elisande is the high priestess of a cult of virgins who protect the Kingdom of Seth from periodic invasion by dragons. Young, beautiful, madly in love with the female leader of her order's warrior caste, and confident in her magical training, Melisande is due to ascend to the position of Mistress of Dragons—the highest office in the land. The current Mistress is dying of old age, and when Melisande takes her place she will become a goddess incarnate, revered by all her people. When the people of Seth pray, it will be to Melisande personally.
What this young woman does not know, however, is that her cult is built upon a lie. Seth does defend itself from dragon incursions, true enough, but the creatures fought by the priestesses have benevolent intentions. In fact, the true power in Seth is a dragon named Maristara. Ruling the Mistress of Dragons from behind the scenes, Maristara uses the priestesses as a first line of defense against her own kind, dragons who would put her reign—a carefully disguised regime that practices child theft and the consumption of human meat—to an end.
Before Melisande's training is quite complete, there is another attack, and fighting off the dragon weakens the aging Mistress severely. The time for a changing of the guard looms closer—but the Parliament of Dragons is now even more determined to solve Seth's problems. As they seek to smuggle a disguised dragon into the tiny kingdom, their actions will bring chaos to the priestesses, a disaster that will deprive Melisande of everything she holds dear: position, lover, safety and all her illusions, too.
Delving into a dark world under thrall
Author Margaret Weis opens her Dragonvald trilogy with darkness and ruination. Mistress of Dragons shows a world where an unsuspecting humanity is shepherded toward civilization by ancient dragons who lack any warmth or compassion for their charges. Acting at a remove from public affairs, their very natures unknown to their subjects, the dragons serve as an allegory for out-of-touch human leaders who act without understanding the people they serve.
The exception is the dragons' chosen walker, Draconas, who has adopted human form and acts as a roaming spy, keeping his folk up to date on the state of things human. Draconas has a conscience, but this does not keep him from manipulating Melisande and others with cavalier brutality. His remorse rings hollow, and the poor humans can only follow where Draconas leads, rarely even managing to strain against the leash.
By the end of Mistress of Dragons, all of the humans have been betrayed by their own hearts and by their leaders—not just the evil Maristara but by Draconas and the Parliament, too. The cumulative effect seems to be an authorial warning against any kind of government or leadership, whether benevolent or wicked in its intentions. These humans are no anarchists, though, and the portrayal of Draconas is not that of a wicked or inept puppet-master working for the greater good but failing. Rather, readers seem to be intended to genuinely like him. The disastrous consequences of his actions for the people in his care make this dragon in human guise hard to warm up to, and as everyone else in the novel is caught in a flood of events beyond their control, readers may find their investment in the outcome of this story to be relatively shallow.
