Book excerpt: Even a Ghost can dream … As a Ghost Child and Handmaiden to Ceru, the Great Sea Serpent and Guardian of the Laenite Tribe, all seventeen-year-old Thessa wants is a family of her own. When Ceru tells her she will marry an outsider and bear a child of prophecy, Thessa is more than excited—especially when the boy she loves, Garrison Rico, the son of the Arian Kingdom’s ambassador, agrees to marry her. But at their wedding ceremony, Garrison unexpectedly withdraws his offer and takes his leave from Laena, and Thessa is left alone, humiliated and rejected by her community. Unable to reconcile Garrison’s departure, Thessa questions her fidelity to Ceru for the first time—and sets out to defy him in revenge. Dragon Tears is a companion novella to The Alliance of the Dragon Sword, a Christian fantasy series from award-winning, genre-hopping author C. S. Johnson.