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BOOK ONE

Adapt

GRANT A FAVOR TO ONE GENERATION OF HOMINIDS, AND YOU’LL FIND

THEIR SONS TWICE AS DEMANDING—AND THRICE AS FORGETFUL

—AuRel the Bronze

Chapter 1

AuRon son of AuRel, the scaleless dragon who lived upon the Isle of Ice, watched his sons blink in the brassy sun of the dazzling northern spring

In the winter, AuRon had learned, the island saw constant snow, co in waves froy and rainy, save for a brief, enchanted dry spell after etting started but always lingering thanks to the warm ocean currents, made up for the rest

As though in apology, spring had brought wildflowers to the thin patches of soil clinging between granite spurs where the wind died Their yellow and blue and white heads looked up, as bright as sun, sea, and sky Incredibly, insects already danced and buzzed between the bloo low, out of the wind, where the sky heated black earth and turned melt into mire

AuRon looked at his sons, pridehis neck hearts twitch In a few months they would breathe their first fire and become drakes Ausurath, a little heavier than his brother, had big back haunches on his red-scaled body and was a fine ju on his brother Auht nostril that showed dark against his golden scale, a reminder of a bloody braith his brother

On their first trip into the Upper World he taught them about wind and shadow and the course of the sun The second time his littered as green as their s AuRon and Natasatch had four hatchlings; one, sadly, never emitted so much as a flutter of a heartbeat and becaan to tap

The excite between thefroether ed to keep throats and limbs intact

Once they could be ht depend on an extra set of ears and nostrils, they settled into alround the two males wrestled and bit and yeeked little battle roars at each other, stealing each other’s fish and reat-grandsire, scattering their sisters to corners of the cave, then collapsing into sleep with tiny teeth locked on each other’s liathered for abrothers in the air; then it was ti and lectures

Exhausting business

Aboveground, in the overwhel space of the Upper World, AuRon was relieved to see that they shrank against each other, tail to tail and staring from heads frozen in fear