This tome, titled A Chronology of Sightings Between Tetbury and the Cocker Mountains, was penned by the obsessive dragon scholar Finnian. It began as a common field guide, detailing his observations of six great dragons at the turn of the last millennia. The initial chapters on Etien the Green, Azalto the Blue, Myracthe the White, Sunset the Brass, and Besot the Red are short and clinical. They are filled with dry notes on anatomy, territory, and feeding habits.

However, the book's nature transforms dramatically in its final, extensive chapter, which focuses on a black dragon known as Dusudulth, The Gifted One. What began as a mere ten-day observation from a distance morphed into a profound six-month-long communion. Finnian, after weeks of painstaking effort to approach her lair undetected, was utterly shocked when the supposedly brutish creature spoke to him.

She communicated not with her voice, but directly into his mind, revealing she had been aware of his presence from the very beginning, her curiosity overriding her territorial instincts. The subsequent pages of the book became a transcription of their deep conversations. During these exchanges, Dusudulth shared with Finnian the forgotten history of Coia, encompassing events from the magical Awakening to the slave rebellions and the recent incursions from the reactivated Bukhara Spire Gateways.

The entries within the tome end abruptly. Finnian writes of a new danger: the Silk Dominion marching across the continent in search of powerful artifacts, and notes that Dusudulth sent him away for his own safety. His final entry chillingly reads, "She sent me away to save me, her gift to me as dark and beautiful as she. Next stop: Helsterden." The book itself ultimately became that very gift, transforming into a vessel for the knowledge, power, and even a fragment of the spirit of the dragons Finnian observed.