A young slave who dreams of becoming a jouster-one of the few warriors who can actually ride a flying dragon. And so, in secret, he begins to raise his own dragon...

The dragonrider Vetch escapes to Alta, the subjugated land of his birth. There, he hopes to teach his people to raise and train dragons-and build an army that will liberate his homeland.

The Altan serf Vetch has escaped the enemy kingdom of Tia, only to find his homeland, Alta, enslaved by the evil Priest-Kings. With a small band of followers, Vetch must gather a secret army of dragon riders to rid their world of war and magical domination once and for all.

Kiron, the man who had once been a dragon-boy called Vetch, has united the dragon riders and managed to rid their world of both war and magical domination. But are the evil Magi really gone for good? As Kiron tries to build a new civilization at the site of an abandoned cliff dweller's city, called Aerie, conflicts arise, and he soon realizes there is a vast conspiracy at work, which includes individuals who have infiltrated every walk of life-even his own family. Once the heads of the Magi, these conspirators are determined to regain their sinister control.