Krishna
Like many other books – both excellent and not so-much – there are a lot of characters introduced at the beginning of this book and that could get confusing until you know more about them. And the story seems to be immersive, where you see the motivation of the people who do bad things due to greed, maternal love, and other motives so you really can understand the characters, both good and bad.
You glean initially is that there are dragons and dragonlords, the latter being men who can change shape to a dragon whenever they wished.
Shei Luin, a royal concubine, in mourning the death of her sister when she is inducted to be the emperor’s chief concubine. The emperor is Phoenix Lord, Xiane Ma Jhi who rules Jehanglan. But is in love with Yesuin, a childhood friend. He is now a hostage to Xiane, the emperor, and not independent any more. Shei Luin finds that she is pregnant and gives birth to a son, Xahnu, which enhances her status in the harem. She has a slave called Murohshei (meaning slave of Shei) who is a eunuch. She gives him a long range task : “Bring me the head of Jhanun”. She has a faithful maid Tsiaa.
Lord Jhanun (the emperor’s former chancellor now out of favour), meanwhile finds that her Oracle died but not before prophesying that ‘one dragon is bad’ but four are good. Jhunun knows about an ‘ordinary’ dragon sleeping under the mountains for centuries and plans to get three dragon lords to come, whether voluntarily or by force, so that this can be good for Phoenix. He sends Baisha, his protege, for this task.
Haoro, Priest of the Second Rank (see what I mean by a mass of confusing characters?) receives a message from his uncle Jhanun.
Mauryanna and Linden Rathan, dragonmaster twins reach an isle to be protected from the coming danger. (You go ‘What? More people? Where did this come from?’. So do I). Their hometown is Thalnia but now they are in Dragonskeep, protected by Dragonlords. She does not like Dragonskeep because it is too cold. In addition, Mauryanna seems to have lost the ability to turn dragon at will and does not know why. (The dragon half is called Kyrissaen.) When she did not know she was a dragonlord, she had a childhood friend Raven. She meets him in Dragonskeep talking to Tamiz, one of the kir servants. He tells her that he loves her but now, being a dragonlord, there is no way she can marry him. He has come with his great uncle Otter. With Raven, she also had a former First Mate Master Remon. Shan is Linden’s Llysanyin stallion (whatever that means for now). Partly I am recording to give you the huge cast of characters straight. It makes my head spin already! The judges who were with Linden in Thalnia with Linden are Kief Shaeldar and Tarlna Aurianne. They all decide to go to Dragonskeep for safely. Mauryanna is puzzled because nowhere in the records back to ancient times has a dragonlord lost the ability to change to a dragon!
Lady (yup one more) is the ruler of Dragonskeep. Her soultwin is Kelder. She has archivists Jenna and Lukai.
I know, I know. You’d argue that the Game of Thrones series has even more characters and can be even more confusing. However, don’t give up. It is very confusing with the story moving from one new character to another but if you do not give up, you are in for a very pleasant ride. It gathers speed and goes faster and faster and repays your irritation and patience fully. .
Lady meets Taren – see next sentence – and convenes a council to let the people know his discovery of a secret. Taren Olmeins (Oh God!) is a slave who was in Jehanglan. He escapes and comes to the Dragonlord council, very ill, to give news of a grave wrong done there. He tells them that they have imprisoned a Phoenix (just reborn) to gain control fo the world as well as they have a dragon in their dungeon, chained. He claims that it is really a dragonlord, causing uproar and outrage in the dragonlord council.
Lleld Kemberaene is a small dragonlord but seems to be a handful.
Had enough of people? There are more. Lady calls the seer Morlen through Kelder, a dragonlord to consult about the prisoner dragon in Jehanglan.
We learn that Xahnu is not the emperor’s real son but was conceived in secret with Yesuin. While Lleld is curious about the five dragonlords who visited, and tries to discreetly follow them pretending to have accidentally met them midway, Mauryanna rides right to their midst when she is not even trying and just going for a ride. However the seer Morlen seems to sense something very special in her. He is intrigued. When he tries to reach her dragon half, Mauryanna feels intense pain and collapses!
Jhanun catches Shei and Yesuin talking and a wicked gleam in his eyes appears momentarily, as he is searching for leverage against Shei.
Learning Marynna was in trouble, Linden jumps off a ledge and injures himself before flying to Marynna’s aid. However, he could not be healed by her as she cannot turn into a dragon to breath the healing flames and they depend on Lield to do that task. Marynna can barely make it back to the palace. Raven is very upset that Linden shared news about Marynna with his uncle but not with him. He nurses anger and a desire for revenge agaist Linden.
Taren seems pleased way too much to hear that Raven can get four truedragons together to ‘visit’ him.
Taren manages to get four of the drogonlords to go rescue the dragon. On the other side Jhanun is ready to imprison the dragonlords for ever, just like the dragon in the dungeon but in their human form. We begin to understand that Taren is not who he claims to be, a slave in Jhanun who had escaped but a spy doing the bidding of Jhanun so that he can in turn become powerful and topple the emperor and his ‘Concubine bitch’.
Moren and the dragonlords go on the attack but did not expect that the seer foresaw their visit and prepared. The Pheonix comes to battle with them and it is all one sided. With heavy losses, even Moren is injured. And rallies his remaining dragon into a hasty retreat. He is dumbfounded when he realizes that the phoenix is a virtual image and not even the real one, created by the combined magic
After the influx of so many characters, as I lamented earlier here, the story settles down and becomes actually interesting! The Phoenix creation seems to have exhausted and killed many of the magi of Jehanglan, and the advisors recommend to the emperor that he destroy the Phoenix. Emperor Xiane is horrified as he knows that his power stems directly from the Phoenix. Without it he will be subject to constant rebellion and won’t have the strength to subdue them.
