Never test the order. Sk?lda Branwright has been betrayed by the Republic. Her dreams of building realms burned in an elvish campaign she was never meant to survive -- one that the Dragonsteel Order will fight to keep secret at all costs. But the rules in the Deep North's wilderness are different. Outside the bounds of elvish rule, she may make her own. Elondria faces the beginning of another continental war -- with Sk?lda and Bale at the center. The time has come for the first rider in all history to dare ride a Bael into battle. To protect her dragon and the free peoples of the North from the Order, Sk?lda will have no choice but to break. She will break many, many things... and herald a Second Breaking of the Realms sooner than she could have ever imagined.