With the kingdom on assault from all sides by raiders, Second Empire, the Blackveil forest and with lethal dragons in its future, Karigan faces these threats as she tries to vanquish her demons and her feelings for the king.
 

From the first page of this book, it felt like coming home to a good story from a good writer. The characters were familiar and made both logical and emotional decisions that made sense from their point of view. Karigan herself is battling demons, and I liked the way she grew stronger because of the weakness her deceased torturer brought to her. She transitioned from weak and self-doubting to a strong but mature Green Rider, different from her younger self. This is a long book, but it didn’t feel like it, as a lot happens, and it engaged me throughout. I believe it could have gone through another round of editing, but not for the length –some of the phrasing could have been tightened up, removing a lot of repeated words in nearby sentences that would have made some sections easier to read, and there was too much retelling of what had gone on before, just to a different audience. The only slow part I found was the initial journey through the white world, which at the time I thought could have been skipped, except that it had a major impact on the story later on. But for the rest, with so many different characters, each with unique personalities, the author gave us a great story, from the raiders to a decisive battle, a siege, teases of love, where of all people Karigan is the most practical, and even small advances in unrelated stories that will hopefully come to fruition in the near future. In all, a great addition to the continuing Green Rider series, and one that is best read in long stretches, keeping up the momentum of action after action.
 

I always enjoy going back into the Green Rider series, as the books are well written and the characters ultimately likable. The author has turned Karigan into some sort of herald from the gods, a person who will be bestowed every honor available in this world, and beyond. If not done carefully, it could get annoying.

She starts this book at a low point, having rescued King Zachary from Grandmother and Second Empire in Firebrand, and dealing with the demon of her deceased torturer Nyssa in her mind, casting doubt on everything she does. She takes the long way home, to try and sort out her feelings and her life. The whip marks on her back lashed into muscles, so she can’t fight, can barely ride. Everyone who meets her, whether they knew her or not, can tell something is very wrong.

I liked seeing this side of Karigan, especially as she fights to continue her duty despite these problems, sometimes succeeding, sometimes failing. I was expecting some sort of confrontation between her and the phantom Nyssa, and it took a lot longer than I expected to get there, sometimes conveniently quieting when the plot didn’t need her doubts. I wasn’t sure we needed the shadow version of herself, though, the one who urged her to kill Lala despite the girl’s youth and apparent innocence. The future from Mirror Sight could have justified the murder, and I hope future plots will validate Karigan staying her hand.

Nyssa is vanquished several times throughout this book, so after Ben healed Karigan and took on part of her nightmares, I wondered if having battled hundreds of Nyssa’s on the wall of the castle, the torturer would reappear as he tried to heal her again. Not in this book, at least.

The author stretches credibility of what Karigan can do through sheer will to the ultimate limit, as she avoids the mender areas even after debilitating injuries that would probably have killed other people, or at least maimed them for life. Every fight she gets into tears newly healed muscles and tendons, every message she bears strains her, and she doesn’t let herself heal, because there are important things to do. Remarkably, or perhaps conveniently, she's usually able to complete what she sets out to do, regardless, and gets a bit of healing afterwards.

The story switches gears often, moving from one threat to another. I don’t remember hearing about the Dwarrow Raiders before, but it could easily have been a throwaway line in a previous book. There is so much to these books that it’s something from Colonel Mapstone’s past that might have been mentioned in a single line back in book one or two.

Getting captured by the Raiders gives Karigan a chance to heal physically, as the raiders bring in a mender (who resembles Cade from Mirror Sight so much that Karigan is certain he’s an ancestor) to keep the hostage Green Riders alive, so their leader Torq can lure Mapstone to him. Torq is the only survivor of the massacre Mapstone and the other Riders a generation earlier perpetrated on the Raider camp after an all-out war against them. He’s out for vengeance.

During captivity, Karigan meets Megan, a new rider who can float. She and the other captives try to nurture this ability, which will come in useful near the end of the book, as she rides over the siege to get word to the Queen of Zachary’s approach. I was trying to remember at this point how the Rider abilities worked, as nobody removed the horse brooch, and I wondered if Megan had one. But I think the brooches are invisible to others, and of course Megan was a Rider when she was captured. Colonel Mapstone’s daughter Melry was also captured, which leads to Laren’s vow to destroy the Raiders once and for all.

