Can a mere deputy courier lead the prince and his entourage to their destination at the end of the Witch Roads?
This book by Kate Elliot took off to a slow start. It’s high fantasy, so it took me a while to get my footing in the world Elliott was creating. Once I did, I enjoyed the story, although I don’t feel the need to read the sequel.
The story is told in third person limited from the perspective of deputy courier Elen, a woman with a checkered past who has finally found peace and stability as a deputy courier. But her sister has recently died in a tragic accident, leaving her nephew in her care.
Her nephew is approaching the age where he has to declare his intended occupation, and he’s undecided. Elen has decided to take him along on her latest tour of the kingdom to show him what being a courier is all about and see if it’s something that appeals to him.
Being a courier requires detailed knowledge of the terrain, as well as an ability to identify and report Pall before it grows into a kind of cancer that takes over the countryside.
It turns out Elen has a special ability that helps her negate the Pall, but I didn’t immediately latch on to the fact that it was odd. Not sure if that was because of the writing, or if I failed to pay attention sufficiently to realize the significance of what was happening.
Aside from travelers needing to worry about the Pall, there are also haunts that will take over your body given the opportunity. There’s a story that has been handed down for generations about a boy who traveled the Witch Roads and returned forever changed.
When Elen travels the Witch Roads with her nephew, she drugs her nephew when they camp for the night so he’ll sleep while she keeps watch. Sure enough, a haunt appears and tries to convince Elen it needs to take over her nephew’s body and travel north for the good of the kingdom.
Elen knows better, and sends the haunt on its way.
Things change when they get back home to find Ellen’s past has caught up to her. A past she and her sister never told her nephew about…
Turns out she and her sister weren’t related. They just decided to band together for safety. Her “sister” was the prettier one who always attracted attention from the men around her whether she wanted to or not.
One of the men she attracted was the lord of the manor, who got her pregnant with Elen’s nephew.
When he returns to find his child and Elen, he determines to bring his child home to marry off to his advantage and punish Elen for her treachery and abandonment.
It’s only her nephew’s quick thinking and the prince’s decision to have Elen lead them on their journey north that saves them from the cruelty of the minor lord.
Turns out the prince made a quick detour to the Witch Roads and came back not quite himself. Oddly enough, it’s Elen and not one of the many courtiers who have spent years with the prince who spots the difference, probably because she was the only one looking for it.
In fact, it’s the haunt Elen spoke with previously who has taken over the prince’s body, and he recruits Elen to help him keep his cover, which is insane because she has only slightly more experience with this prince than the haunt has.
And in a world that is sharply divided along class lines, the fact that the prince suddenly takes a liking to a humble deputy courier does not go unnoticed.
I don’t know how I feel about this book, largely because I never really figured out what the haunt’s goal was in going north, despite his insistence it was of the greatest importance. Once they get there, he just sort of takes off without having appeared to have done anything. I’m not sure if he just needed the prince’s body for transportation or if there was something else there I missed, but the whole thing felt very anticlimactic.
I kind of enjoyed the budding romance between Elen and the prince/haunt, even though we knew from the beginning it was doomed.
All in all, I have a hard time coming up with a solid complaint about this book. It’s very well written, I just had such a hard time getting into it that I think it colored my impression of the whole book.
I would be open to reading the sequel, but it’s not high on my TBR list.