Briar Boleyn’s 2024 novel, The Bond That Burns, is the second installment in The Bloodwing Academy dark fantasy-romance series. Set at a deadly magical university, the novel continues the journey of Medra Pendragon, a student with a secret lineage who awakens a powerful dragon named Nyxaris. Now a prisoner at Bloodwing Academy, Medra must grapple vicious power politics, her destiny as a dragon rider, and her troubling attraction to her consort, the arrogant and dominating highblood heir, Blake Drakharrow.

Boleyn, a USA Today best-selling author who also writes historical romance under the pseudonym Fenna Edgewood, draws on her academic background in Arthurian literature to inform the novel’s worldbuilding. The protagonist’s name, Medra Pendragon, situates the story within a modern tradition of feminist retellings of the King Arthur mythos. The novel is part of the dark romance genre, highlighting the tension between a free-spirited hero and the morally grey, dominant love interest. It explores themes such as Autonomy as the Ultimate Power, The Persistence of Rebellion Despite Systemic Opression, and the Conflict between Morality and Family Loyalty.

This guide refers to the 2025 MIRA edition.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of graphic violence, bullying, physical and emotional abuse, child abuse, sexual content, sexual violence and harassment, substance use, animal cruelty, mental illness, illness, death, and cursing.

Plot Summary

Following her awakening of the dragon Nyxaris, half-mortal student Medra Pendragon spends her summer as a prisoner in Drakharrow Tower at Bloodwing Academy. Medra’s relationship with her vampire consort, Blake Drakharrow, is in ruins after he tricked her into a “blood bond,” feeding from her and making her blood his sole source of sustenance. Medra now has to endure weekly “feeding” sessions with Blake. Meanwhile, the great vampire or highblood houses are in turmoil over ownership of the dragon. Blake’s uncle, the cruel Lord Viktor Drakharrow, attempts to use thrallweave—a form of mind control—on Medra to learn how she awakened the dragon, but she resists thanks to secret training from her professor, Rodriguez. With Medra unwilling to reveal the extent of her connection with Nyxaris, it is decided that her fate will be determined at a tribunal to be held two months later, on the eve of the school reopening. 

The tribunal convenes, with House Avari claiming Nyxaris by historical right and House Drakharrow claiming him through Medra’s bond to Blake. Lord Mortis, regent of House Mortis, demands both Medra and the dragon be destroyed to prevent war, while Lysander Orphos, regent of House Orphos, argues for Medra’s freedom. When Lady Elaria Avari—the regent of her house—proposes Medra choose a new archon or head-consort, Viktor reveals a blood bond has already been formed between Blake and Medra, making their connection unbreakable. Fed up of the group talking about her as if she is not present, Medra speaks for herself, demanding time to solidify her connection with Nyxaris. When Lord Mortis demands proof of her power, Medra leads the assembly outside and summons Nyxaris. The dragon alights on the ramparts; Lord Mortis insults him repeatedly, calling him a “parlor trick.” Enraged, Nyxaris emits dragon-fire, incinerating Lord Mortis. Medra escapes on Nyxaris’s back, solidifying her image as a powerful, untamable rider.

During their flight, Medra learns Nyxaris’s memory is fragmented from his time being trapped in stone, and she promises to find answers about his past in exchange for his help. She decides to return to Bloodwing. The tribunal allows Medra to remain at Bloodwing under Drakharrow oversight, giving her a month’s time to demonstrate her growing bond with Nyxaris. Medra’s return to the school ignites her conflict with Blake, who publicly humiliates her to assert his dominance. During a confrontation in the refectory, Blake tries to force Medra’s friends—Florence Shen, Theo Drakharrow, and Visha Vaidya—to abandon her, but they side with Medra. Kage Tanaka, the Avari House Leader (and grandson of Lady Elaria), invites them to his table, enraging Blake. Medra asks Kage if he can help her transfer to his house. 

Blake’s bullying behavior toward Medra continues to escalate. As a volunteer instructor in Medra’s combat class, he forced her into sparring with a highblood student and sledges at her during the match to distract her. However, alerted by Medra’s distress Nyxaris appears on the scene and intimidates Blake. The class disperses. Later, Medra is confronted by rebellious blightborn (mortal) students who call her a traitor for awakening Nyxaris, as the highbloods traditionally used dragons to terrorize mortals. Kage intervenes and the students leave Medra alone for now. Medra wonders at the assertiveness of the students. Kage explains that Nyxaris’s awakening is weakening the highbloods’ magical control over the blightborn population. Usually, the magical bonds keep mortals compliant and unaware of the injustice they face at the hands of highbloods.

