*A few spoilers from Ruin and Rising and The Crooked Kingdom.*
I wasn’t sure what to expect from this book, but I came away liking it a lot. I’ve always loved Nikolai (can’t wait to see him in the Netflix series!), there are some neat new characters introduced here, and the book expands on Grisha lore in really interesting ways. Best of all, it definitely has me ready to dive into Rule of Wolves, the second half of this duology.
Nikolai has been doing his best to hold everything together as the young new king of Ravka. Although he’s a second son of dubious parentage, he keeps the throne by dint of his determination, ingenuity, and charm. But a dark shadow from his past is reemerging, and it threatens to destroy everything he’s trying to build. Meanwhile, Nina is working undercover in Fjerda, but her mission of helping Grisha sneak out of the dangerous, intolerant country is disrupted by an eerie mystery and a surprising convent girl who throws Nina for a loop.
During the civil war of the main trilogy, Nikolai was infected by the Darkling’s living shadows and turned into a shadow demon. That darkness was finally drawn out of him and he regained himself, but this book reveals that a spark of the monster still lingers inside him and is able to take control at night. Nikolai, who’s so self-possessed and relies so heavily on his mind, puts on a confident show for those around him, but deep down, he’s terrified that the demon will one day consume him to the point that he can’t get back to himself. It’s a really strong inner conflict, and his efforts to excise the demon lead to a fascinating dive into Ravkan history and Grisha lore. Personally, I find it more interesting than all the amplifier/Morozova stuff from the main trilogy—things get dark and wild and weird, and I really enjoy digging into the history of Grisha and what they could be compared to what they presently are.
This storyline also does a lot to humanize Zoya, a character who begins her time in the series as a mean girl and graduates to a begrudging, forced-to-work-together ally to Alina. Here, she’s Nikolai’s general and one of his most respected confidence. It’s neat to get into her head, visit her past, and see the dynamic she has with Nikolai. He’s charming and she’s prickly, he’s a fierce optimist and she’s a sullen cynic, but put them together and they work really well.
The Nina side of the plot is good, too. While Six of Crows takes us into Fjerda, this book puts us more on the ground level of what everyday life there is like: the danger for Grisha and the exacting demands of their religious bigotry. Hanne is a great new character, and I like seeing Nina’s struggle to reconcile her.
I thought at first that Nina’s story would be horrifically depressing, given that she’s lost her love and her abilities were warped due to her forced encounter with the potent drug jurda parem. It really bugged me in The Crooked Kingdom to see another Grisha woman losing her powers, but by this book, she’s coming to terms with her new powers, which are the reverse of her old ones. Instead of having power over life, she’s now intuitively connected to death, and she wields that in interesting ways. And while she’s still grief-stricken over Matthias, this book finds her beginning to come back to herself, both through her self-appointed mission and through her new connection with Hanne.
On the whole, an excellent book. It’s darker and more ambitious than probably anything else in the series, and I’m curious to see where Rule of Wolves takes it.
Warnings
Violence, sexual references, drinking, language, dark imagery, and strong thematic elements.
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