The Dragon’s Promise (2022)

*Premise spoilers, which deal with a few spoilers from Six Crimson Cranes.*

I’m lucky I didn’t read Elizabeth Lim’s Six Crimson Cranes as soon as it came out, if only because then the wait for its follow-up wasn’t quite so long. Still, I was pretty darn eager waiting for The Dragon’s Promise, the second half of the duology. It goes to some very different places than the first book, and it remains a great, thrilling read with super engaging characters.

Princess Shiori and her brothers have been freed from their curse from the last book, but that doesn’t make life any easier for our heroine. Shiori’s stepmother Raikama’s dying wish was for Shiori to return the source of her magic, a dragon’s pearl/heart, to its rightful owner. To accomplish this task, Shiori leaves her family and her betrothed to follow her friend Seryu to the magnificent, dangerous dragon kingdom of Ai’long, which is only the first leg of an incredible adventure that tests her to her limit.

That summary just scratches the surface of this book, which covers so much ground. The story takes us to Ai’long at the start, but that’s one of several important lands Shiori’s quest takes her on. Shiori makes both friends and enemies in the dragon kingdom, but she already had a few waiting to be dealt with back home, demon and human alike. Her main goal is to fulfill her promise to Raikama, but there’s a lot of other critical stuff going on, which means there’s a lot she has to juggle.

With all this plot and all this adventuring, it would be easy for the characters to take a backseat to the narrative, but instead, Lim beautifully leads with the characters, and everything else flows out of that. Shiori is at the heart of everything: her determination, her recklessness, her compassion, her fear. I love watching her navigate the lions’ (well, dragons’) den of Ai’long, her dynamic with Takkan is still such a delight, and I really appreciate how her quest is all tangled up in her complicated relationship with Raikama and wishing she understood more about her stepmother’s mysterious past. The book hits the right notes with all the characters, major and minor, and the new additions are nicely incorporated into the proceedings.

Endings in these types of series can be hard, although it feels like a duology might have slightly less pressure in that arena than a trilogy or longer. The stakes within the story can still be intensely high, and they certainly are in this case, but out here in the world of the audience, there’s not quite as much build-up. But regardless, I think The Dragon’s Promise brings the story to a strong, satisfying conclusion. It makes sense for the world and the characters, especially Shiori, and for me, the emotion of it is perfect.

Love for this book all around. It makes me want to read more of Lim’s work, and I would most definitely watch the hell out of any adaptation of this story.

Warnings

Violence, disturbing images, mild sensuality, and strong thematic elements.