The book follows three children of an ailing King, Dazen, Isha and Raiz. The World is split into different Kingdoms which are ruled by their own King's, but all of the Kings bow down to a central dictator and his band of "Eagles", magically strong Lords who, if their strength and perceived "Godlikeness" can do what they want.
The book opens with the three POV characters as children, and their Father, preparing for a visit from one of these Eagles. Upon seeing the middle Child, the Daughter Isha, the Eagle decides he wants her for his collection of beautiful and unique things and takes her. The story then jumps forward a number of years. Dazen and Raiz, the remaining brothers have grown apart, each trying to cope in their own way. Their Father is ill and Isha is dealing with her life as a pampered hostage.
The Characters are where this book really excels. Each character feels unique, shows good character growth throughout the story and is very likeable.
Dazen is the oldest child, the heir to the throne, having to juggle between doing what he wants, with doing what he needs to do to protect his Kingdom. Dazen was my favourite character and the growth he shows as the story progresses is fantastic.
Isha, at first seems to be a bit of a cliche, the beautiful princess needing others to stand up for her but as you read more about her you see that she is immensely strong-willed and doesnt let the situation she has been forced into break her. She cares deeply for others and goes out of her way to help them and never stops trying to help herself and those she cares about.
Raiz is the youngest and after the taking of Isha he flees his home on a revenge mission, here he meets up with a band of Vigilantes and together they begin to hunt the Eagles. The characters he meets are great and his POV is the most action packed. I did struggle with Raiz though as I initially found him to be a dislikeable character, he was good at everything and was a bit of a jerk to people, however this changed as the story progressed and his character did develop as he dealt with the consequences of his actions.
The magic system in this book is also really good. It is very simple but also very intriguing. In a nutshell some people can channel the power of the sun and use it to fight with. Most of the nobility have this gift and some of the lower classes do too but those that show the gift are rounded up and made to fight in the Armies. I loved this magic system and the gifts and curses that came with it. It was used very well and resulted in some very amazing action and fight scenes. My only main concern was that it did seem to be making some characters too strong, making them almost invincible towards the end of the story and I hope this power creep doesn't continue into the next book.
This story is LR Schulz's debut and I must say it was very well written. The dialogue was good and felt unique to each character, the action scenes were easy to read and kept me engrossed and the story moved at a good pace with a lot of world building brought on through the character's actions rather than info dumping at certain points. The story does rely on a number of fantasy tropes but they are well handled and I enjoyed them. Some of what I felt was supposed to be plot twists and shocks were maybe reveleaded a bit too soon in the story but that is a very minor issue.
In summary this is a great book that introduces a well crafted world with a unique magic system and some amazing characters. I will be watching out for the next book very closely and can't wait to continue reading. If you like epic fantasy and magic heavy stories then I definitely recommend picking this book up.
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