Prince Kazia Dire keeps everyone at arm’s length for a reason. He learned at an early age that mages couldn’t be trusted and would only bring him pain. But having a captured mage from Silaise at his beck and call is an opportunity that he can’t pass up. Lucian Vaire has hated house Dire since they cost him everything in the last war. However, he’ll freely admit that being in Kazia’s company is better than being tortured by King Imrik. And he can’t help but notice the way that Kazia hides kindness behind a mask, and as the two spend more time together, Kazia finds the man acts more as a protector than his prisoner. If they’re willing to risk it, they could help each help the other escape, but that will require them both to trust one another.
Kazia has been a minor character in all of the books about the Draksoran princes, and it’s been clear that there is something going on with this character, and now we finally get to see what that is. Kazia is a great character and really well developed. Given his situation, his behavior makes a lot of sense, and it’s easy to understand his actions in the past books. However, it does mean that Lucian seems a little less well developed in comparison. We do get to know Lucian, but not nearly as well as Kazia. And while it does make sense that Kazia is more of the focus, I would have liked a little more insight into Lucian. He’s been present in several of the earlier books, but I didn’t really get a good sense of him other than the fact that he’s very interested in dragons.
This book had to do a couple of things, and I think that it did them well for the most part. Like I mentioned, we finally get to know what is going on with Kazia, Kazia gets his romance, and the war between Draskora and Silaise is dealt with. It’s interesting that the first three books in the series deal with princes who has a pretty happy childhood while the next three books feature princes with abusive parents. It’s certainly been implied in both Vana and Marek’s books that Imrik and Aliza are abusive, but we actually get to see that in action here. It does make Lucian and Kazia’s relationship fseems to move a little quickly once it starts, at least the physical part of it. We do get to see them slowing getting to know one another and trust one another, but it does feel a little rushed given what Kazia has been through. Also, because we don’t really know Lucian as well as we could have, it’s a little unclear why he gets so attached to Kazia so quickly. But they’re romance is a very sweet hurt/comfort one at it’s core, and it worked well. As did the way the political situation was tied up.
I am dinging this book a star because after I finished it, I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and not in the good way. Instead, my brain kept pointing out all of things that seemed off or didn’t make sense. There are books that have the same sorts of problems, but I’m engaged enough in that it doesn’t bother me, but this one was not one of them. Like I really enjoyed it while I was reading it, but once I finished it, I didn’t enjoy it as much. I think maybe I was expecting too much out of the book, but it is a little disappoint to have the last book of a great series not be as good as some of the others. I would recommend this series to anyone who likes fantasy romance though. All of the books were quick enjoyable reads, and I had a lot of fun with them. Three out of five stars.
