Reviews

This was whole another world. Oh my god. All the names of people, places and creatures were a little whirlwind but yet the world building (Khaganate culture, desert environment, Ruks, the Stygian spiders) was handled quite balanced, not overwhelming with too much information and yet perfectly explaining and sucking you in the world. A LOT was revealed here, lots of explanations to the events in the previous books which I loved.

I loved more of Assassin’s blade characters joined the storyline.

I kinda missed Chaol during Empire of Storms, and now I’m exposed to too much of him, lol. I didn’t expect him getting a whole book to himself tbh, trying to dodge the spoiler fest everywhere, and trying to go in as blindly as possible, I didn’t even read the blurb, lol.

I see a lot of hate towards Chaol, despite I felt angry at him sometimes, and I find his decisions utterly stupid at times, I never really hated him. Because this book proved me he is perfectly imperfect, as human as it gets and I could relate to him at some degrees, to his flaws, so reading his healing journey made me feel things, from time to time.

For his whole life, he has been trying and trying and trying to be someone better, something special and making bad decisions, human mistakes, and hides away from them and he resents not having any magic. The little glimpses of his self-loathing broke my heart a little during Queen of Shadows, and here, broke my heart a little more. Finally, he made peace with himself, his mistakes and we can move forward. And I love his love for Dorian.

“I’m coming home,” he whispered to his brother, his king. Dorian only bowed his head and vanished into the darkness.

And the star of the show here, YRENE TOWERS. I love love love her. How much she has come from that jumpy girl in The Assassin and the Healer to this confident, powerful woman. She found her place. Though I am not fan of the physical bond they share now with Chaol, I am happy that they found each other. Whenever she mentioned “the note” I was shouting at her to show it to Chaol, lol. And FINALLY, she did.

I liked Nesryn’s story of finding her roots and family, and eventually her place in the world. I loved she made new friends, felt easier in her skin, slowly and made decisions for her future by herself before Sartaq and her started.

Sartaq, though we didn’t get his POV, we had him almost always with Nesryn. I liked he was not bending himself to others’ will to get named Heir. Although his and Nesryn’s relationship felt a little too fast developed (Chaol and Yrene’s as well, tbh) it didn’t bother me much.

I quite disliked Hasar and Arghun.

But Falkan!!!!! 🫢🫢🫢

While I enjoyed this, I missed the other characters A LOT. But I am not ready to go onto the last one. As much as I am desperate to see each of them having their HEAs, I don’t want it to end.

Each character’s journey was painful, made my heart break sometimes, but I didn’t feel as devastated until I read the very last chapter, very little and dark glimpse of Aelin. OH. MY. GOD.

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4.0

4.5 stars

This was so good. Probably tied with HoF as my top two so far. I loved the aesthetic of the southern continent and all the new characters. I found the exploration of Chaol’s trauma to be engaging and realistic and gained so much more compassion for him as a character. The whole story felt more mature. I’m actually so depressed that the next book is the last like what am I supposed to do after this?

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