5 stars
First Sentence: “We have lost,” said King Fynn, staring into his ale.
Thoughts: Throvenland is caught between the Gettland-Vansterland alliance to the north and the High King in the south. King Fynn thought that by allowing the High King’s warriors free passage across his lands, he could avoid getting dragged into the war, but nothing doing. Grandmother Wexen sent her best warrior, Bright Yilling over to burn the whole place to the ground—after killing King Fynn and his minister Mother Kyre, of course. The only survivor of the massacre was Fyn’s granddaughter Skara who was carried off to her cousin, Queen Laithlin of Gettland.
Skara takes up her role as Queen of Throvenland, but in name only. She has to prove her right to rule to King Util of Gettland and Grom-gil-Gorm of Vansterland. She does so by listening to Laithlin’s advice, like a smart person. She takes her place at the council table and convinces Uthil and Grom-gil-Gorm to help her retake Throvenland. Here is the perfect chance to strike at the heart of the High King and Grandmother Wexen and that whole One God nonsense.
Father Yarvi, of course, is all for this. He throws his support behind Queen Skara, all the while manipulating the other rulers into going along with his plans. Not subtly, either. Yarvi’s changed, man. He’s still mysterious and scheming but he’s much more aggressive about it. Before there were lines that he would only sidle across, but now he’ll stomp right across them with his loudest stomping boots.
His apprentice Koll is just as confused as the rest of us. Partly because Yarvi’s not letting him in on his plans until after they’re underway and partly because he’s having a career crisis. Koll’s been dating Brand’s sister, but he can’t marry her if he becomes a Minister. It would be nice to have power, but he also finds a lot of peace in woodcarving, something else he would have to give up when he takes the Minister’s Oath.
Another conflicted young man is Grom-gil-Gorm’s swordbearer, Raith. He’s a good fighter with more than a touch of the berserker about him, but he’s still not bloody enough for his king. So he gets assigned as Queen Skara’s new bodyguard. Her entire court was killed in the first chapter, so she has to take what she can get from the other two kings. Since Skara and Raith are both in their late teens, their hormones take over and the inevitable happens. Discreetly, of course. Koll could learn a lot about how to hide a relationship from those two.
Meanwhile Yarvi’s plotting continues to continue. He leads an expedition to the nearby elven ruins to pick up some elf-weapons to give their side an unfair advantage. The elf-weapons are rifles, in case you didn’t pick up on the post-apocalyptic bits in the previous books. This is what I was talking about when I was talking about crossing lines earlier.
In the end there are clear winners and losers, if not clear good guys and bad guys. Everyone gets what they want and/or deserve. Skara comes into her own as queen once she discovers the whole motivation behind the whole bloody war. All in all, it’s a fitting conclusion to an action-packed series.
The Eclectic Reviewer 