As Daindreth and Amira start running the empire, the threat of the cythual still must be dealt with. As Vesha makes her way to the place where she can bring Moreyne into the human world, Amira and Daindreth move to stop her, unaware of both the full depth of her plans and the fact that they’re in a race against the clock to keep the goddess from crossing over from the Dread Marches and taking control of the human world.
So, let get the negative out of the way first. I think I figured out why Vesha’s point of view bothers me so much besides the way it breaks up the pacing of the book. It’s because it her storyline more pathetic than tragic. Vesha was already a sympathetic villain. The reader understands why she made the decisions she did, even if she was wrong, and she very clearly had good intentions. Her point of view in this book and the last one clearly shows that she knows that she’s made a mistake but is lying to herself to justify her actions. Vesha’s end was always going to be tragic, but that’s been lessened as I spend a lot of the during her point of view yelling at her in my head for being so foolish. To give her credit, in the end she did start making better decisions. But that’s really a personal nitpick, and didn’t detract from the story too much in the end.
However, this book does do a really good job capturing the shifting realities the characters are facing. Amira and Daindreth are now both figuring out how to rule and run the empire as well as dealing with the threat that Vesha and cythual pose. Daindreth is coming to terms with the fact that he may have to order his mother’s death as well as some of the other hard decisions that the leader of a country has to make. Thadred and Sair continue to be fantastic additions to the story, and it is hinted that the author might not be done with them yet at the end of the book. Amira and Daindreth have come a long way from the first book, and I found seeing them earn their happy ending really satisfying. I do think that the fourth and fifth books are the weakest in this series, but this book did bring the entire story to a satisfying end, and it was definitely well worth the read. All in all, this was a fun series though, and I would definitely recommend it to fantasy fans. Four out of five stars.