The Sea Dragon Heir is a fantasy novel written by Storm Constantine

Storm Constantine

Storm Constantine is a British science fiction and fantasy author, primarily known for her Wraeththu series.- Life and work :Since the late 1980s Constantine has written more than 20 novels, plus several non-fiction books...

 first published in 2001. The plot centers on a royal family

Royal family

A royal family is the extended family of a king or queen regnant. The term imperial family appropriately describes the extended family of an emperor or empress, while the terms "ducal family", "grand ducal family" or "princely family" are more appropriate to describe the relatives of a reigning...

, long tainted by a curse

Curse

A curse is any expressed wish that some form of adversity or misfortune will befall or attach to some other entity—one or more persons, a place, or an object...

 put upon them by the emperor many hundreds of years before. The son of every Palindrake (literally meaning Water Dragon) king was named Valraven; according to the traditional mythology, any woman that he took to wife would immediately become the Sea Wife, a being who could capture and hold the dragon

Dragon

A dragon is a legendary creature, typically with serpentine or reptilian traits, that feature in the myths of many cultures. There are two distinct cultural traditions of dragons: the European dragon, derived from European folk traditions and ultimately related to Greek and Middle Eastern...

 daughters within herself.
Throughout the book, the emperor tries twice, once unsuccessfully and once successfully, to awaken the dragon queen and her daughters.

Part One

It starts of with Pharinet describing her life as a young girl, playing in the gardens with her best friends Ellony and Khaster, and thinking about her brother's future.

Part Two

Valraven and Pharinet engage in twincest

Twincest

Incest between twins, also known as "twincest", is a subclass of sibling incest and includes both heterosexual and homosexual relationships. While in modern Western European culture, such behaviour is considered taboo and is quite rare, incest between twins is a common feature in Indo-European,...

 leaving Pharinet pregnant with her brother's child. Valraven attends a military academy where he meets a brash and sexually extrovert young man. Pharinet visits a soothsayer who predicts the miscarriage of her child. The prediction is realised a few days after she leaves.

Part Three

Valraven returns with his lover

Lover

Lover may refer to:* A person who loves* A sexual partner outside of a committed relationship-Music:* "Lover" , by Rodgers and Hart* "Lover" * "Lovers" , by The Tears* Lovers...

who takes an interest in Pharinet culminating in them having sex. He empties his seed into her saying the immortal lines: "Now I have been in both of you." Ellony is possessed by the Sea Dragon's singing, so allured by the melody that she runs into the sea and drowns.

Characters

• Valraven: The Sea Dragon Heir. His military nature could perhaps explain his aloofness and incapacity to show emotion. On the other hand the "accident" on the beach could attribute the change in his personality.
• Pharinet: Valraven's twin sister. The two share an incestuous relationship in Part One, however the death of Ellony marks a significant change in his attitude towards Pharinet.
• Ellony: The first Sea Wife. Ellony was Pharinet's best friend when they were younger, but when Ellony was betrothed to Valraven and pronounced just how much she loved Pharinet's brother, whose heart was already taken by herself, she began to hate Ellony. Ellony did not really know this and she believed to still be Pharinet's best friend, even after her own wedding. She died during the "accident" though, taken into the sea by the Dragon Queens Daughters.
• Khaster Ellony's brother. Khaster married Pharinet at the same time Ellony married Valraven, and he also joined the military like Valraven did.