fortress of Lord Viktor Drakharrow, Blake's uncle and the most powerful vampire in the kingdom of Sangratha. Vampires, called highbloods, rule over mortals, called blightborn, in a system of subjugation known as the Thralldom. Viktor presides over an assembly of nobles from the four ruling houses: Drakharrow, Avari, Mortis, and Orphos. He identifies Medra's physical traits, including red hair, pointed ears, and elongated fingers, as the marks of a dragon rider, an extinct lineage once central to the realm's power. Medra gambles on her survival by suggesting she might bring back the dragons. Viktor spares her but forces a blood-bonding ritual upon her and Blake, naming Medra the Second Betrothed Consort and forbidding anyone from feeding on her. Regan Pansera, Blake's First Betrothed since childhood, watches in silent fury.

Blake escorts Medra to Bloodwing Academy, an elite school where the four houses train their future rulers. Florence Shen, a studious blightborn First Year whose mother is a librarian at the school, welcomes Medra. On the first day, Regan sabotages Medra's timetable, making her late to class and steering her into a combat session for highblood upperclassmen. Visha Vaidya, a highblood whose family was once renowned for its dragon riders, challenges Medra to a spear fight. Medra wins initially, but Visha attacks from behind, breaking her ribs and nose. The combat instructor, Professor Sebastian Sankara, recognizes Medra's talent and argues she should remain in the advanced class.

During the headmaster's commencement address in the Dragon Court, a courtyard dominated by four massive stone dragon statues, Regan uses thrallweave, a coercive vampire power that controls a person's body and mind, to force Medra to climb one of the statues and humiliate herself. Headmaster Kim Min-jun breaks Regan's hold, but his command causes Medra to fall with serious injuries. Afterward, Medra negotiates private thrallguard lessons with Professor Gabriel Rodriguez, learning a mental defense technique originally developed by mortals.

Medra befriends Naveen Sharma, a dwarven First Year hoping to become a scout, and deepens her bond with Florence. The imperious voice that has troubled her since rebirth identifies itself as Orcades Le Fay, Medra's mother, a powerful high fae who died giving birth to her. Orcades explains that when Medra died in Aercanum, a fragment of her own soul latched onto her daughter and carried her between worlds. Medra begins searching for a way to separate their souls.

Chapters from Blake's perspective reveal the Drakharrow family's dysfunction. Viktor uses beatings to enforce obedience. Blake's older brother Marcus Drakharrow is a violent highblood who killed one of his own consorts. Viktor orders Blake to suppress his cousin Theo Drakharrow's relationships with men and to control his young sister Aenia, threatening brutal consequences.

At a bonfire party, a House Avari student uses thrallweave on Florence, nearly forcing her into a fire. When the student threatens to taste Medra's blood, Blake kills him. After the party, Medra finds Aenia on the beach with blood on her lips beside a wounded fluffin pup, a small fox-owl hybrid. Medra rescues the animal, and Blake agrees to take it to a healer, naming it Neville. Medra also discovers hidden passages beneath the Dragon Court leading to catacombs filled with dragon skulls and a route into Veilmar, where she witnesses the depth of blightborn subjugation.

Medra locates a ritual to undo soul bindings and performs the ceremony in the Dragon Court, using blood from a dagger that bears Blake's dried blood as a conduit. The ritual partially succeeds: Orcades' soul transfers out of Medra's mind but becomes trapped in the dagger. The incantation includes the phrases "let life return where stone has grown" and "awakened be the soul tonight," which will have unforeseen consequences.

After Medra's blightborn classmate Vaughn Sabino is beaten, she attacks Blake, believing him responsible. The House Leader ceremony, a ritual determining each house's leader, begins immediately after. Blake stands unchallenged until his friend Coregon Phiri stabs him, accusing Blake of weakness. Blake kills Coregon. Vaughn later reveals it was Coregon, acting on Marcus's orders, who beat him, and Medra realizes she was wrong to blame Blake.

At the Frostfire Festival, Medra attends the Dance of the Longest Night on the arm of Kage Tanaka, the leader of House Avari, provoking Blake's jealousy. She follows Blake through secret passages to the Bloodmaiden's Sanctum, a hidden ritual chamber, where she discovers the Adoration Rite: A willing blightborn girl is sexually used and then killed by a masked highblood, her blood powering a mass enchantment that keeps blightborn across Sangratha compliant. Blake finds Medra watching and seduces her, though he does not feed from her. When the girl is killed, Medra is horrified, and Blake threatens her into silence.

Blake later reveals that Aenia is not his biological sister but a blightborn child whose family Marcus murdered. Blake illegally turned her into a vampire, an act punishable by death. He offers this secret as leverage in exchange for Medra drinking a vial of his blood before the Consort Games, lethal trials for betrothed consorts. He claims the blood will temporarily enhance her abilities but withholds the fact that the exchange will complete their bonding.

Medra wakes on a jungle island with a Crown of Bone on her head, an artifact that forces its wearer to unconsciously select someone they care about for sacrifice. Regan ambushes Medra, but empowered by Blake's blood, Medra defeats her. In the final challenge, Medra must fight a monstrous creature that was once Naveen: The Crown used Medra's unconscious love for Florence to condemn Naveen instead. Medra kills the creature as a mercy and then saves Regan from a second monster, completing the challenge together. At a subsequent hearing, Blake dissolves his betrothal to Regan and lies to Viktor, claiming he has already completed the bond with Medra.

On Selection Day, Medra is assigned to House Drakharrow, while Florence is placed in House Avari. That night, Blake summons Medra to the Dragon Court. They share a passionate kiss, but Blake sinks his fangs into her neck without consent, revealing that drinking his blood completed their bond and he can now only feed from her. As he drinks too deeply, a massive earthquake strikes. The black stone dragon statue cracks apart as Nyxaris, a Duskdrake, a type of dragon tied to House Avari, stirs to life. Medra realizes her soul-separation ritual months earlier inadvertently awakened the dragon, its incantation having restored the creature's soul from centuries of imprisonment in stone. Nyxaris addresses Medra in Classical Sangrathan, an ancient language of the kingdom, confirming she freed him. Medra attempts to initiate a rider bond, but the dragon refuses, declaring he will not be bound again. He spares her life out of gratitude, advises her to make the highbloods believe he will return, and flies away over Veilmar, his roar echoing across Bloodwing for all to hear.