The Name She Stole

She stole a dead rider's name to walk through the gate. The captain who was promised the real girl already knows.

Neris Quinn set bones in a mill village until a drowned courier washed up with a dead girl's papers. The name on the wax was Liora Vane. The packet was a reserved slot at Cinderbrand College, a heat-lock number, and a betrothal notice. Neris took the name because the ash-line was already eating the east, and a gate that reads wax does not ask whose hands wrapped the last sprain.

Soot found her on the bank. An unnumbered ash-drake, stove-cold hide, no college iron. It chose the living heat that stole the packet. Bonding a scavenger is heresy. Walking into Cinderbrand as someone else is a slower pyre.

Captain Torin Vale was waiting. He sent the real Liora three words under a disk. Neris does not have them. He reads bone-setter callus, not rider leather. He does not report her. He puts her on his flight, in his silence, on a leash made of the secret. Publicly she is his betrothed. Privately she is a lie he has decided to keep.

Warden Cael wants iron on every incoming wrist. Rival cadet Sera Quill wants the pairing slot and the death date Neris cannot explain. Magister Holt will run Threshing whether the beast in stall 47 exists or not. Stall 47 is empty. Soot will not sit a number. The branding clock, the betrothal ledger, and the unregistered heat will not wait on a school year.

Adult romantasy. One college year. One stolen name. One dragon the book will not house. They finish the year together, not free, not branded-legal. The war wants the heretic pair alive - as a weapon.