Fireborne (The Aurelian Cycle, #1)

by Rosaria Munda

The First Protector proposed a merit-based dragonrider selection process. Delegates from the coast supported this, arguing that air power was necessary to the island’s military defense. But delegates from the inner countryside and the city’s poorer districts argued that dragons had only ever been used to oppress and control. Still others argued that this third way would become something new, unknown since the beginning of dragonriding on the Medean: Guardians would be the dawn of a new era, of dragons in the service of justice.