Their dragons are finally mature enough for them to compete for Firstrider, a position of power that can give Lee back a small part of what his family lost. Nine years later, a new generation of dragonriders is emerging, children selected and trained on merit, not bloodlines. For too long the dragonriders held all the power while their people starved and lived in fear.
What happens to the world after the dust from a revolution has settled?įriends Annie and Lee were children from very different circles when Atreus killed Lee’s father, dragonlord Leon Stormscourge, ending the uprising on the bloodiest day in Callipolis’ history. “Cinderella” but with genocide and rebel plots. Some details-like Theo’s crisis of identity and Hamletian indecision-work well to submerge readers in a turbulent and enthralling plot others, like racialized descriptions that fall short of actual representation (Atreans are dark-haired and olive-skinned, Kalovaxians are blond and pale-skinned) and the use of magic-induced madness for narrative shock and awe feel lazy and distracting among more nuanced elements. Debut author Sebastian has invigorated some well-worn fantasy tropes (a displaced heir, an underground rebellion, and a love triangle that muddies the distinctions between enemies and allies), delivering a narrative that crackles with political intrigue, powerful and debilitating magic, and the violent mechanisms of colonization even as it leaves sequel-primed gaps.
But when the Kaiser forces Theo to execute her own father, survival is no longer good enough, and she finally takes up the mantle of queen to lead her people’s rise to resistance in a land saturated in elemental magic. Theo (renamed Thora by her captors) is at the mercy of the Kaiser-the fearsome ruler of the Kalovaxians-enduring his malicious whims in order to survive. With her country seized and her mother, the Fire Queen of Astrea, murdered by invaders when she was only 6 years old, Theodosia has been a prisoner for 10 years, stripped of her crown, her people enslaved.
The daughter of a murdered queen plots to take back what is hers.
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