I was surprised how much I liked this duology, especially the first one in the series, given that it involved a genocide and two main characters that represented the oppressor and oppressed, a dynamic I usually stay far away from in historical fiction (and yet, between this and the Daevabad trilogy, it isn’t a dealbreaker in fantasy for me). I also appreciated that this series didn’t stretch into a trilogy needlessly and there was more than enough going on to justify a duology.
Ten years ago, the kingdom of Jasad was invaded, the royal family killed and magic banned. Jasad was the only kingdom that still had magic users and they had been vilified by their neighbors. Sylvia is actually the lone survivor of the royal family, granddaughter of the last rulers, and heir to the throne. Her people are now persecuted in the streets of the cities and countries where they have made their new homes.
After she accidentally reveals herself as having magic and being from Jasad in front of Arin, the son of the man that destroyed her country, she is surprised to survive the encounter. Instead he makes a deal with her, forcing her to enter a competition and wanting to use her to draw out the rebels (and he doesn’t even know she is the heir to throne).
Arin and Sylvia shouldn’t grow attached to each other as he trains her for the competition but as the novel progresses, they slowly begin to respect each other, and it is this relationship that is the foundation for later, especially the second book where Sylvia wants to find a solution that leads to peace rather than cycles of war and oppression.
Sylvia was sheltered in the palace so she never had the full picture of Jasad. She had the court’s view, and then, she saw the propaganda that had been shared by enemy forces. It’s only in this first novel that she starts to get more perspectives and slowly discovers that her grandparents had failed their people, and weren’t the kindly rulers she had thought.
As we get more into the second novel, we see that the twists and turns go further and deeper into history, all the way back to when the gods still walked.
I quite enjoyed the development of the story and the shifting perspectives as Arin and Sylvia slowly discover more about the truths of their world, as the additional information shifts the narrative on who the villains were and shows that the guilt goes far beyond one nation, instead being a pact between rulers that everyone was complicit in.
Some of the visuals in the second novel reminded me of something similar that occurred in the Deathless trilogy, and it’s how the main characters’ bodies’ reacted to having far more power than their bodies could handle and how that physically manifested. Not a huge plot point but just an interesting visual approach/similarity.
