In October of 1448, Vlad is a month shy of his seventeenth birthday when he leads a cavalry two thousand strong to the wooden walls of Tirgoviste. They are the last obstacle preventing him from reclaiming the throne held by his father. Determined to be his father's son in every way possible, Vlad finally walks through the open gates where, in due course, he plans to free himself of the Turks and declare himself "Son of the Dragon"--Dracula. At last, he is prince. Dracula presides over Wallachia, a principality caught between two voracious predators: the kingdom of Hungary and the Ottoman, better known as the Turks. Bitter at God and left wondering if He even exists, Dracula faithfully follows his life's purpose to free Wallachia, battling criminals and factions who attempt to break him with overwhelming force and terror. But as a sultan watches the feud from a distance and gloats, Dracula eventually turns his enemies' tactics against them, finds love, is taken prisoner, and stands at a crossroads where he is faced with an agonizing choice: renounce his past, or embrace his fate. In this historical novel, a fifteenth-century warlord cursed by his church and torn between his code of ethics and his humanity evolves into a legend who soon proves that he is neither a man nor a prince, but something beyond both.