Free A Dawn of Dragonfire: Dragonlore, Book 1 by Daniel Arenson

swore that she'd kill him someday."
    Solina.  Queen of Tiranor.  My love and fire.
    "We don't know that yet," Bayrin said softly.  "Mori is still sleeping; she's hurt and in shock, and might not wake for a while.  We'll have answers in time.  But come now, El.  A fire burns in the south and the sky turns red.  The city needs you."
    Elethor nodded, eyes lowered, and they walked across the tomb to its towering doors.  The weight of the sky seemed to hang on Elethor's shoulders.  He forced himself to walk straight, to hold his head high, to square his shoulders, to be a prince of Requiem.  Inside, however, he felt ready to collapse.
    My sister is hurt.  My brother is dead.  My father flew to war.   He clenched his jaw, eyes stinging and throat burning.  Be strong, Elethor.  Keep walking.  The city needs you.  There will be time for grief later.  
    They stepped under a towering archway, its keystone embossed with golden dragons, and exited Gloriae's Tomb.  From atop the marble staircase, Elethor saw the city roll across hills below.  Domes and towers rose from the birch forest, glittering with icicles.  Towering walls circled the city, rising from among the snowy trees like a crown of stone resting in white hair.  Lord Deramon's dragons perched upon the towers and walls, watching the south where red light glowed.
    The fire of Tiranor flies there, Elethor knew.  Stars protect you, Father.
    Elethor had been born after the war with Tiranor.  Orin had been only a babe.  But he had heard the tales countless times.  In his mind, he could see that old war as if he himself had fought it.  Father, then a young brash king, had flown against the deserts of Tiranor, howling with rage and vowing to avenge the death of his brother, whom Tiran soldiers had slain with arrows.  The Tirans had no dragon forms; theirs was a doomed battle.  They fought in caves, in forts, in mountains, firing arrows and spears against the wrath of Requiem's dragons.  They died.  Their palace fell.  Father himself slew the king and queen of Tiranor.
    But he spared the young princess, Elethor thought, heart wrenching.  Father had spared Solina.  He returned to Requiem with scars, dark eyes, and a girl who grew to bring fire, passion, and unending sweet pain to Elethor's life.
    Standing upon the stairs of Gloriae's Tomb, Elethor shifted, growing and hardening into a brass dragon.  Bayrin shifted at his side, becoming a green dragon with white horns.  The two took flight, fire flickering between their teeth, and dived over temples, cobblestone squares, copses of birches, and marble homes.  Soon they reached the southern wall, a curving battlement fifty feet tall.  They landed upon its crenulations between dragons of Deramon's City Guard.  Before them in the south, firelight rose over King's Forest, and smoke billowed to paint the sky dark red.
    "A forest fire?" Bayrin asked, frowning.  His own fire danced in his maw.  Scales clinking, he clutched the battlements so tight his claws dug grooves into the stone.
    Elethor shook his head, scattering the smoke that rose from his nostrils.  "It is the fire of Tiranor herself."  He clenched his jaw, remembering the fire that had burned Solina, and how she trembled and cried in his arms.
    A distant blue glimmer caught his eye.  He stared.  A dragon was flying from the south, a speck fleeing a wall of fire.
    "Blue dragon," Elethor whispered.  "Lyana?"
    Bayrin stared, squinting.  With a grunt, the young guard took flight from the wall, wings thudding.  His tail snaked behind him, and his green scales turned red in the firelight.  With a curse and icy fear twisting his gut, Elethor flew too.  The wind tasted like smoke, too hot for winter.  The two dragons, brass and green, flew toward their distant comrade.  The farms of Requiem rolled beneath them: fields of wheat and barley, rows of apple trees, pastures of sheep and cattle.  Fifty thousand Vir Requis lived off this land; in his