He escapes and sets forth to seek the dragon NooMoahk because of a rumour that the ancient black knows the secret of dragonkind's supposed fatal weakness.

Along the way he encounters many friends and future allies, the Dawn Roarer wolf pack, the tradesdwarf Djer, Naf the mercenary and the girl-child Hieba.

AuRon volunteers and infiltrates to serve the Wyrmmaster and finds the "fatal" weakness of dragons: the fact that they imprint upon the first creature they see upon hatching and can then be tamed.

She later travels with a circus as a fortune teller, briefly roaming the land after uncasing her wings in search of dragons who can help her avenge her family's deaths.

Meeting with blood-sucking bats and dwarves, he makes his way to a community of dragons in the Lavadome, where he is adopted into the imperial family by the current ruler, the Tyr, and named RuGaard.

Rayg succeeds in crafting a brace for the wing that Drakossozh crippled in RuGaard's infancy, enabling the Copper to fly.

Emissaries of the Wyrmmaster arrive and attack the Copper's home of Anaea, shortly after SiDrakkon dies under mysterious circumstances and his nephew SiMelovant becomes Tyr and arranges peace with the invaders.

After the accidental death of Halaflora, RuGaard leads a successful assault against invading dragonriders and kills the Dragonblade, Drakossozh as well as SiMelovant.

Despite victory over the Demen, RuGaard's Tyrship is threatened when a plague from blighted kern sweeps through Lavadome, killing hatchlings and the eldest dragons.

RuGaard recaptures Pastinix, and with his help, leads the Lavadome's Aerial Guard in a sneak attack on Ghioz through the tunnels.

Together, they humble the city, though Naf almost dies in the attempt, and when AuRon burns the Red Queen a mysterious blue light, invisible to all but dragon eyes, leaves her body and flies away.

Together, they rout the Ironriders and retake the city, though Nilrasha is almost fatally injured by collapsing building and forced to bite her own wing off.

Wistala, as sister to the Copper who is now Emperor of the Upper and Lower Worlds, is appointed proxy Queen by crippled Nilrasha, where she advances her ideas of political equality of hominids and dragons.

Imfamnia and NiVom, defectors and protectors of neighboring Ghioz, try to get him to join a conspiracy of dragon supremacists and Ibidio's traditionalists who want to see control returned to the Imperial bloodline.

Though an assassination attempt, accusation of murder, and attack by Wheel of Fire dwarves all fail, it erodes the Copper's position sufficiently for a coup.

They go peacefully into exile on the Isle of Ice, only to be again attacked by a group led by Imfamnia, and flee to the isolated Sadda-Vale where Wistala secretly mates with DharSii.