The two women share a deep kinship with the dragons: Thymara can instinctively communicate with them, and Alise, captivated by their beauty and majesty, has devoted her life to studying them.
Among them is Thymara, an unschooled forest girl of sixteen, and Alise, a wealthy Trader’s wife trapped in a loveless marriage, who attaches herself to the expedition as a dragon expert. To ensure their safe passage, the Traders recruit a disparate group of young people to care for the damaged creatures and escort them to their new home. An orphan slave girl becomes a Dragon Keeper when she heroically comes to the aid of an aging dragon and both go on a dangerous journey across China to protect a mysterious stone vital to the dragon's legacy. To avert catastrophe, the dragons decree a move even farther up the treacherous river to Kelsingra, their ancient, mythical homeland whose mysterious location is locked deep within the dragons’ uncertain ancestral memories. The Trader leadership fears that if it stops providing for the young dragons, the hungry and neglected creatures will rampage-or die along the river’s acidic muddy banks. But Tintaglia has vanished and the Traders are weary of the labor and expense of tending useless dragons. The few who survive cannot use their wings earthbound, they are powerless to hunt and vulnerable to human predators willing to kill them for the fabled healing powers of dragon flesh. But too much time has passed, and the newly hatched dragons are damaged and weak, and many die.
In return, the Traders promised to help her serpents migrate up the Rain Wild River after a long exile at sea-to find a safe haven and, Tintaglia hopes, to restore her species. But they could not have staved off invasion without the powerful dragon Tintaglia. For years, the Trader cities valiantly battled their enemies, the Chalcedeans.
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