The dragonets of destiny are on their way to see the NightWings, and Starflight doesn't need his psychic powers to know it isn't going to go well. Starflight knows it's his duty as a NightWing to convince the other dragonets to choose Blister as queen. But he can't help feeling that there's something Morrowseer and the other NightWings aren't telling him, something that could put his friends in grave danger. While other NightWings have their powers to help them, Starflight has to rely on his brain, and with SkyWings chasing them and Queen Burn on their tails, that might not be enough.
When Chen's parents are incinerated before his eyes by a blast of ball lightning, he devotes his life to cracking the secret of this mysterious natural phenomenon. His search takes him to stormy mountaintops, an experimental military weapons lab, and an old Soviet science station. The more he learns, the more he comes to realize that ball lightning is just the tip of an entirely new frontier. While Chen's quest for answers gives purpose to his lonely life, it also pits him against soldiers and scientists with motives of their own: a beautiful army major with an obsession with dangerous weaponry, and a physicist who has no place for ethical considerations in his single-minded pursuit of knowledge.
Friends Lila and Elena are now in their twenties. Marriage appears to have imprisoned Lila. Meanwhile, Elena continues her journey of self-discovery. The two young women share a complex and evolving bond that brings them close at times, and drives them apart at others. Each vacillates between hurtful disregard and profound love for the other. With this complicated and meticulously portrayed friendship at the center of their emotional lives, the two girls mature into women, paying the cruel price that this passage exacts.
--back cover
