By Alison Sinclair.
Previous book here.
As you can guess from the title, this book focuses more (about 50%) on the Lighborn folks we didn't see in the first book.
On the Darkborn side, Balthasar and Ishmael are not in the book whatsoever (except for a very brief check in), and they are missed. It's very weird to not have them around at this point and hear on the side what's happening to them. Mostly the book focuses on Telmaine's dilemma as she's magically bodyguarding (more or less) the archmage's brother. The situation there starts getting more and more awkward, and her life gets way threatened. Especially when she finds out that something bad is going to happen.
On the Lightborn side, I am pleased to finally find out some of how their world works. Now you know why it's okay for the Lightborn to have mages-- they have to. Because they don't have electricity- the light that keeps them alive has to be sun-powered. So all Lightborn indoor lights have to be charged with sun power during the day via magic. (Now I seriously wonder what happens on cloudy days, winters, rainstorms that last for days or weeks... Does everyone just hope their lights don't burn out until the storms end?) Also rather ominous is that these folks apparently can't even tolerate shadows without pain/burning/some kind of issue. Holy crap, that's dangerous. Almost makes me worry more about Lightborn safety in general in this world.
Anyway, on the Ligbtborn side of things, we finally get to meet Floria, food taster/bodyguard to the Lighborn prince. (Though frankly, we don't get to see as much of her as I would have preferred, especially since she spends most of the book locked in.) After someone manages to magically extinguish the lights in the prince's room, killing him, Floria suspects she's been ensorcelled to do it because she remembers dreaming that she brought a gift from Balthasar to the prince's room. She calls on a mage friend, Tammorn, to investigate the situation. (She and the new prince know he can be trusted because years ago he saved Prince Fejelis' life when he was poisoned, even though it went against the Temple rules to do magic on someone without a contract.) Tammorn is a "sport"-- he manifested being magical out of the blue rather than inheriting it. He and his sport mentor figure out that they can sense Shadowborn magic, but those born to a magical lineage can't.
The new prince, Fejelis, just turned of age yesterday and relies on Tammorn, but feels that he'd better arrange for Floria to be arrested for a few days while they figure out what's going on. Seeing at least one of her pursuers wants to shoot her, Floria somehow goes to the Darkborn palace (and hides out in their execution room!) for sanctuary, leading to some awkward/interesting conversations with Telmaine, who's clearly jealous of the love-that-can't-be between Floria and her husband. (Floria, to her credit, is all, "Calm down, it doesn't mean he doesn't love you just because we love each otherr," and leaves it at that.) While Floria investigates the possibility of ensorcellment, Fejelis and Tammorn wonder which of Fejelis's family members is trying to take the throne.
It's a very interesting plot, and I enjoyed going back and forth between the two worlds, something that couldn't really happen in Darkborn. While I missed certain characters and wished Floria had been more in the story than she actually is, I did enjoy the new characters of the prince and Tam. I look forward to book 3.
Four stars.
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