It took me two months to get through this doorstop of a sequel, but I finally finished it!
It’s really good! I liked it so much more than the prequel, probably because I finally had a grasp of who everyone was and what was going on.
I was talking to my dad about when I got to the halfway point and a whole lot of people died, and he pointed out the beginning of the book was probably all exposition leading up to the climax at the halfway point of the book.
The more I thought about, the more convinced I became that all of the first book was setting up the action for this book.
So, when we last left Inda, he had just been taken on board a pirate ship and told, in Iascan, to play dumb.
The guy telling him to play dumb was a fellow Marlovan who had gotten word Inda was an Iascan prince, so he and his friend, Barend, set out to capture Inda’s ship and make sure Inda stays alive so they can ask him for news of home.
They don’t realize Inda was exiled years ago and has no recent news from home. He’s not happy to learn they’re the reason most of his friends are dead, but he’s pretty quick to forgive them for it. Probably because he’s just happy to have some fellow Marlovans he can talk to for once.
In any case, he and his surviving friends are left with no choice but to turn pirate or die, so they turn pirate. Their captain is brutal and got to be captain by leading a mutiny against the previous captain. As such, he’s very wary of mutiny. It’s why he only takes on people he thinks are stupid, and he doesn’t let his crew talk to each other on their own more than absolutely necessary.
Nevertheless, Fox is determined to lead a mutiny against Wafric, but it’s Inda who sees the opportunity to strike, and it’s Inda everyone turns to as their leader after disposing of Wafric and those loyal to him. Fox isn’t happy about it, but he recognizes Inda’s natural ability to lead, and he’s smart enough to not get in the way of that.
So Inda takes over and decides they’ll become pirates who attack pirates. They set out with the goal of destroying the Brotherhood of pirates, and they succeed.
Next up is taking on the Venn, an empire in the north determined to extend their empire to the south in Iasca Leror and Sartor.
It’s at this point that we meet Ramis. He’s the pirate who can rip a whole in the horizon, sail his ships through, and vanish.
Turns out he gained that ability by making a less-than-savory deal with some very powerful beings that I don’t think he even names. He does tell Inda that his usefulness to them is coming to an end, at which point he’ll die. He says this will happen in the next year or so.
What he doesn’t tell Inda is that Chief Dag Erkric of the Venn is determined to gain this ability to tear a hole in the horizon so the Venn can use it to transport their troops. He’s been meeting with Ramis on the sly to try to figure out how to gain this power.
In the meantime, Evrid is in the north part of Iasca defending the coast against pirates who are not led by Inda because Inda refuses to fight Marlovans.
The Sierleaf, having gotten rid of Inda’s brother, is busy chasing Joret literally all over the kingdom. She gets engaged to someone else and is on her way to marry him when the Sierlaef shows up once again, determined to have her.
Joret can’t stand him, but she realizes he’s just going to keep killing her fiancés until he gets his way. So, for the sake of the kingdom and preventing more bloodshed, she agrees to marry him.
He rushes back to the capital to tell his uncle before heading back out to escort Joret to the castle.
While all this is going on, Barend has made it to Inda’s family with proof that the king’s brother was the one who ordered the raid that killed Inda’s father’s first wife and children.
So of course he marches to the castle to demand justice.
In the meantime, another family has gotten wind of all this, and the father decides to seize the opportunity to rid the kingdom of the current ruling family and take the throne for themselves. Hadand manages to protect the queen and the throne from the would-be usurpers, and the usurper’s own son turns against him.
They succeed in killing the king and the Sierlaef.
The king’s brother kills his wife, who manages to kill him as her final act.
The king manages to get a message to Evrid’s protector that Evrid is in danger.
Evrid happened to leave his castle as his attackers arrived so he could meet Inda during his brief stay in harbor. He manages to glimpse Inda before getting called back to the castle to deal with the attack. His protector is killed, but is successful in his duty of protecting Evrid.
Evrid rushes home to find he is now king.
Evrid and Hadand decide to marry. It’s bittersweet for Hadand who has always loved him, but knows he’s gay.
It really frustrated me how many times in the course of this book Inda can SO CLOSE to getting news from home, only to be pulled away.
At the end of the book he is FINALLY headed home and knows Evrid is now king.
I can’t wait to see what happens next, but at the same time, I need a break to read something shorter.