A lord. A lady. A priest or even a bishop. At times, a queen.

These are the people Varre has killed.

And next, an emperor.

Years now Varre has served the realm, devoting herself to the common folk who go without justice at the hands of those driven mad by power. Yet these same people fear her. Curse her. Spit at her deeds as if she should not to them be a saint.

Unlike them, her Faith lies in the dark, where the world passes unseen to most and the drivel of blasphemers is seldom heard over the wails of the damned.

Before, a single death unburdened the lives of so many. The emperor’s might condemn untold more. She used to tell herself these deeds were a necessary evil. Life for death. Death for life.

But now, as the mortal realm is to be cast asunder by her own blade, she must decide if a righteous future is worth attaining when there are none left to witness it.

Slavers and killers and sinners and saints. A right band of miserable fuck ups.

Another book I picked up on a whim, and thoroughly enjoyed. In less than 200 pages, the author has packed in quite a bit of world-building, action, and intrigue.

I enjoyed the presentation style. It stays true to the epic fantasy aesthetic while also being fast-paced. I felt like I was drifting through someone’s life in a dream, with a phantom puppeteer lowering me down for bits of dialogue in the most interesting places, and gently pulling me up for a bird’s eye view of everything else. Creative prose, good action, expansive world building - I am sold.

Frivolous things, words. Make you queasy in all the wrong places.

The story starts off with a gentle, innocuous scene of a childhood in a village, and then suddenly pivots into a dark and violent narrative. Loved the transition, and how it brought forth the duality of the protagonist’s personality - a theme that continues throughout. Varre was reminiscent of Mia Corvere from Kristoff’s Nevernight, a character who will forever have a special place in my heart. I also saw her being compared with GRRM’s Arya Stark by other reviewers, which is apt, especially given her body-swapping companion in the later part of the book.

A man is impressed. It is not often he meets a shadow in the flesh, even if in the wrong place.

The ending didn’t quite go in a direction I expected, and leaves more than a few things open. I was looking forward to an encounter with the Shadowmonger, and some deeper insights into the wells. I assume we’ll reconnect those tangents in later books. What we see here serves as a great hook for Noah’s wider world.

The man slid the card back towards him, and in its place lingered the question.