Dragon Unleashed (The Fallen Empire, #2)

by Grace Draven

[EBookObsessed]

We need more draga in the world. Dragon Unleashed has great characters and world building. I am looking forward to more.

I decided I needed a quick re-read of Phoenix Unbound before starting Dragon Unleashed. I am glad that I did because I enjoyed it more with the second read. It also ended exactly were Book 2 begins in the market so the story felt more complete reading them back to back like that.

Dragon Unleashed features Halani, a healer with earth magic, who is a member of the free traders who unknowingly had helped Azarian and Gilene in their escape from the Empire and who had healed Gilene.

While at the market, Halani’s uncle was offered an artifact that was definitely dangerous. Halani could feel the magic pulsing off of it. She warned her uncle not to purchase it since it would bring them nothing but danger or else why would two strangers try to pawn something to valuable off so cheap. Of course, being a man in love with profit, he doesn’t listen and purchasing it brings all kinds of danger down on their heads just like Halani predicted.

Halani almost trips over three bodies in the meadow, including the two men who sold them the artifact, only to find the man with three large arrows in his body was still alive. Halani recognized him as the man who was so kind to her mother earlier in the day. Halani’s mother had an accident as a child and now acts very childlike making their mother/daughter bond a reversed role. While Halani doesn’t hold much hope of saving him, she can’t reward this man’s kindness by walking away and leaving him to die. But this it the second time that Halani has brought an unknown stranger into their keep and her uncle threatens to throw her out if she doesn’t get rid of the man who is definitely a danger to them.

Halani convinces her uncle to leave ahead of the rest of the caravan to go to the city and sell his artifact. This gives Halani a little more time to heal Malachus and get him on his feet before she needs to send him on his way.

What Halani doesn’t know is that she really has brought something dangerous into their caravans. Malachus is a draga hunting for his mother-bond so he can finally change forms. Yes, the mother-bond which Halani’s uncle has just left with to sell in the underground magic market in the city.

Malachus has never known human kindness like he has been offered from Halani and her mother, Asil. He has only known human greed, selfishness and hate. Just the fact that she decided to heal him rather than rob him is something amazing to him, and the longer he is with Halani, the more he wishes he could stay just a little longer but the draga inside is desperate to come out and he is so close to finding the mother-bond. He can feel it calling to him. But when he finds out that Halani had what he was seeking and sold if off, will he ever be able to forgive her?

I enjoyed this story of Malachus and Halani and sweet Asil, because her mother is an important bond between them. In fact, all of the free traders were very welcoming to Malachus, except the uncle, which Malachus finds surprising since he is decades older than he looks and has had decade upon decade of only seeing the worst in humans. The fact that draga are longer lived than humans and we have a draga/human bond growing was never discussed. I guess the fact that Malachus would stay young while Halani grew old is irrelevant for our HEA.

Halani the storyteller of the groups once again tells the tale of the Golden Maiden used to trap the evil and greedy dragon (whose skeleton hung in the bedroom of the Empress) which you can imagine doesn’t go over well with the draga who has his own understanding of what happened that day.

I did find the whole mother-bond being a bit convoluted a premise. Draga stay hidden in a human form to keep them safe. The mother dragon puts some magic in a piece of herself, in this case a piece of her claw, and when the child is old enough to protect themselves, they use the mother-bond to release their inner dragon. Obviously Malachus’s quest for the mother-bond is the basis of our story but it seemed a little too complicated to have mom keep yanking off pieces of herself, casting them with magic and having to remember where she keeps each one and look — this one got stolen. You would think dragon shifting would be like puberty. You hit that specific age where you can protect yourself and boom — draga hormones kick in and you get zits and tail.

This story also differs from Phoenix Unbound as there is a third POV for our story. The Empress has heard that there is a draga searching for its mother-bond and wants a new draga skeleton for her summer palace. She tasks Gharek to find the artifact and the draga. I am not sure how we are supposed to feel about Gharek since he obviously has no problem hurting people to do the Empresses bidding but we find that he does these things to protect his young daughter who was born with a birth defect which would get her stoned by the masses if he wasn’t there to protect her. He even is willing to double cross the Empress if he can find the draga and get him to use draga magic to heal his kid. Bad guy? Good guy? Not so bad guy? We do have a character make a reappearance from the first book and although she wasn’t given a name in the first story, but how many people can speak with the dead? I am not sure if Gharek will make a reappearance in the third book but I am not 100 percent able to hate him.

I am definitely enjoying Grace Draven’s storytelling which is what lead me to pick up Radiance and Eidolon and I am going to check out more of her stories as soon as I can.

Received an ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.