In this, the fifth book of the Codex Alera, the cat is out of the bag following Tavi’s declaration of himself as Gaius Octavian. To protect him and to build alliances his grandfather supports Tavi helping to return the Canim invaders to their homeland. This protection is both from the increasing Vord activity in Alera and the usual Aleran politics that would see him dead. This time we have more than 2 plots as Tavi’s newly honoured mother Isana (regarded as the First Lady of Alera) heads north to rally the troops to defend Alera, Bernard & Amara do their usual sneaking around, and Gaius and the current army try not to die.
Tavi’s plot is, as ever, as twisty as he is. They end up in an a different part of Canea than planned and are held captive – by a Canim who doesn’t realise that trapping people who can fly on an open roof isn’t that sensible! Plot happens and we realise Canea is in a bad shape due to the Vord, Tavi’s realises the written word has value when the enemy can read minds, and he’s still got self-sacrificing instincts that probably aren’t healthy for a future ruler. In the end his honour and loyalty wins the day and a last minute escape with a whole army to return to Alera.
Isana has a great plot this time that sees her head north to the wall to ask Max’s father Antillus Raucus to send his troops to defend Alera. In order to do this she seeks peace with the Icemen to allow the troops to leave the north – Raucus’s anger at Gaius and also Isana leads to betrayal and an awesome duel featuring a near defenceless Isana facing a master swordsman and psychoanalysing him as she dies! The reasons for his anger are realistic – he feels betrayed by his country as he feels Gaius let his friend Septimus die, and the acknowledgement of Tavi as heir makes him resentful because he couldn’t acknowledge Max as his heir. Isana also finds out the real people behind Septimus’s death – and we realise Gaius has never let this go.
One of the people was Kalarus – who died as a result of Gaius’s actions in the last book, and the lord of Rhodes who Gaius tricks into leading the attack on the Vord in this book. It’s an acknowledgement of why Gaius isn’t popular with people, this is very cold behaviour. In this book he’s fighting a losing battle against the Vord and the entire time he’s focused on allowing Bernard and Amara a chance to find out more about the Vord and how they are using magic. The end result of this is that by the end of the book we are needing a new First Lord, our first book villain Attis Aquitane is the de-facto ruler, and Alera is about 6 months from destruction.
It’s a wild and packed ride of a book without the draggy bits of Captain’s Fury – everyone gets something to do and events are set up neatly for the end game. Obviously not a book to read in isolation but I think it did a great job of humanising characters and altering your perceptions of earlier events.