No one is safe when the dragon glides low over the Eighth Dominion. Not the high born who plot and spill blood. Not the low born who serve with one eye to the sky and the other glancing back. Young Scorpius is fetched from the estate nursery, once raised to live among the nobility - claimed finally not by his family, but by a falconer to serve as his apprentice. Scorpius soon learns that a noble hides his monstrous appetites beneath velvet and jewels, while the leathery-winged dragon is honest about his own. His master does his best to shield Scorpius from the world outside their cottage, but the falconer is merely a servant who must obey his own masters. An attempt on the life of a young lord while on a hunt sends the falconer's apprentice on an abruptly different path, bringing Scorpius into the service of the House of Pruzhnino. Court intrigue sinks its talons into everyone, even Scorpius-especially a former falconer's apprentice once raised to be a lord in his own right.