Dragon Assassin

Carmen, 16, is worried she won’t graduate from the Red Adept Assassin School. Although she had been at the top of her class in the past, a suspicious accident caused by her twin brother during a training exercise resulted in the loss of an eye when she was thirteen. For the last three years, she has struggled to continue her training, but everything is harder with one eye. Now, in the last week of school, she makes a mistake during a potions test and finds herself without enough points to graduate. In a last-ditch effort to gain her Red Assassin cloak, she decides to try to steal a black swan’s egg from its nest, hoping the extra danger points will increase her score enough for her to graduate.

During her dangerous mission, she stumbles upon a dragon captured inside a cave. Braxos, a Scythian dragon, was lured into the cave by some ruthless men preying on his curiosity and thirst for knowledge. Dragon parts are extremely valuable, and Braxos’ carcass would be a literal goldmine. Unfortunately for the mercenaries, Braxos killed them before they could fully execute their plan. Unfortunately for Braxos, they were able to magically chain him to the cave wall before their untimely deaths.

Braxos agrees not to kill Carmen if she finds a way to cut the magical chain. When Carmen returns to the school with her black swan’s egg, she is elated. Not only can she graduate, but she also has a secret mission to free the beautiful dragon. And then the first bomb drops – an assassin has killed the emperor’s child making the emperor’s nephew, Sargon, heir to the throne. Then a second bomb drops – the emperor has also been killed. Then, the final blow – three hours before graduation, the school is attacked by Immortals, the emperor’s guard, in retaliation for the death of the emperor. Most of the assassins are slain, and Carmen barely escapes with her life. To her shame, she learns her twin brother is behind the attack on the school. He has joined Sargon to destroy the Red Assassin guild to consolidate Sargon’s hold on the throne.

Carmen vows revenge on her traitorous brother. Using special knives gifted to her by the master of the school just before he dies, Carmen frees Braxos after having him vow to give her his eye and to help her kill her brother. In exchange, she vows to serve him for a year after they accomplish her revenge. He, too, has plans of revenge and needs Carmen to kill someone for him.

So begins a peculiar partnership thrusting the reader into a world of assassins, adventure, treachery, magic, and surprising friendships as these two unlikely allies struggle to solve puzzles and overcome obstacles and plot to overthrow a despot. They collect other friends and fight villains along their journey, creating several narratives that one assumes will be continued in future installments.

Although there is a lot of action in Dragon Assassin, there is also surprising dimensionality to the characters of Carmen and Braxos. Braxos’ dry wit adds a touch of humor to this action-heavy tale. The secondary characters also have personalities and backstories helping Slade with his worldbuilding. Establishing the assassins as the good guys is an interesting twist. For a professional assassin, however, Carmen makes a surprising number of mistakes and narrowly avoids death several times. My only real complaint with the tale is that, for a professional assassin, Carmen seems inept, which is surprising because, during the first third of the novel at the assassin school, she is portrayed as someone with resilience and skill. She should be a strong female character who can rescue herself instead of relying on others, luck, and borrowed magic.

I look forward to further adventures of Carmen, Brax and their friends.