The Dragon Queen is a 2001 fantasy novel by Alice Borchardt

Alice Borchardt

Alice Borchardt was a writer of historical fiction, fantasy, and horror. She lived in Houston and was sister of Anne Rice and aunt to Christopher Rice. Alice Borchardt shared a childhood of storytelling with her sister in New Orleans...

 based around the legend of King Arthur

King Arthur

King Arthur is a legendary British leader of the late 5th and early 6th centuries, who, according to Medieval histories and romances, led the defence of Britain against Saxon invaders in the early 6th century. The details of Arthur's story are mainly composed of folklore and literary invention, and...

. The story is set in the Dark Ages and follows a young girl called Guinevere

Guinevere

Guinevere was the legendary queen consort of King Arthur. In tales and folklore, she was said to have had a love affair with Arthur's chief knight Sir Lancelot...

 who has inherited magical powers.

In Britain

Sub-Roman Britain

Sub-Roman Britain is a term derived from an archaeological label for the material culture of Britain in Late Antiquity: the term "Sub-Roman" was invented to describe the potsherds in sites of the 5th century and the 6th century, initially with an implication of decay of locally-made wares from a...

 just after the Romans

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

 have gone, where war and magic are rife, Guinevere, daughter of a pagan

Celtic polytheism

Celtic polytheism, commonly known as Celtic paganism, refers to the religious beliefs and practices adhered to by the Iron Age peoples of Western Europe now known as the Celts, roughly between 500 BCE and 500 CE, spanning the La Tène period and the Roman era, and in the case of the Insular Celts...

 queen, is born.

Forced into hiding by the dreaded sorcerer Merlin

Merlin

Merlin is a legendary figure best known as the wizard featured in the Arthurian legend. The standard depiction of the character first appears in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, written c. 1136, and is based on an amalgamation of previous historical and legendary figures...

, Guinevere grows up under the protection of a shapeshifter and a druid and is watched over by dragons. Merlin tracks her down relentlessly, intent on stopping what has been foretold, that she will become Queen and Arthur King; a fate that will leave him powerless and forgotten.

To Merlin's dismay, Guinevere has inherited magical powers of her own, powers great enough to stop even The Great Merlin, himself. With Arthur trapped in the netherworld

Netherworld

Netherworld is often used as a synonym for Underworld. It may also refer to:*Netherworld , an 8-bit computer game from 1988*Netherworld , a fictional autonomous neighborhood of the city of Chicago in the DC Comics universe...

, Guinevere calls upon magic and allies and takes on her destiny: to one day become the Dragon Queen.