Vlad stands sentinel on the rain-slicked walls of Schoarra, the “Lighthouse of the North,” a stratified city where the aristocracy basks in magical opulence while the slums below rot in the shadow of forgotten myths. To the sneering nobles and the common folk alike, he is merely the “Mongrel Knight,” a former slum-rat who clawed his way into the prestigious House Vayezid through sheer brutality, but beneath his tattered cloak, he operates as the Star-Embracing Swordmaster, a solitary executioner whose blade regulates contact with the Dragons monstrosities that the world believes are extinct but which he knows are waking.

His current, mundane orders to serve as a glorified caretaker for the sickly Lord Josef Vayezid and his high-strung, prize-winning hawk chafe against his grander purpose, forcing him to stifle the celestial power humming in his veins while he navigates the petty politics of the court. The delicate balance of his double life teeters when he spots Jemina, a sharp-tongued thief from his starving childhood, vanishing into the crowd a ghost whose sudden reappearance threatens to drag his carefully guarded origins into the unforgiving light.