Jump to ratings and reviews
Rate this book

The Dragon Prophecy #3

Deliverance of Dragons: Book Three of the Dragon Prophecy

Rate this book
FROM THE AUTHORS OF NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERS WHEN DARKNESS FALLS AND THE PHOENIX TRANSFORMED AND USA TODAY BESTSELLER TO LIGHT A CANDLE

The epic conclusion to the first War of the Endarkened

From orphaned child to prophesied savior, Vieliessar Farcarinon is more than ready to take her rightful place as Elven Queen. While her bickering countrymen may not have crowned her yet, she has been anointed by the stars above and the dragon at her side. But the overwhelming attacks of the Endarkened have forced Elvenkind to abandon internal politics in favor of an unprecedented retreat.

Runacarendalur Caerthalien is a thorn in the Queen’s side and should be her greatest enemy. A traitor to the Elvish empire, he has become the trusted general of once-subjugated creatures—a chaotic force of centaurs, merfolk, gryphons, minotaurs, and talking bears alike.

These two strong-willed leaders have been at each other’s throats for years. Now forced into tentative co-existence due to the common threat of the Endarkened, how will they react when they finally realize they are soulmates—bound despite their will by unassailable magics that twine their lifelines into one? If either should die, the other will also fall. And without their two greatest leaders, the Children of Light are sure to drown amidst the never-ending waves of Endarkened attacks.

The collaborative fantasy world of Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory features continent-spanning high adventure and epic battle. The Dragon Prophecy illuminates a time when long-lived Elves rule the Fortunate Lands. It is a time of dire prophecy, of battle and bloodshed, of great magics unlike any the Elvenkind have seen before. Deliverance of Dragons is the story of the end of one world and the beginning of the next.

The Obsidian Mountain Trilogy
#1 The Outstretched Shadow
#2 To Light a Candle
#3 When Darkness Falls

The Enduring Flame Trilogy

#1 The Phoenix Unchained
#2 The Phoenix Endangered
#3 The Phoenix Transformed

The Dragon Prophecy Trilogy

#1 Crown of Vengeance
#2 Blade of Empire
#3 Deliverance of Dragons

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

688 pages, Hardcover

Published May 27, 2025

61 people are currently reading
132 people want to read

About the author

Mercedes Lackey

432 books9,555 followers
Mercedes entered this world on June 24, 1950, in Chicago, had a normal childhood and graduated from Purdue University in 1972. During the late 70's she worked as an artist's model and then went into the computer programming field, ending up with American Airlines in Tulsa, Oklahoma. In addition to her fantasy writing, she has written lyrics for and recorded nearly fifty songs for Firebird Arts & Music, a small recording company specializing in science fiction folk music.

"I'm a storyteller; that's what I see as 'my job'. My stories come out of my characters; how those characters would react to the given situation. Maybe that's why I get letters from readers as young as thirteen and as old as sixty-odd. One of the reasons I write song lyrics is because I see songs as a kind of 'story pill' -- they reduce a story to the barest essentials or encapsulate a particular crucial moment in time. I frequently will write a lyric when I am attempting to get to the heart of a crucial scene; I find that when I have done so, the scene has become absolutely clear in my mind, and I can write exactly what I wanted to say. Another reason is because of the kind of novels I am writing: that is, fantasy, set in an other-world semi-medieval atmosphere. Music is very important to medieval peoples; bards are the chief newsbringers. When I write the 'folk music' of these peoples, I am enriching my whole world, whether I actually use the song in the text or not.

"I began writing out of boredom; I continue out of addiction. I can't 'not' write, and as a result I have no social life! I began writing fantasy because I love it, but I try to construct my fantasy worlds with all the care of a 'high-tech' science fiction writer. I apply the principle of TANSTAAFL ['There ain't no such thing as free lunch', credited to Robert Heinlein) to magic, for instance; in my worlds, magic is paid for, and the cost to the magician is frequently a high one. I try to keep my world as solid and real as possible; people deal with stubborn pumps, bugs in the porridge, and love-lives that refuse to become untangled, right along with invading armies and evil magicians. And I try to make all of my characters, even the 'evil magicians,' something more than flat stereotypes. Even evil magicians get up in the night and look for cookies, sometimes.

