A review by pleasureinatrocities
Curse of the Dark Prince by Ariana Nash

3.0

3.5 Sometimes the suffering and betrayal and deceit felt never-ending but I really enjoyed Vasili as a character because he was a true Machiavellian asshole. I also like that his trauma was always present and Niko was so understanding of it. I do wish that more of the things he did to Niko were addressed (
Spoiler like being traded to Amir in exchange for an army and then being raped and fed his blood to become a dark sorcerer
)instead of Niko just being "Of course that asshole went there".
Spoiler I also kind of love that the series didn't go where I expected it to at all. The first book and the second and third were worlds apart. I thought the second book would be about taking down Amir and winning the palace and then the final book would be about saving Vasili from madness and overcoming the flame and finding a way to get rid of it. Instead the palace completely went up in smoke in the second book and the city fell to elves. Then they went to a completely different city, Vasili was actually playing a long game because Nikos was essentially Seran royalty and then Seran fell to the elves and everything went to shit before being saved and Vasili is happy to not be prince anymore. I like that the author wasn't afraid to just destroy the entire country lol