I wanted to love this book more than I did. I think it wasn’t helped by the expectation of “epic dark romantasy” when it really just felt like filler and exposition for what’s to come for almost the entire book.

Harper drove me totally up the wall with her wild swings from idiocy to childishness and I just could have totally done without her entire storyline. I refuse to believe that someone growing up in her circumstances would put their faith in law and the goodness of a king and be so utterly naive to life. It just didn’t ring true that she’d be on the side of law and not Aedion’s band of merry criminals.

Speaking of which - Aedion was wildly under-utilised and I’m desperate to get more of his backstory like what’s the deal with his dragon rider backstory give it to me now.

Dimitrius is hands down the best thing about this book and I would much rather just have this be his story. The only time I actually liked Harper was during her interactions with him and, honestly, that’s probably the only thing that will get me to read the next book. Keen to see him discover that he has probably made a terrible error and try to play both sides against the middle whilst also being a terrible person.