Posted by I adored the first book. However, it was complicated… and I read it many, many books ago. I was worried I would be lost when trying to find my place, but there was a summary of the first book right at the beginning — you can just skip if you don’t need it.
Aranok has a bit of adjusting to do after the revelations of the first book. One of them is that he and Ellandria are not actually supposed to be lovers, they’re supposed to be friends, and now shit is awkward as fuck as they’re both struggling to know how to navigate the situation. Second, he’s got to deal with the fact he’s not in charge anymore. Now that people’s memories have been restored, and they’ve found the rightful king, it’s the king calling the shots. If Aranok disagrees with a decision the group won’t follow him, they’ll follow the king… he’s the king after all. Both of these are central points of tension in his character arc for this book and I really enjoyed it.
You can’t trust your own mind when it’s been fucked with, and that’s a huge theme with this book as well. Everyone has had altered memories, and has to deal with that aftermath, not just Aranok. Ellandria has a lot to work through, not just her feelings for Aranok, and her journey and Aranok’s separate for a bit as they each have to deal with a lot more bullshit coming their way.
Samily continues to be one of my favorite characters. She’s undergoing a lot of changes this book and it’s almost sad to watch. She has to deal with so much death, so much darkness, so much evil that it starts to wear down this shining innocence and goodness that she had before. She was always so poised, thoughtful, and one of the least hateful or angry character I’ve read, and yet it worked and felt natural. I felt that it so perfectly fit her whole character and now it’s all starting to unravel. She’s a great character. One of her central points of tension is that she’s even starting to question her own religion, asking why god is putting her through these sorts of trials, and if there is a god at all.
This book really emphasizes the idea of “no good answers” there’s no good answers following a war and trying to understand the perspective of all the sides was thoroughly explored here and that’s what’s so fucking engaging. There’s a theme of how much can you blame someone for fighting back against their oppressors? How much death can be justified when a child dies and a mother rampages? All of it? None of it? How do you fix a society so broken it kills children? How do you get the two sides to set aside their well embedded hatreds that span generations, and can you do it by force? What justifies a war? How many deaths is a king’s life worth?
This is a character driven book while also having super high stakes for the world at large, it’s an addictive mix. At almost 600 pages, it did feel a little long at points. There was a touch of repetitiveness with the various groups of people learning the truth over and over as their memories were restored after being altered. A few of those scenes could have been cut as well as some other things to speed things up a little bit, but it may just be me that feels that way.
This book deals with a lot of very dark topics up to and including child loss. More than one of the characters start to spiral as the stress of life becomes a little too much. Panic attacks, suicidal ideation, and survivors guilt are huge issues for one of the characters throughout this book and I think it was well handled but it doesn’t always make for easy reading. This isn’t a light book on any level, the plot is complicated, the world building is intense, and the topics are heavy.