Award-winning novelist Gillian Bradshaw's exciting fantasy-history tale of a thief, a dragon, a princess, monsters, sorcery, and battles in ancient Africa. Teen fisherman Prahotep is nicknamed "bad-luck" because everything he touches turns to disaster. When his father dies, he sets off to Thebes in Egypt to improve his fate, but instead of finding riches, he finds Lady Hathor, a proud, irritable dragon-and a creature that an evil sorcerer in the capital will kill to find. Meanwhile, to the south, in Nubia, the princess Kandaki's family is murdered by a usurper. Kandaki refuses the usurper's offer of marriage, and is sent north to be offered as a sacrifice to a "swamp dragon." When all their paths cross, more than sparks fly.