"I suppose that in everything I write I try to expound the creed I gave my character Diana Tregarde in Burning Water:

"There's no such thing as 'one, true way'; the only answers worth having are the ones you find for yourself; leave the world better than you found it. Love, freedom, and the chance to do some good -- they're the things worth living and dying for, and if you aren't willing to die for the things worth living for, you might as well turn in your membership in the human race."

Also writes as Misty Lackey

Author's website

Ratings & Reviews

What do you think?
Rate this book

Friends & Following

Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!

Community Reviews

5 stars
39 (41%)
4 stars
27 (28%)
3 stars
17 (18%)
2 stars
8 (8%)
1 star
3 (3%)
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
Profile Image for Sierra.
74 reviews3 followers
August 13, 2025
The highest praise I can give to a book is that it was coherent and satisfying. This book (and series as a whole) is both of those things in spades. I love it.

Despite being a prequel series to another series, which confirms that Vielle more-or-less succeeds, this book maintains such high tension the entire time. There were moments that I was scared to keep reading because of how invested I was into the characters and what was happening. The stakes are so infinitely high (only the fate of every living thing) and the death toll staggering.

I love that this is a story of becoming. For all that Vielle rails against it as much as she blesses it, the idea of a Prophesy with a will of its own is so compelling to me. Especially in a prequel series where so much is preordained, the way the Prophesy works through Vielle and shapes her just works so well. It's the idea of a 'chosen one' taken to the absolute extreme.

I love that it is a story about the necessity of trusting one another and forming alliances and bonds with people, even if they look and are different from you. It's about freedom and equality and democracy and despite how brutal the battles in this book are, it's also about hope and clinging to it with your fingernails even when everything seems bleak and hopeless, and about fighting for the future and for peace.

And the romance! There was honestly a bit less of it than I wanted it but everything that was there felt so true to their characters. Of course these two are Soulbonded, of course they are two halves of a whole, of course this whole thing would not have worked if it weren't for the two of them being exactly what they are. I love that they exist as a pair, separate but parallel to the Prophesy, as if it couldn't have happened any other way. Of course I wanted to see more of them together and wanted a bit more explicit confirmation of their feelings, but also there were still so many great moments of them getting to know each other. I still do think this is one of the best enemies-to-lovers romances I've read even if we don't really get a whole lot of the 'to-lovers' part. Bound by magic, forced to work together, forced to recognize your equal in cleverness and ambition, I mean, what more can you want? (if this were another genre I would have wanted them to kiss but alas)

My biggest complaint is that it's that I really wish there was a map that labeled the Flower Forests and major locations of the book. I was able to roughly keep track of where people were but I still often forgot where Ceoprentrei, etc was in relation to other locations which was kind of frustrating. Related to this I would have appreciated some sort of glossary at the end because there are a lot of new words and it can get confusing quite quickly. (Note to self: deosil is right, tuathal is left, I think).

You could argue that the ending is a little rushed and I would probably agree. I think I would have liked a little bit more to connect the final Great Working to everything else. As much as I love the dragons, I feel like they should have been more obviously connected to the Great Working as well, since it is the last hurrah of the book and the whole series is named after them. While there are many plot points that come together so smoothly its beautiful to watch, there are also a decent number of plot points that fizzle out in a kind of confusing way or that suddenly arise out of nowhere. (In particular the thing with Shurzal's plan and the fact that Vielle is called High Queen in a lot of the excerpts but the origin of the name is never explained in the book, they only ever call her High King) That said, none of these things impacted my enjoyment of the book while I was reading it, they only bother me in hindsight.

