Where the River Returns

After everything they have lost, an ordinary life may be the hardest thing to win. The truth behind the divided kingdoms can no longer be buried. But truth has not brought peace. Rival claims threaten to turn reform into another struggle for control, while the people who survived the old order are still waiting for their lives to change. Pressed to claim a crown, Coren Vaust holds to a different ambition: a refuge for dragons that can no longer fly, will not fight or have lost their keepers. Far from him, Shen Yujin works towards a school where knowledge of the river can be shared—and where service need not mean obedience to a ruler. What they want for themselves is quieter. A room. A shared meal. Enough time to stay. Yet their responsibilities keep drawing them apart, and neither can turn away from the people who need him. When violence returns to Nareth and the river becomes a weapon once more, their separate work draws them into the same desperate struggle. To protect the city where they found each other, they must risk the lives they have begun to imagine—and resist the familiar temptation to call destruction necessary. A future together will require more than surviving the last battle. It will mean deciding what power they can surrender, what promises they can keep and how to live with losses that victory cannot repair. Where the River Returns concludes TAKU SKY's Dragons' Sundering trilogy with bonded dragons, dangerous alliances and a love tested by war and the difficult work of peace. An intimate epic fantasy about responsibility, belonging and the stubborn hope of coming home.