The Summer of Blood and the Bridle

In the spring they come. When snow melts from the peaks of Torchspine and the Dragonhead, when the ice breaks on the river Kouten, the boghtmaws — horse-shaped creatures that drink blood and burn in the sun — crawl beyond the borders of the valley ‘hungry for blood and human touch… following the smell of a dream.’

Alto is a girl in love. A violinist devoted to her mistress, living a manicured existence in the southern cities, she is far from her origins in the wild north and its cold, superstitious tales. When she dreams of a white-faced colt, fate calls her home — fate in the shape of riders of the Nightmount, men and women who serve as a terrifying police force for the ruling families, who are as harsh and as strange as the beasts they ride.

Alto is destined to become one of them.

But to ride a boghtmaw is to join a dance of lethal ambition. The Nightmount once held the power of kings, and some think to reclaim it. Caught up in their deadly game, Alto must summit the mountain she was raised beneath, and face the namesake of its peak: the mythical Dragonhead, an ancient stallion whose terrible voice she has heard in dreams.