Blake’s perspective reveals that he has been bullying Medra to pretend to his uncle Viktor that she is tamable, and thus, worth keeping alive. Blake is himself undergoing an unprecedented change since Nyxaris awoke and he fed from Medra: To his shock, his skin sometimes changes into a dragon’s scales. One night, Medra heads to Blake’s chambers for their weekly feeding sessions. She finds Blake in the bath and feels her physical attraction to him return. Medra and Blake end up having passionate sex, during which Blake also feeds from her. Unlike the previous times, the feeding is pleasant for Medra. Blake tells her that this is how feedings should always be. After Medra returns to her room, she decides the intimacy with Blake was a one-off and resolves to stay away from him.

During a private history class with the severe blightborn Professor Hassan, Medra discovers a secret dossier assessing her for a “Soul-Binding,” a dark ritual allowing a highblood to possess her body to control the dragon. She realizes that the highbloods are allowing her to survive only so they can eventually use her.

The day the tribunal reconvenes to evaluate Medra’s control over Nyxaris, Medra uses her mental connection with the dragon to request him to act compliant before the assembly. Meanwhile, she and Blake discover that the highbloods have decided to use those close to them to ensure their own submission: Medra’s best friend Florence and Blake’s volatile younger sister Aenia are brought in as hostages. Medra and Nyxaris perform flawlessly before the crowd, moving in tandem, until Viktor and Catherine Mortis demand Nyxaris bow to Medra. Nyxaris refuses, and then traps the tribunal in a ring of fire as a final warning not to push him. On Medra’s request, Nyxaris also communicates to the tribunal that no one is to harm her friends.

On the carriage ride back to the main school building, Medra’s group is ambushed by masked highbloods, later revealed to be led by Blake’s brother, Marcus, and Catherine. The highbloods stab Medra so they can steal her rider blood. In the chaos, Aenia, who is a turned vampire unable to control her bloodlust, goes feral and nearly drains Theo of blood. Medra faints, and she and Theo are transferred to the infirmary of House Drakharrow. When she awakens, she is nearly healed because of her rider blood, but Theo is still critical. Kage Tanaka arrives at the infirmary and tells Medra that Viktor has approved her transfer to his house. Kage has also learnt that the blood bond can be broken, though the severance involves a dangerous ritual. Medra transfers to Kage’s house, much to Blake’s dismay. 

Despite Medra’s transfer, her relationship with Blake continues to grow, and the two become intimate and share confidences. Blake discovers the private diaries of Viktor and learns that dragon-riders did not naturally die out but were exterminated by the highbloods as the riders began to resist their power. It is also clear that the highbloods forced riders and dragons (via soul binding) to burn entire mortal villages to the ground. Blake shares the information with Medra and urges her to reveal the truth to Nyxaris. As Medra tells Nyxaris about this history, the dragon recalls the atrocities he committed on mortals in the past and flies away, tormented. 

The various narrative threads converge during the Winter Solstice Ball. Rodriguez and Kage realize the potential of the misuse of Nyxaris, and coax Medra to summon the dragon so they can communicate with him. However, when Nyxaris arrives, the men spring a trap, shooting Nyxaris with a crossbow at a vulnerable spot so they can turn him to stone again. Medra howls in anger when she realizes the trick, and Kage restricts her. Meanwhile, Blake confronts Viktor and learns that his uncle deliberately orchestrated the blood bond between him and Medra to trigger a draconic transformation in him. Blake has dragon blood via his parents; feeding from Medra awakened the blood in him. An angry Blake transforms fully into a dragon-like creature, losing an eye but killing Viktor. 

Blake transforms back into his highblood form and rushes to the courtyard, in on Kage and Rodriguez’s plan. The binding of Nyxaris is interrupted by Marcus and Catherine, who use Medra’s stolen blood (during the ambush) in a necromantic ritual with a magically controlled Lunaya Orphos to reanimate House Oprhos’s golden dragon, Molindra, as a corrupted beast. In the ensuing chaos, Marcus shoots Florence with a crossbow. Medra attacks Molindra with the dagger containing the soul of her mother, Orcades. Orcades possesses the undead dragon, forcing it to fly away with Marcus, Catherine, and Lunaya on its back. 

With Florence dying, Rodriguez reveals that a mixture of dragon and rider blood might save her, though it could also kill her or bond her to Nyxaris. Furious at the betrayal, Nyxaris initially refuses. Blake offers his own life to the dragon to atone. Medra shields Blake from Nyxaris, declaring, “he’s mine.” The sudden appearance of Neville the fluffin—a small creature with an ancient, soothing connection to dragons—calms Nyxaris. Reminded of his last rider and her own fluffin companion, the dragon’s anger softens. He agrees to the dangerous healing ritual, which may save Florence’s life but could inadvertently forge an unbreakable bond between Florence and the last dragon.