The Caretaker of the Wounded Dragon

“A dragon whelp crashes onto her roof with a shattered wing; the only neighbor with seasoned larchwood for the splint has refused to speak to anyone for three winters.”

Alba tends the valley's wildlife sanctuary, adept at soothing enchanted mountain goats and cantankerous messenger owls, but nothing prepared her for the thunderous crash of a cinder-drake the size of a sheepdog collapsing through her woodshed roof. To set the shattered wing bone she requires cured larchwood laths, a rare timber held only by Dorian, the brooding joiner who abandoned the castle guard and retreated into a life of cedar shavings and silence. Between hot rosemary poultices, ginger tea, and the stubborn affection of the fire-breathing whelp, Alba and Dorian discover that the fractures slowest to mend are those left unseen beneath the armor.