Just when I thought I would never accomplish my goal of finishing all the series I’ve started reading over the years, I had an opportunity to pick up this sequel to a book by Robert Jackson Bennett that I read years ago.
I had forgotten just how much fun this series is. While Shara was the main focus of the first book, this one focuses on Mulaghesh, who retired after the events of the first book, but Shara managed to bring her back on a technicality. Initially the idea is that Mulaghesh can just tour some military outposts until she’s served long enough to earn her general’s pension, but if it were that easy, there’d be nothing to write a book about. Shara admits there’s more to it, but she won’t tell Mulaghesh what it is until after Mulaghesh agrees to the mission. I feel like Mulaghesh should have known better, but her pension was on the line, so she didn’t feel like she had much of a choice.
Not only does Mulaghesh not know what her mission really is, she doesn’t even know where she’s going. It’s not until she’s on her way that she finds out she’s headed for Voortyashtan. Back when the gods were still around, the people of Voortyashtan worshipped Voortya, the goddess of war and death, and her power literally kept the city afloat. Once she took a cannon ball to the face, the city fell into the ocean, making the passage to and from Voortyashtan extremely treacherous because the boats going into and out of the harbor have to navigate all the submerged buildings.
As prime minister of Saypuri, Shara is trying to open up trade with Voortyashtan in an effort to raise the struggling nation out of poverty. A company called SDC has been contracted to clear out the harbor and build a port for trade ships to come and go. The head of the project, Signe Harkvaldsson, takes her job very seriously. She and Mulaghesh are very different people, but as they’re forced to work together, they develop a grudging respect for each other.
Mulaghesh finds out SDC has been mining a mineral they found buried in Voortyashtan that might have divine properties, so Mulaghesh’s real job is to investigate this mineral and find out if it is divine, but without letting anyone else know that’s what she’s doing.
Mulaghesh’s mission involves possessed swords, a trip to the afterlife, and Mulaghesh coming to terms with her own trauma from her time as a soldier. I’m not sure Shara realized when she sent Mulaghesh to the city of war how fitting it was to send a lifelong soldier to the city of war, but Bennett certainly knew what he was doing as an author.
Something was said towards the end of the book about Shara recognizing Mulaghesh’s strong sense of service, and the fact that it was a key reason she sent Mulaghesh on this mission. The implication is that she expects to further use Mulaghesh’s strong sense of service to convince her to enter the world of politics. Shara knows she will soon be voted out of office, at which point many of her programs will be defunded or cancelled, and the best thing she can do for them is to stay as far away from them as possible. Mulaghesh, on the other hand, might be able to accomplish more than Shara ever could. I don’t think diplomacy is one of Mulaghesh’s strengths, but I am interested to see what the final book in the trilogy has to offer.