The dragon queen - Alice Borchardt

It is that time known as the Dark Ages. The Romans have abandoned Britain's shores, leaving behind a brutal, fear-filled twilight world where wild magic, superstition, strife and warfare hold sway. Into this world is born the daughter of a pagan queen, her name is Guinevere and to the all-seeing, malign, power-crazed old sorcerer and High Druid, Merlin, she is a grave threat. Sent into hiding, she grows up under the protection of a shape-shifting wolf and a wayward druid and watched over by dragons. Yet through his dark arts Merlin tracks her down - for he knows her destiny and will stop at nothing to prevent what has been foretold: for if Guinevere becomes queen and Arthur king, they will bring a peace to the land that will leave the sorcerer powerless, a shrivelled and empty old man in a weary cloak. But what Merlin has not foreseen is that Guinevere would inherit dazzling powers of her own - powers she cannot yet fathom and must learn to control but powers strong enough to rival his own. With Arthur trapped in a netherworld from which the only escape is death, Merlin closes in upon the young girl.;Calling upon magic she barely understand and calling upon the ancient, primal spirits who walked upon this earth when it was still young, Guinevere must face the wrath and venom of the High Druid in order to fulfil her destiny. Set in a dark and distant age where the pagan and the Christian struggle for supremacy and bursting with wild magic and superstition, romance and wonder, thrilling battles scenes and wonderfully well-wrought characters, THE DRAGON QUEEN is an exciting, richly-told and wonderfully subversive reworking of a timeless tale.