★Yang, Neon. Brighter Than Scale, Swifter Than Flame. Tor.com. May 2025. 176p. ISBN 9781250357342. $21.99. FANTASY

Taken from her homeland as a child, Yeva has powerful blood that makes her a useful tool for the empire. Yeva serves the Sun Emperor as his fiercest dragon slayer, a guildknight who moves through Mithrandon as something of a mystery to everyone else. Yeva rarely removes her armor and mask, preferring to interact with the world from beneath her layers of fabric and metal. When she is sent to the neighboring Quanbao in search of a dragon whom the emperor wants dead, she must face the past that she has been conditioned to forget. An oddity already, Yeva is even more so in a land that reveres dragons and is led by Lady Sookhee, whose own condition makes her sick at times and unable to hold court. Yeva must learn to reconnect with who she was before becoming the emperor’s weapon and discover not only the answers to Lady Sookhee’s mysteries but also her ruler’s true intentions. VERDICT Yang’s (The Genesis of Misery) emotion-laden novella will be a hit with fans of dragons and slow-burn romantasy. Readers of Aliette de Bodard and the “Singing Hills Cycle” series by Nghi Vo will especially enjoy Yang’s prose.