These books are definitely not for everyone, they're long and dense, with lots of really long names, BUT I love them so much. The Obsidian Trilogy has been my favorite book series for a long time and now this one has joined it.
5 reviews
June 4, 2025
The pacing is brutally terrible. The entire first 2/3 of the book is a grinding, meaningless slog with a conclusion so predictable that Lackey might as well have not even bothered. No battle has any twists or turns, they're all the same; characters go in, fewer come out, and nothing changes. After the "twist" in the book thoroughly spoiled by the cover and by knowledge of the prior series, everything races through at a breakneck pace.

Meanwhile, the villains and heroes alike have bizarrely inconsistent deaths; many of those built up over the entire trilogy effectively just disappear, with nothing more than a passing reference that they died. One, out of nowhere, has a death scene so jarringly dragged out that it feels like it's taking ages. A random character who only tangentially touched the plot had a "death" and resurrection that took an order of magnitude more page space than several of the main villains lumped together.

The "chemistry" between the coleads is so transparently forced that I was genuinely shocked by the abrupt conclusion to it; the impression I'd got leading up was that they wouldn't end up together at all, that magic had separated them, but apparently not? Or maybe it did? I didn't bother going back to check.

The characters all stop acting predictably or in line with their characters. One has been formulating a plot for half the book when his diabolical plan...turned out to be a regular old distraction and ambush, one only made possible because he got blindly lucky in finding the distraction. A group of characters betray Vielissar for no explicable reason; their betrayal lasts literally two pages and is resolved offpage by just forgiving them. Another makes a random, unforced confession that threatens to destabilize the kingdom entirely...because he got angry at a transparent ploy? It's honestly hard to tell. A random side character decides to betray her mate and damn the world to the Endarkened literally out of nowhere; everything about her is introduced and explained at the same time as she begins her treachery, where she also mysteriously gains the power to both hide from anyone trying to find her and overpower the entire combined magical might of her race who would presumably try to stop her.

Worldshattering revelations are brought up and dismissed with the same lack of care. It's revealed that an entire species was damned to extinction - and then the subject is never brought up again. Rune apparently just forgets about them entirely; he never has so much as a chance to react on the page. One can only wonder why they apparently brought every member to a single battle, or why the survivors didn't immediately set out for the other land Melissa speaks of earlier in the book, if it was common knowledge among the Otherfolk; apparently, there should be many more of them there.

There's little of the mystery and less of the magic found in prior books. It's all just a tired, boring slog that feels like it was churned out by an author who'd written so much of the story already in other books that all that was left was to paint by numbers, which she did, with just as much creativity and imagination as you'd expect. Many of the mysteries revealed in, say, the Enduring Flame trilogy, look like they're going to be addressed and explanations given - only for the source of the mystery to get punted right back further into the past for no reason.

All told, this feels more like reading a fanfic of the expected final book than the actual thing. The intention feels good, but the writing mediocre and the pacing horrendous. If I didn't know how much the publisher screwed with Lackey and interfered with the book, I'd give up on reading her future works entirely; the Valdemar trilogy was bad enough, and this is worse. I would genuinely recommend just skipping this; it introduces literally nothing substantive you can't get by reading other books later in the timeline.
Profile Image for Christy.
55 reviews
August 18, 2025
The ending on this one was pretty anticlimactic for me. The trilogy was just one long slog of war after war with long, silly named Elven houses that it was hard to keep track of and hard to care about. The audiobook helped; then at least I could get some of the pronunciations in my head, but still super extra complicated names like that are not needed and they don't add anything to the book. I waded through because I knew there would be dragons, however, they don't show up until 80% of the way through the last book in the trilogy and are given a very cursory treatment. After reading the other two trilogies in this series, I was expecting explanations for the caves in the desert and a whole host of other things, none of which were given because it ended too soon. Thank goodness Vielle and Runecar finally got together, but it wasn't even until the epilogue that you see that they can be happy together. I would have loved much, much less of the endless wars and conflicts and much more of the details on how Vielle's reign went AFTER she made the alliance with the Otherfolk and found a way to fight the endarkened. I feel like I suffered through an entire trilogy for nothing. I will not read this one again, but the other two trilogies in this world are still great.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
9 reviews
June 5, 2025
I’ve been waiting for this book for a few years. I even read Mallory’s blog every few years. I’ve re-read book 1 several times, and enjoyed book 2.