They then decide to sneak in as performers. All of them including Linden and Marurynna choose to go. Otter will join them and also Taren, who is pleased that the Dragonlords are voluntarily and easily falling into his trap.
Meanwhile Shei Luin conceives with Yesuin again and tells the Emperor that he has got another heir, much to his delight!
Morlen asks that Maurynna go by herself without Linden and protected by Raven, into Jhenglan in their stealth mission. Linden agrees to train Raven and Maurynna in the art of fighting.
Meanwhile a servant in his uncle’s shop, Liasuhn is lured by Kwashiu and Nalorih, who say they are traders, into an expensive brothel and plied with luxurious wine. He cannot believe his good fortune.
He then is asked to dress up as poor priest. Then presented to the plotter as a splitting image of the emperor – albeit younger. He is asked to rape the magician’s niece who has been brought from a provincial town and she, clueless, is as shocked as he is, perhaps more. But Liasuhn is as helpless as she.
Then the lady is brought for enjoyment of the emperor when Shei-Liun has delivered the baby and so is unavailable. When She Luin later gets the news that this lady is pregnant, she guesses what has been plotted as she knows for sure that the emperor cannot father children.
But exposing her would also mean revealing the truth about her own two sons and so she has to keep that a secret and outwit her rival.
Meanwhile Yamal, the brother of Yeshuin ascends the throne of his tribe as his father perished. He plans to renege on the treaty which has Yeshuin as a hostage. (The emperor does not want to kill him and plans to send him away but Yamal is unaware of it). He plans to attack Jehanglin and destroy the emperor and his traitor stepbrother while he is at it.
There are more characters pouring in : Zhantse and his younger brother Tefira. They are shamans and Shima is waiting for a prediction from them. (Shima?)
Meanwhile the dragonlords reach Jehanglan and Torren goes to send a message to his master, the deposed mage. He gets ill and does not return on time, which makes the dragonlords go in search of him.
They find him but not before he kills one of the guards who had surprised him in the wrong place. He says that a ‘dissident lord’ Jhanun has agreed to sponsor them.
The twists come fast and furious. Just as Raven suspects Tarren after watching him leave in the darkness, he discovers the sharp knife in the bag left behind. But the knowledge just gives them a couple of minutes as Tarren returns with the army in a commandant’s uniform! They all scatter after plowing through crowds and barely escape. Tarren has learnt that Maurynna is the key by a very incautious word he had uttered to Tarren and they follow the duo behind and are closing in on them.
Shi-Luin, hearing that the emperor had assisted Jesuin escape, grows fond of him but when he says that he wants to abdicate, release the Phoenix and go live in a farm, is furious. She knows that whoever captures the throne (Jhanun?) would not rest until they have killed her, her husband and the children. She decides that she needs to arrange an ‘accident’ for the emperor to save her children’s lives.
The book picks up pace and the language just flows on like water. This is fantasy writing of a very high order and is hugely entertaining. Yes, I admit. The book grows on you as you read more and become familiar with the characters
Linden, Lield and Jekkanen meet up with Yesuin but are all captured by Yamal. The oracle Ghulla tells Yamal to give them sanctuary. She knows they are dragonlords but also knows that they are enemies of Yamal’s enemy, the Jehanglans. In addition, she keeps Yesuin safe under her protection.
Meanwhile Shei-Luin manages to kill the emperor, regretfully, and claims the Phoenix throne for his son.
When Raven and Maurynna travel they outwit the pursuers by crossing a stream that boils up after they cross and destroys the pursuing folks. Maurynna meets a water dragon called Miune, who is really a baby. When they try to camp, Miune sends a friend to direct them to a safer place.
Meanwhile, Pah-Ko, the Oracle, was poisoned by Haoro. Pah-Ko drinks it and is in agony of death. He tells Zhantse, in a magical dream, what has happened.
But Haoro gets to be the next niri or Oracle, as he wished.
The seer, Zhantse, asks Maurynna to go with Shima, the elder son, as ‘going with Raven will jeopardize the mission and put them in danger’. Raven is furious and then decides to follow on a horse. He is thwarted by Shama’s mother who catches him and persuades the (highly intelligent) Lysanyin horse not to go. However, the younger brother Kwahsiu who is jealous of Shama tells Raven that if he does not go with them but follows them, the curse has no effect. So Raven is persuaded and they leave in the night. However, they are caught by Jehlanglin soldiers – their fate is slavery for Kwahsiu but immediate death for the Northerner Raven.
Maurynna manages to catch a glimpse of their being force marched – very accidentally – and sends Shama to rescue them, while she goes forward in the tunnel. Earlier, the Coldfire she created to show them a way is snuffed out and when she lights it again, gets into an amazing mental battle that takes all her energy to push back. She now decides to go and face the fate alone, just armed by the special sword that the seer gave.
Fascinating stuff. Towards the end, you cannot get enough of the story. What a turnaround from the beginning! The narration is realistic and you see each person’s viewpoint clearly. The plotting and the rivalry is fascinating and every page seems to come alive with adventure!
Well done, Joanne Bertin!
A lot happens in the last few pages. More twists, more turns. How the dragon gets freed and then saves all – not what you think – and how the Phoenix gets freed but is in a mad frenzy, how Maurynna finds her true self. Oh my, a lot to go on.
But told in a spectacular style. This is a delight to read and a very satisfying yarn.
Well written, well plotted.
9/10
— Krishna