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Heart Of Cassimir:
The First Daughter of Cassimir has come home. But she is not the only one.
Fifteen years ago, Shreya vanished from the grasslands of Cassimir on the night of the Choosing — lifted from a crumbling temple by the crimson-scaled dragon who had been waiting in stone for her alone. The clans mourned her as a theft. They built fires for her soul. They never stopped watching the horizon.
She is watching it now.
Cassimir is not the province she left. The nomadic herds are thinned. The grain roads are stripped bare. And marching south through the dust — an army so vast it turns the horizon black — is the force Emperor Madrid has been building for a generation. Not to hold Gaia. To leave it.
Shreya returns to find her people surviving in the cracks of an occupation that is almost over — because Madrid no longer needs Cassimir. He needs what is buried beneath it. Deep under the ancient acropolis where she first met her dragon Garnet, his engineers are excavating a relic older than the barriers, older than the Citadel, older than anyone living can the Speaking Stone, a device built by the first Gaian dragons to command their kind across a continent. In Madrid's hands, it becomes something else entirely — the mechanism to issue a single command to every dragon in his engineered army, simultaneously, across an ocean.
But Shreya is not the only person who knows this.
Jael — the chief's son who tackled her in the grass before the Choosing and disappeared to the Citadel the same night — has been Madrid's tax collector in Cassimir for fifteen years. He has ridden Ruby, his crimson dragon, across every valley and every clan encampment, stripping the harvests that feed Madrid's marching army. He has been the face of the occupation for the people who remember him as a boy. And he has been very, very careful about exactly which small acts of mercy the red crystal in his chest can no longer see.
When Shreya finds him, she expects a traitor. What she finds is a man who made an impossible deal at fifteen and has been paying for it ever since — one quietly misfiled report, one redirected patrol, one family who did not lose everything, at a time. The corruption in his crystal is visible now. The years have cost him more than he bargained for. He has one act left in him. He knows what it is. He has been saving it.
As Madrid closes in to claim the Speaking Stone and Shreya races to destroy it before it can be used, an old enemy arrives on dragonback with a new purpose — and the full truth of everything Madrid has built, everything he has sacrificed Gaia for, finally speaks itself aloud.
Not every hero survives what comes next. Some choose not to.
Heart of Cassimir is the ninth book in The Dragon Saga — the epic romantasy series where freedom is won one province at a time, the bonds between dragons and their riders reshape the world, and the cost of choosing right is sometimes everything you have left.
Fifteen years ago, Shreya vanished from the grasslands of Cassimir on the night of the Choosing — lifted from a crumbling temple by the crimson-scaled dragon who had been waiting in stone for her alone. The clans mourned her as a theft. They built fires for her soul. They never stopped watching the horizon.
She is watching it now.
Cassimir is not the province she left. The nomadic herds are thinned. The grain roads are stripped bare. And marching south through the dust — an army so vast it turns the horizon black — is the force Emperor Madrid has been building for a generation. Not to hold Gaia. To leave it.
Shreya returns to find her people surviving in the cracks of an occupation that is almost over — because Madrid no longer needs Cassimir. He needs what is buried beneath it. Deep under the ancient acropolis where she first met her dragon Garnet, his engineers are excavating a relic older than the barriers, older than the Citadel, older than anyone living can the Speaking Stone, a device built by the first Gaian dragons to command their kind across a continent. In Madrid's hands, it becomes something else entirely — the mechanism to issue a single command to every dragon in his engineered army, simultaneously, across an ocean.
But Shreya is not the only person who knows this.
Jael — the chief's son who tackled her in the grass before the Choosing and disappeared to the Citadel the same night — has been Madrid's tax collector in Cassimir for fifteen years. He has ridden Ruby, his crimson dragon, across every valley and every clan encampment, stripping the harvests that feed Madrid's marching army. He has been the face of the occupation for the people who remember him as a boy. And he has been very, very careful about exactly which small acts of mercy the red crystal in his chest can no longer see.
When Shreya finds him, she expects a traitor. What she finds is a man who made an impossible deal at fifteen and has been paying for it ever since — one quietly misfiled report, one redirected patrol, one family who did not lose everything, at a time. The corruption in his crystal is visible now. The years have cost him more than he bargained for. He has one act left in him. He knows what it is. He has been saving it.