This feels like a new author, new characters, and a new world.

Plot points have no point.

Characters act in direct contradiction to previosuly established rules. (One bondmate was celibate because actually they bonded without knowing it years earlier, but then, without reference in book one, the younger of those two who would have bonded at 10 years old was ‘not’ bound by the same rule and somehow wasn’t celibate despite being equally bonded?)

I had no idea where this was heading most of the book.

The hundreds years old prince repeated comment that he would prefer to marry the teen girl who ‘checks notes’ was raised by his supposed love interest was gross and unnecessary, and served no redeaming plot point.

The ending chapter came LITERALLY out of nowhere.

Either the author lost his way, or the editors who forced a full re-write (per Mallory’s blog a few years ago) - and this resulting cluster-f - deserve to be fired. What a collosal disappointment.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for Justin.
20 reviews2 followers
August 11, 2025
I'm just so confused.

This was an eight year wait and I feel like it was one of the most disappointing endings. Characters disappeared without explanation. The antagonist just stopped at one point, never to be mentioned again. The protagonist was given all the information she needed, but the reader was left in the dark. If the ending was so close, why not just tell us what that was?

I'm trying to see the positives. But this book lurched from circumstance to circumstance, seemingly terrible problems suddenly resolved by an intuition unknown to the character(s) beforehand. It's as if the book was delivered to us in half. But the epilogue simply painted over the 10 YEARS of back and forth some of the characters had, and suddenly I'm rating it and seeing other books by these authors.

I just don't understand. If I didn't respect the other trilogies so much, this would easily be a zero stars rating. I don't want to spoil it, obviously. But at the same time, the entire point of the book was to detail the circumstances of the first war with the Endarkened. And inexplicably the ending of the book had nothing to do with the Endarkened. It just...stopped.

I'm horribly disappointed.
6 reviews1 follower
June 5, 2025
Did not like the ending. Nothing actually was resolved and it felt more like a soft cliffhanger than an ending

Spoilers after this point

Vielliessar did..*something* that caused the Starry Hunt and He Who Is to exit the world. It's not really clear what she did.

Then Rithdeliel decides to betray her, and instead of fighting or talk him back to her side, she's taken away by the Otherfold to get married to Runecar. And that's the end. That's it.

No idea if Rithdeliel is now High King, what Vielliessar did that drove away He Who Is, nor how the elves exchanged their share in the great magics for peace and long life

Also the map is just place names slapped onto a map of North American and doesn't make sense in the story
Profile Image for Sharon.
4,082 reviews
November 9, 2025
This novel had a lot of moving parts - many characters in different groups that all needed to tie to previous installments as well as move the story forward. This made the current plot difficult to follow at times. The titular dragons were left until the very end and it seemed that the solution to dealing with the Endarkened did not rest with them after all. Fabulous battle scenes, as usual.
Profile Image for Stewart.
161 reviews1 follower
July 12, 2025
I have loved this series but this last book in the trilogy is just OK. The pacing is off - either way too slow or way too fast. The overall tone of this book is cold & distant - it was hard to connect to well developed characters from the prior books.
3 reviews
October 4, 2025
I really wanted to like this. I tried to look past the very long unpronounceable names and focus on the story. Unfortunately it is just way too long. Somehow managed to explain making tea repetitively but didn’t actually answer huge plot holes and quickly wraps up at the end.
Profile Image for Sandra.
48 reviews1 follower
July 21, 2025
This is truly only 2.5 stars and being round-up. The ending is abrupt and confusing; it felt more like -hey, you got 250 words to finish this - and forced.
Profile Image for Kenneth.
209 reviews1 follower
July 30, 2025
Poor pacing, predictable and boring characters, and an absolutely terrible ending. It’s as if the author didn’t know where the story was going and had no clue how to end the trilogy.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews

Can't find what you're looking for?

Get help and learn more about the design.