As the King marches to Eagle’s Pass to deflect a Second Empire attack, the Green Riders march the same way to engage the Dwarrow Raiders.

Karigan’s escape using her fading ability was long overdue, but that was more due to Nyssa’s debilitating remarks on her self-esteem, I think. She leaves their prison and makes it into the Second Empire camp, where Lala recognises her. Second Empire takes over Eagle Pass Keep through magic, and Karigan is forced to flee. I love the new addition to the cast of characters at this point, as the giant hawk Ripaeria finds her, curled up in a cave, but mentally hysterical in her nightmares. The hawk speaks and reads thoughts directly, and was curious. She’s also a bit of a renegade, eager to defy her elders, and so she helps Karigan.

Karigan steals Torq’s magical travel device, and realizes she needs to bring information back to the King, despite her friends being held captive. It’s hilarious to see her whipping all over Saccoridia, bringing Cade’s potential ancestors to the city, then getting captured by her own troops as she bursts into the town where the King is staying. Mapstone is accidentally transported back to the Raider camp, though, and is captured, and sold to Varosian slavers.

This plot is so disconnected from the rest that it’s obviously setup. Whether or not it belongs in this book, as it has no resolution, is debatable, but it works for what it does, and the effect of losing their Colonel is felt for the rest of the story. Melry is almost sent to the camp as troop fodder, but manages to escape, hiding in a beaver dam. Later, when she’s back at the castle, she finds Karigan’s father, who being intimate with Mapstone, is sent on a voluntary mission to get her back. They disappear for the rest of the book, and I wonder how much of it will be relevant to the series.

In another unrelated plot, but also clearly setup, the king’s brother Amberhill, who is destined to become a tyrant who destroys Sacchoridia from the events in Mirror Sight, is still stuck on Yolandhe’s island, possessed by an ancient sea king, and surrounded by dragons. He kills Beryl Spencer, the Green Rider sent to bring him back to the castle or kill him if necessary. The scene on the pirate ship where she tells him of his future is very well written, and it’s unfortunate that she has to die.

She comes back to Karigan in ghost form several times, in the end showing her where the dragon shield is located in the tombs. I’m not sure how she learns this information, unless she’s been scouring the tombs as a ghost, trying to figure out how to defend against the dragons. It’s hard to believe a single shield can defeat them.

The third unrelated plot comes from the D’Yer wall, where Ashton continues to struggle against the invasions from Blackveil. His litter of gryphons is growing, as are his headaches. By the end of the book, he’s on his deathbed, but meets Beryl's spirit and is sent back with a critical message, which we don’t get to know yet.

Meanwhile, Karigan leads the Green Riders through the Blanding, the white world that is a magical shortcut to many places. It’s unfortunately a long journey that is not very interesting, and at the time, I thought it was one place where the book could have been cut shorter. It turns out that it plays an important part in Karigan’s life, though, so maybe it could have been cut shorter, but not removed altogether. She transports the Raider army there with the travel device after they attack Zachary in his tent, which leaves the whisper wraiths in the army camp, feeding off their life forces. This separates Lala from Second Empire forces, and she seems to become more of an innocent girl after that, until she disappears. Maybe she’ll have an effect on the next book.

Karigan is sent to trial by the Eletians after trespassing from the white world of the Blanding. It’s a peaceful interlude where she once again gets to heal, and meditates on a stream, testing the limits of her captivity until the trial. The trial itself is a surprise, with the Prince Ari-matiel Jametari (I love the way that name rolls off the tongue!) pronounces her to be of the royal family, without explanation, naming her Asai’riel, the WinterLight.

Of course, this now opens the door to her being with either Enver (who controlled his almost supernatural impulses to force her into mating in Firebrand), because she’s considered Eletian, and of course Zachary, as she is no longer a commoner.

Released, she goes back to the Saccoridian camp, where she infiltrates the Keep, discovering it’s almost empty –the Second Empire army is gone, through the white world, to lay siege to Sacor City. Karigan and some Weapons are dispatched to warn the city. They run into trouble along the way of course, and Karigan is injured again, and healed again, with the warning to rest for several days. This is not something Karigan can do, and in what is a theme of this book, she rides back to the city in extreme pain. They make it into the secret entrance to the Tombs, and to the Queen, who already knows the army has arrived.

