When they take in an abused orphan as a stable-hand, the son of a mage and shape-shifter makes a new friend, not realizing who the boy is.

For a book about a mage, there is very little magic, and strangely it has more to do with the character who is not a mage and doesn’t have pale eyes. I didn’t realize this was a book for younger readers, written in very simple terms but seems long and sometimes uses complex words for that audience. Regardless, the story is well told and has numerous plot twists and sudden revelations that work in its favor. Watching the boys play, then conspire to learn about magical effects beyond what they were being taught was fun, though a little dull. The author wrote them age-appropriate, which meant that little things caught their attention, and they called out loud their excitement at minor discoveries with over-exposition, which gave the book a less mature flavor that I didn’t enjoy as much. I could have also done without the copious amount of typos and grammatical errors, which showed up on almost every page.

If I’d known the main characters were eight (or ten) years old, and that much of the story would be told from their perspective, including age-appropriate actions and language (even in narration), I would not have picked up this book. It was almost insulting to the reader how simple the story was told, from the youngsters to the adults, who sound the same, stating the obvious and running through simplistic scenarios for how they want to proceed. Contrast this with the first Harry Potter book, where the characters are just a little bit older, and this one seems overly juvenile.

The title centers around Jayhan, but it’s unclear because he’s not a mage at eight years old. His father is a mage, and his pale-eyed aunt was a magic user, but was she a mage? Maybe the next two books will help resolve this. I hope we haven’t learned all there is to her, though, because it doesn’t seem enough to spawn the kinds of reactions people have to Jayhan’s eyes. She was teased and abused, and used her eyes to cast people under her spell. Is that enough to inspire this kind of fear?

Jayhan, meanwhile, is a typical eight-year-old boy, bored with lessons, looking for adventure, and a little spoiled. When a delivery goes awry at his front door, he races off to see an errand boy sooth a horse that was about to trample their stablemaster Beth. Learning more about Beth later in the book, I find this setup suspicious, but there’s nothing ominous in the story as told. Sasha is beaten by his master, but Beth takes him on as a stable hand, buying out his contract.

There begins a childhood friendship that grows as Sasha learns he will be well treated, Jayhan shares his favorite haunts, and they go out on a lot of mischief together. Stealing cakes from the kitchen, going on long hikes, they have normal 8-10 year old likes and fears, many of which adults would scoff at.

When Sasha rides off after Jayhan gets jealous, the whole homestead goes looking for him, including a giant bloodhound that is actually Jayhan’s shapeshifting mother Maud. It turns out that Sasha can see through shapeshifters to their true form. Everyone is surprised by that.

Jayhan’s parents, Sheldrake being a mage and Maud a shapeshifter, are very close advisors to the king. The next time they are in the capital of Carrador, Sheldrake goes to the orphanage where Sasha was found, and asks about the boy. The caretaker is evasive, but a young man follows him back to the inn. Sheldrake captures him, but gets little more information. They are aghast when Jon disappears in front of their eyes, showing there is more going on than they suspected.

At court, they meet the ambassador to Kimora, who introduces herself to Maud with the unlikely phrase “you’re a shapeshifter!”. As a shaman, it seems like this would be the last thing you would want to divulge –that you can see through a potential enemy’s strength. But Maud simply asks if all shamans can see this, and gets an affirmative response, along with the information that only women can be shamans.

Meanwhile, Sasha discovers that Jayhan is also a shapeshifter, but can only transform into other humans. They test this out on Beth, who can’t tell them apart. As Maud and Sheldrake return home, this leads to the first aha moment of the book, where things seem to finally get interesting –discovering that Sasha is indeed a shaman, and therefore a girl.

Jon pays them a visit later, revealing that he’s Sasha’s brother, and that he smuggled her out of Kimora as a baby because she is the heir to the throne, which was usurped by her aunt. They are empathetic to him, and Sheldrake tests out Sasha’s dark amulet (the name of the trilogy) in an extended sequence that shows only the true heir can wear it, beyond a shadow of a doubt. They then test Sasha’s effect on the ambassador, whose amulet beats to the queen’s heart, but is quickly overwhelmed by Sasha’s heartbeat, because she is the true heir to the throne.

They hatch a plan to make Jon regent until Sasha comes of age and learns how to rule. Jon gathers people near Kimora’s border, where Sasha reveals herself. Jayhan, incensed at being left behind, hitches a ride in the luggage compartment of the carriage, and is the first to see the menacing people about to attack the group. The Kimoran queen is hunting rogue shamans, and these mercenaries have found a large gathering of them.

While Leon, Sheldrake’s head of security, is knocked out, Jayhan disables one of the attackers, alerting the group to the danger. Maud flies off as an eagle to gather information, while Sheldrake casts a shield around them, but he’s knocked out by a spy in their midst. When Sasha’s life is threatened, Jayhan’s pale eyes emit a power that knocks all the bad guys out. I suppose this is what the title is meant to convey.

The story as summarized tells an interesting tale, but the writing makes it tedious and is a little insulting to more mature audiences. The daily life of the two boys (when Sasha is still thought a boy) is fun but too drawn out. It’s more like a Huckleberry Finn adventure. The revelations that Sasha is first a shaman, then a girl, then the rightful Queen of Kimora were well done, but leave the characters too obviously dumbfounded, sputtering and gaping in shock.

I will continue the series, as I own all three books, but will go into the next one with a better understanding of the audience, but probably without much more patience.