The Bond That Burns is the second novel in Briar Boleyn’s Bloodwing Academy trilogy, a dark fantasy romance set in Sangratha, a kingdom ruled by vampire aristocrats known as highbloods. The series follows Medra Pendragon, a half-fae young woman transported from another world, as she navigates the deadly politics of an elite academy divided among four rival houses.

In the first novel, On Wings of Blood, Medra lands in Sangratha with no knowledge of its customs. Her outworlder’s perspective makes Medra keenly aware of the inequalities of Sangrathan society where mortals, known as blightborns, are exploited for their blood by the highbloods. Medra’s distinctive red hair, a rarity in Sangratha, pointed ears, and long limbs mark her as a “rider,” a supposedly extinct people who used to ride dragons. Dragons no longer exist in Sangratha, except in the form of four giant stone statues at Bloodwing Academy, a venerable academic institution.

Immediately seen as political capital because of her power over dragons, Medra is seized by House Drakharrow, where the sadistic leader Viktor betroths her to his nephew, Blake, a haughty, cruel prince. Under Blake’s supervision, Medra enrolls at Bloodwing Academy, where blightborn and highblood students learn important skills deemed fit for their stations. Medra has a secret that she does not reveal to anyone. She is actually a descendant of the legendary King Arthur Pendragon. Her passing from her world to Sangratha was facilitated by the soul of her deceased mother, Orcades. Orcades’s soul is now stuck in Medra’s consciousness. Medra transfers the soul to a dagger during a releasing ritual gone awry. As the school year advances, Medra befriends Florence Shen, a gifted blightborn scholar, and Naveen Sharma, whom Medra is forced to kill after he is transformed into a monster during a brutal competition. 

Despite her misgivings about Blake, Medra develops an intense attraction to him. Blake confides to Medra that his much-younger sister, Aenia, is actually his ward. After Blake’s older brother, Marcus, killed Aenia’s family and left the toddler for dead, Blake revived her through forbidden magic. In the process, Aenia became a “foul blood,” a vampire with uncontrolled bloodlust. Since Blake “created” Aenia, he feels guilty about her fate, refusing to kill her even though Aenia may be behind many blightborn murders in the city. 

The growing trust between Medra and Blake is broken when Blake feeds from her blood without consent during a kiss, effectively performing a ritual known as the blood bond. Once a highblood has fed from their blightborn consort, the consort becomes their primary source of blood. The novel culminates when Medra inadvertently awakens Nyxaris, one of the four powerful dragons imprisoned in stone for over a century, destabilizing the kingdom's political order. 

The Bond That Burns opens with Medra confined to Drakharrow Tower as a tribunal of regents debates her fate and the dragon's ownership. Expanding the series, the novel explores the love-hate dynamic between Blake and Medra, uncovers the suppressed history of dragons and their riders, and reveals clues about Medra’s own otherworldly past. As the stakes escalate, the story is set to continue in the third book of the series, The Wings That Bind.