I really liked the parts of the story that took place during the siege, whether it was Anna being traumatized by the soldier dying on the wall, or Karigan’s now-infamous dance of death against Second Empire who she saw only as Nyssa, and of course her iconic raising of the Eletian moonstone in the smoke from the fires to lead her people to the relative safety of the middle city, which is depicted on the cover. All of this done while she’s supposed to be resting!

Anna has her own story, and I recall enjoying her rise in the last book from ash girl to savior of the Queen to Green Rider without magical powers. Here, she doubts herself, but manages to fend off a Second Empire spy masquerading as a maid to the queen, saving Estora once again. She also goes from lecturing an old bully to saving her from the man who got her pregnant, even killing him as he tried to brutalize both girls after being fired. She’s coming into her own, and I wonder how her story will proceed in future books.

Able to fade and make her way back to Zachary’s camp, Karigan gets to participate in the final battle against Second Empire. It’s a battle that mostly takes place in the heavy fog, and since she’s protecting the king, she’s not part of the main battle. But she gets in a lot of action, and while she sees many named characters die, she also saves the king, while he saves her. She also gets to decapitate Torq, bringing his head as a gift to the still-missing Colonel Mapstone.

It looks like Second Empire’s army has been completely crushed, with Grandmother gone, Lala missing, and General Birch now dead. The next book will presumably be against Mornhaven the Black, whose return is now imminent. Maybe Amberhill will also return with the dragons, and we’ll get to see how he is possessed by two madmen, or maybe he’ll now help defeat Mornhaven. Only time will tell.

It’s nice that this book leaves so many questions unanswered, so we have something to look forward to in the next book. So much happened, so much was accomplished, and yet there is also so much that we don’t know. The world is very much fleshed out, at least inside Saccoridia. We don’t know anything about what lies beyond, which is maybe why Mapstone was taken to a foreign land, where women are treated like cattle, and she will only be used for her truthsayer powers. Of course, her brooch abandoned her as she doubted herself (I don’t understand why, as Karigan had much worse self-doubt), and she will now be useless to the Varosian king.

While this story is mainly about action, the unrequited love takes a big part of it when Karigan and Zachary are together. He wants to protect her, but she resents that, just like she resents being treated like royalty when she’s a Green Rider first. The sexual tension is palpable in many scenes, not including where it’s explicit during her baths, as she dreams of Zachary in bed, or her dreamlike coupling with the horse-gods. Playing Intrigue, acting as personal Weapon escort, reporting messages, all end up with her lingering, and often enough with her defending him from attack. When Grandmother’s spell overtakes him as he sees his infant children for the first time, he tries to kill her, but her love for him unravels the spell. It’s a rather uninspired way to defeat it, as the mini-plot doesn’t go anywhere, except to allow Estora to witness Zachary telling Karigan that he loves her.

I guess it was a natural way of bringing them together, but it was very awkward when Estora tells them they can be together, as she understands love compared to duty, which is where their marriage came from. Zachary already offered her to be his mistress, which she rejected, so it’s hard to see where this might go. I suspect their love will go unconsummated for at least one more book, or maybe like the gods said, she’ll lose him before that happens.

Now that Karigan has been avatar to Westrion, she has the ability to see the gods in action, whether gathering souls from the battlefield, or discussing their own future. The belief system seems too similar to the one in Medalon, where the gods will fade if they lack believers.

While the book had an amazing familiar feeling to it, there were also places that made me think it could have gone through another round of editing. There were many awkward phrases, or repeated words from one sentence to the next, which I think could have been improved. Also, it was tiring to have the author say, so many times, that Karigan or somebody else related the story of what happened to a new audience. Sometimes the same story had to be repeated when somebody else arrived, and while we thankfully didn’t get to hear the story more than once, having the author state that they were telling it again was fatiguing.

This book lends itself to long reads in the park, on the beach, or late into the night. There is so much going on, and while it’s not hard to put down, it’s not easy, either. As a reader, this book is best enjoyed in long stretches, rather than a chapter per night as often happens when I’m too tired. Interestingly, even when I was tired, I never had to reread passages because it wasn’t sinking in. The author did a great job at crafting a very interesting and engaging story.

I am looking forward to the next book; we’ll see where that leads.