Published: May 2024
Pages: 463
Summary
All power comes with a price. In a world where magic is transferred by the act of killing another, Myddrin stands above the rest. Having accidentally killed the most powerful mage in all of existence, Myddrin now lives a peaceful life in isolation. But there is no such thing as peace in the land of Otor. War calls. The voices of the dead haunt him, and there is nowhere to hide.
Cursed with the deathly taint of magic, young Will must seek acceptance among the Knights of Aen. There, he must learn to touch the otherside, control his abilities, and decide for himself what is right, and what is wrong.
Tvora’s soul is broken. The price of vengeance was her sanity. Her companions help her keep a tenuous grasp on herself, but with the urgent need to absorb enough magic to sustain them, she is pushed to choose a side in the upcoming war. The question remains, will she choose the right one?
My thoughts
I enjoyed this book, it was a ride with highs and lows but overall an enjoyable reading experience!
I really liked the unique take on magic. In this world magic is derived from souls, and to harness this magic you must take another’s life and their soul will be trapped in the cage in your chest. It’s very interesting but what I like most about this is the connection to human behaviour.
For this magic to be gained one must murder another.
This book touches on the complexities of being human, we are vastly emotional creatures. We are driven by behaviour to protect our own, and each have our own moral compass that guides us, that we lean on when making difficult decisions. There was a greater opportunity to explore these behaviours using this form of magic to leverage that perspective and argument. I would have liked to have seen more of that between our characters, to have the story challenge the readers belief of right and wrong.
“A storm of intangible globes flowed from the corpse… He felt power, raw, unimaginable power. It coursed through his veins, centred in his chest. A power born only through death.”
The start of this book had me in its grip! I felt my heart in my mouth (does that make sense?) as the story dropped us in the middle of a situation and I had to scramble to make sense of the immediate danger to characters I already felt attached to. Props for such an engaging start the story that left me not wanting to put it down at all, despite starting this book at 10pm.. why do I do this to myself?
Will is a unique character
We have three main characters, Will, Myddrin and Tvora. Will felt like a breath of fresh air. Where main characters tend to be on the stronger side, Will is sensitive and he’s branded as an outcast due to his differences. He is sensitive to noise and smell, and struggles with social cues and reading body language. Prefers to draw in solitude of his bedroom. The first half of this book I empathised with Will. His start to life has not been fortunate and he is stuck in a situation and a family legacy that he does not want to be a part of. It’s also refreshing to have a different type of main character that doesn’t stray into the common hero stereotypes.
I liked to see his personality shine through and to see how that reflected with our supporting cast. For those that see this as a weakness, to those that view it as a strength. Perspective matters and I enjoy to see that in the books I read.
“You’re giving it to me? But you love this shield more than anything in the world!”
“That’s why I’m giving it to you.”
However Will started to lose me at the end and what I loved most about not leaning into certain stereotypes, I fear that’s what we were starting see. There will be a second book so perhaps with more information things might look a bit differently.
Supporting characters
We have a lot of supporting characters in this book and many I enjoyed. I do think they added to the story to an extent. We have characters desperate for revenge, some are desperate for change, others just long for information. they all add a small piece to the story and help bring the world to life.
In a world rife with war and death, people are just looking to survive and we get to see that through the pockets of interactions we get from the side characters. I would have loved to have seen more depth to these characters. Understand a bit more of their backgrounds, what their history is, what happened to drive them to this point. Most side characters are not fully fleshed out and I was left with lots of unanswered questions by the end.
My small niggles
This book has a strong narrative and our characters are concrete on how they think and feel. Which can be a very good thing, however there were instances throughout the story where characters acted out of sorts. Their actions betrayed their inner dialogue we were just reading, and so the reading experience felt a bit jarring at times and I was asking myself ‘why are you acting this way? it doesn’t make sense.’
There is a piece of the story where two characters must set out on an incredibly dangerous journey, travelling through a war torn country. I love a journey, I want to see their hardship, see how they use their wit and strength to make it there alive. I want to feel the stress of whether they make it or not since this is a such an important aspect of the story. However where it fell completely short for me was the “Five days and nights passed..”. We don’t get to see any of the journey, it gets skipped and to be honest, it felt like a shortcut to keep the plot moving on. It’s okay to slow down the pacing to build up the world building and spend time on character development.
The magic of the soul cage
We spoke briefly about the magic but another aspect that I really liked are that the very souls that drive a persons power, are also their biggest weakness. The voices of the lost souls speak to their mind, clouding their thoughts, looking to ‘break’ the mind and be set free.
There is a very interesting connection to mental wellbeing and the repercussions of a person’s actions. Magic does not come without sacrifice and the toll it takes on a person’s mind can be detrimental.
Would I recommend?
This is a good debut to what could be a very interesting series. My smaller issues aside, the writing is very good and I did find myself drawn to how this could end. I’m still open to picking up the second book and think there is a lot of opportunity here.