An outcast princess must earn her birthright as a hero of the realm—in this “utterly engrossing” Newbery Medal–winning fantasy (The New York Times).

Aerin is an outcast in her own father’s court, daughter of the foreign woman who, it was rumored, was a witch, and enchanted the king to marry her.

She makes friends with her father’s lame, retired warhorse, Talat, and discovers an old, overlooked, and dangerously imprecise recipe for dragon-fire-proof ointment in a dusty corner of her father’s library. Two years, many canter circles to the left to strengthen Talat’s weak leg, and many burnt twigs (and a few fingers) secretly experimenting with the ointment recipe later, Aerin is present when someone comes from an outlying village to report a marauding dragon to the king. Aerin slips off alone to fetch her horse, her sword, and her fireproof ointment . . .

But modern dragons, while formidable opponents fully capable of killing a human being, are small and accounted vermin. There is no honor in killing dragons. The great dragons are a tale out of ancient history.

That is, until the day that the king is riding out at the head of an army. A weary man on an exhausted horse staggers into the courtyard where the king’s troop is assembled: “The Black Dragon has come . . . Maur, who has not been seen for generations, the last of the great dragons, great as a mountain. Maur has awakened.”

Rule #1 of falling in love with your best friend’s sister: Be prepared to fight for her.

Even though Cassandra Carrigan doesn’t want to be fought for. No matter what he does, she won’t speak to Roman Sullivan. Not a single word.

When Roman’s parents move, forcing him to live with the Carrigans, he’s not sure how he’s supposed to live in a room next to the girl he’s loved for years, the girl who doesn’t want him there.

But she has a secret, one existing between the pages of the romance books she loses herself in: Cassie is a hopeless romantic, in love with the idea of love.

When she asks him for her first kiss, he can’t say no to her, not when he wants to fall into that single moment, hoping it doesn’t have to end.

Fantasy can’t last forever, and that version of the girl he knows is nothing but that, a fantasy.

The battle for the real Cassandra Carrigan has only just begun, and Roman is going to prove that one kiss isn’t enough.