As Madrid closes in to claim the Speaking Stone and Shreya races to destroy it before it can be used, an old enemy arrives on dragonback with a new purpose — and the full truth of everything Madrid has built, everything he has sacrificed Gaia for, finally speaks itself aloud.
Not every hero survives what comes next. Some choose not to.
Heart of Cassimir is the ninth book in The Dragon Saga — the epic romantasy series where freedom is won one province at a time, the bonds between dragons and their riders reshape the world, and the cost of choosing right is sometimes everything you have left.
243 pages, Kindle Edition
Published July 31, 2026
About the author
Susan Faw
56 books209 followersA lover of unusual worlds, Susan is a masked crusader for the fantastical world. Championing mythical rights, she quells uprisings and battles infidels who would slay the lifeblood of her pen. It’s all in a night’s work, for this whirlwind writer. Welcome to the quest.
Dante Rossetti Grand Prize awarded for Best Young Adult Fiction of 2016, Chanticleer Reviews, for Seer of Souls.
First in Category, Dante Rossetti, Best Young Adult Mythology, 2016, Chanticleer Reviews, for Seer of Souls.
First in Category, Dante Rossetti , 2017 Chanticleer Reviews, for Soul Sanctuary
Find out how it all began! You can download the prequel novella to the series for free!
Visit susanfaw.com to download your copy, or copy and paste this link: http://susanfaw.com/
Dante Rossetti Grand Prize awarded for Best Young Adult Fiction of 2016, Chanticleer Reviews, for Seer of Souls.
First in Category, Dante Rossetti, Best Young Adult Mythology, 2016, Chanticleer Reviews, for Seer of Souls.
First in Category, Dante Rossetti , 2017 Chanticleer Reviews, for Soul Sanctuary
Find out how it all began! You can download the prequel novella to the series for free!
Visit susanfaw.com to download your copy, or copy and paste this link: http://susanfaw.com/
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
Review of advance copy received from Author
This series just keeps getting stronger with each book, as we see they tyrant Emperor Madrid, a djinn wearing a human's face, almost crumbling in this book, and because he is fearing his end, he becomes even harsher with all the people of Gaia. Shreya the first daughter, returns to her people after having bonded with the stone dragon on the acropolis temple on her heartsworn day, and been flown off immediately to Jintessa. On the same day the first son Jael, was also bonded but taken immidiately by Madrid's people, to be forcefully bonded and enslaved to serve the emperor. After fifteen years Shreya returns, she realises that Madrid no longer needs the people of Cassimir, thus he was starving them to the last man. He was doing this because he wanted something more from the area, he wanted the singing stone of the acropolis which had the ability to call all dragons by its song. He intended to wield the song, and thus the dragons, in order to gather an army, and return to Jintessa, his own home from which he had been exiled. All that Madrid has done so far was not to rule over Gaia, but to return to his homeland and rule over the djinns living there. However Shreya, and her dragon, Garnet and her djinn Spessa, plus so many others decided to take a stand against Madrid. None wanted him to take hold of their dragons, so with the help of Jael the first son, who had been labelled a traitor and who had given warning they were prepared for Madrid when he came or were they? This book is riveting and had me reading it in one sitting as I could not put it down. After a cliffhanger ending I feel that the best is yet to come and I am dying to read the next book in this series.
July 27, 2026
A brilliant exciting continuation of this dragon fantasy adventure. So much action in this book I can't begin to describe it. Also very emotional reading too.
It has all the elements of a first class fantasy experience. Wonderful characters and story to die for, literally.
We learn a lot about all of the characters, dragons and wizards alike. It's one of those stories that grabs you straight away and doesn't let go until the very end.
I don't do spoilers but this is a complete story with not so much a cliffhanger but a promise of further adventures in the next book in the series.
It has all the elements of a first class fantasy experience. Wonderful characters and story to die for, literally.
We learn a lot about all of the characters, dragons and wizards alike. It's one of those stories that grabs you straight away and doesn't let go until the very end.
I don't do spoilers but this is a complete story with not so much a cliffhanger but a promise of further adventures in the next book in the series.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews