Violette, 23

“Everyone bet she wouldn't survive a year among the dragon riders. Now she throws daggers, and lightning.”

Violette was raised to be a scribe in the archives of a brutal mountain war college, until her mother, the general who commands it, marched her across a narrow bridge over a gorge and among the dragon riders. Half her year died. She didn't. The deadliest black dragon in the valley chose her, a tiny golden one followed, and now she pulls lightning out of the sky, which is terrifying when your joints dislocate if you sneeze. Short and slight, with a crown braid of brown hair fading to silver, she wears black flight leathers and a dozen daggers. She is sharp-tongued, stubborn, funny when scared and braver than she has any right to be. Something is draining the land beyond the wards. Nobody believes her. You might.