Brighter Than Scale, Swifter Than Flame: A luscious little book

Brighter Than Scale, Swifter Than Flame by Neon Yang

Neon Yang’s 2025 novella Brighter Than Scale, Swifter Than Flame, is a luscious little book, a tasty way to spend an hour or two. Yang’s words shimmer like a silk pennant rippling in the breeze. There is color, there is food, there are scents, and sensations. At the level of sentences and paragraphs, I enjoyed every moment of Yang’s fantasy. The characterizations and plot choices meant this wasn’t a story that stuck with me or made me think.

Yeva is a guildknight, a magically endowed person who, armored and masked, kills dragons for the Empire. She discovered her power when a dragonling threatened Yeva’s sister, and Yeva killed it, getting injured in the process. Blue flames leaped out of Yeva’s arms, which is apparently the sign of a guildknight. Reluctantly, her father sent her off to the capital of Mithrandon, where her uncle is the guildmaster. At this point we discover that Yeva is mixed race; her mother’s magic is that of the earth, but her father is a former guildknight himself.

In the capital, Yeva is looked down on because she resembles her mother. Her uncle is a curmudgeon, but she likes her cousin Emory. Years pass in a paragraph or two and Yeva becomes the premier guildknight. She is sent to a nearby nation, Quanbao, allegedly to help them with a dragon problem. The people of Quanbao have no problems with dragons, though. In fact, they revere them. Yeva feels out of place and awkward, and is viewed with suspicion by everyone except the lovely girl-king Sookhee, who welcomes her into the palace and into Sookhee’s council of maidens.

Sookhee is loved by her people, but she has a strange condition that means she has to sequester herself a few days each month. No one in Quanbao remarks on this. Yeva also discovers strange tunnels under the capital city… and tunnels usually mean dragons. She shares this information in a report to Emory, who is now the guildmaster. Her information gives their rapacious emperor, His Radiance, the pretext he needs, and he sends a squad of guildknights, led by Emory, to “rescue” Quanbao from the dragon—except by then, most of us have figured out exactly what the dragon is.

Yeva must choose between her new love, Sookhee, and her duty. She tries to reason with Emory but is unsuccessful. The climax of the book takes place in the mysterious tunnels as she, Emory and a dragon face off in a final showdown.

The story is simply too abbreviated. It begins with the narrative choice of “storyteller voice,” letting us know that these events have already been massaged and shaped to support a certain historical narrative. Even given that this is a novella, background details and information are thin, and the resolution is suspiciously easy.

What strictures of magic dictate who can use the everstone, and who can’t? Yeva’s right arm is injured in her first fight with a dragon, and she tells her uncle she can’t write. Later, she writes long secret reports to Emory, as well as personal letters to him. Was she healed? Was the conversation meant to be symbolic?

What does Sookhee think about her potential fate? How did she teach her circle of maidens to rule? How has she prepared her people to shift from a monarchy to some other political structure, and how does she plan to fend off her aggressive neighbor?

The ruler of Yeva’s country, His Radiance, is looking for any excuse to annex Quanbao. How is he satisfied so easily at the end?

Generally, I just wanted more story. I wanted a training montage with Yeva. I wanted more flashbacks with her mother. I wanted more emotional struggle, not with Yeva, who struggles a lot, but with Sookhee, who is responsible for the well-being of her people, and has welcomed an enemy into her home and heart.

I want all of these things, but I still enjoyed what was on the page. Yang has a gift for prose, and descriptions that are beautiful and also realistic; the smell of food or tea, the sheen of light on metal. Come to Brighter Than Scale, Swifter Than Flame prepared for a sweet story told with beautiful words, and you won’t be disappointed.