THE RETIRED DRAGON SLAYER TEACHES POTTERY

An Epic Tale of Second Chances, Peaceful Art, and Untamed Magic

The village had burned two nights before her arrival. By the time her unit reached it, the fire was long out and the grieving had already hardened into the particular numb efficiency of people who had buried what they could and were now simply waiting for someone official to tell them what came next. Branwen had been sent to hunt the creature responsible — gold-green, wing-scarred, last seen crossing the eastern ridge at dawn — and she had tracked it for six days through country that grew wilder and colder with every mile, until she found not the beast the villagers described but its den, three days after the beast itself had already fled south, empty but for the wreckage of something that had clearly, recently, held young. She had not known, then, standing in that cold den with her spear lowered and her breath fogging in the mountain air, that the raid which had provoked Ashgrove's burning had been the Guild's own — an unconfirmed sweep of the ridge, authorized on thin evidence, that had found and destroyed a nest weeks before anyone thought to ask what, exactly, the sweep had been searching for in the first place. She learned that later, much later, buried in a filing room in the capital on a rain-soaked afternoon when she'd gone looking for an entirely different record and found this one instead, and by then the Ashgrove contract had already been folded into the Guild's standing orders, unclosed, waiting for a confirmed sighting that might never come. She told no one. There was no one left, she told herself, who would benefit from the knowledge — the villagers had their grief and their rebuilt roofs, the Guild had its tally, and the creature itself, wherever it had fled, was beyond anything her confession could repair. She carried the knowledge instead the way she carried every other hard fact her thirty-one years in the Guild had handed her: quietly, privately, filed away in the same place she kept the faces she could no longer remember and the wingbeats she could never forget.

Inside this captivating narrative, readers will experience:

• A Legendary Past: The untold triumphs and burdens of the realm's most feared dragon hunter. • The Art of the Wheel: Finding inner serenity, purpose, and mastery in the tactile world of clay and fire. • Unbreakable Bonds: A community of quirky villagers and apprentices who see the man beneath the legend. • Looming Shadows: Old enemies and mythical beasts that test whether peace can truly endure.

Why Readers Love This Publication:

• Richly textured fantasy worldbuilding with heartwarming character arcs. • A refreshing blend of cozy slice-of-life warmth and high-stakes adventure. • Perfect for fans of Legends & Lattes, The Name of the Wind, and Travis Baldree. "A breathtaking masterpiece of quiet triumph and gentle wisdom." — Noveraile Editorial Review