This is book 2 of the Ars Numina series and war is scaling up.
Plot: Ash Valley has survived a full on military assault, but with the Pax Protocol in tatters, war with the Golgoth is only beginning. Their best chance at survival? Alastor, a Golgoth prince defeating his much stronger and better provisioned brother in a battle for the crown. It’s a shame he’s on the brink of death. Enter Dr. Sheyla Halek, Ash Valley’s best doctor and a disease nerd tasked with backwards engineering the medication Alastor needs to survive and keeping him alive until she does. Oh and his brother is marching on another city he absolutely cannot take over, and which absolutely cannot defend itself against him. Shenanigans ensue.
The plot is as carefully constructed as all Aguirre’s work, with developments being both logical almost to the point of being obvious but also require very clever set up to play out that way. The characters have plenty of depth to them. I think many of us will relate to both Shelya’s obvious neurodivergence that reads to her community as Wrong and the unbelievable relief she experiences at finding a community that accepts her as a whole person. I think many of us will also relate to Alastor, who has battled chronic illness his entire life, and has internalized a lot of feelings of inadequacy because of the weaknesses of his body and the resultant reliance on others. It’s particularly wonderful to have a character with a disability who is (a) not made to feel like less of a person for their condition and (b) does not have to be “cured” of their condition to find love and happiness and success. Alastor’s condition has had the opposite effect on his life. While it is obviously a very dangerous condition and finding effective ways to manage it is vital not only to the war effort but also for him personally, it also opened his mind to the structural harms of his society, and the wonderful people hurt by that structure. His condition made him the empathetic person he is, made him the leader that he is, and saved many, many lives. For both Shelya and Alastor, their arcs are not about fixing what is “wrong” with them, but about them learning to shed societal expectations of who they should be and come into their own power. It’s rad as hell.
And as always with Aguirre books – competence porn. So much competence. People left and right are just doing their jobs and being good at it. Almost more fantastical than people turning into cats and bears.
Still, I had a hard time connecting to the story. There was a lot of monologuing that felt like it took away from the pacing rather than adding to the depth of the characters. Pretty much all the characters had only two settings – I love X or I hate X and nothing in between, and when everyone is at 11 all the time, I find it takes away from the climax because there is nowhere for the characters to go emotionally. Also, as much as I liked Sheyla and Alastor, they’re both presented as people who protect their heart with fifty foot walls and a moat full of crocodiles, so to have them high school rom com fall for someone in a handful of days just doesn’t feel true to who they are.
The big climax of the story, too, the battle for Hallowell, didn’t feel that satisfying. In part, I think it’s because you know going in that it’s just a battle in a bigger war. Helm’s Deep is a great battle, but you know the REAL big battle is going to be in Minas Tirith so the stakes just feel lower in a way that is sort of unavoidable. More importantly though, as much as the first book shone a light on the politicking that takes place behind the scenes to make big decisions, and the ways in which people will act against their interest because they don’t trust others or because of culture clashes or personal vendettas and whatever, all of that was just hand waved away in this one. The whole third act felt like the Disney version of the war that started in the first book.