The second book in the series! Spoilers ahead.
Some time after the first book, Hylas is now captured and, not being recognized by his captors, is send to work as a slave in the mines. Pirra, meanwhile, is being held prisoner by her mother again on Keftiu. Both manage to find a way to escape their current situations, but that doesn't instantly solve their problems as both are still being hunted down and the prophecy is still at work, not giving them a moment's rest.
Another great installment in this series. Book one had me hooked, and this book segmented my love for the series (so far, this may of course still change in the future). Pretty much all of the qualities of the first book are improved upon here, with there really being only one thing I do not like.
The characters? Still great. I love Hylas and I love Pirra, and it's great that we get to see their friendship bloom here. They're complex rounded characters and they sometimes act mean towards one another, but you can still clearly feel the growing friendship between the two. Book one established the start their friendship, but they got separated again before they had a chance to grow truly closer to one another. Here they meet again and we do get to see them grow closer.
Telamon, much like in the last book, is also still a very complex and somewhat morally gray character. He does and says bad things, and has some bad beliefs instilled in him from childhood. But he's constantly struggling with himself because of this and it makes him all the more complex. He makes a few moves in the direction of trying to restore his friendship with Hylas, but even with him trying to help out here and there Hylas and Pirra generally do not trust him (anymore), which is just sad and makes Telamon's situation all the more complex. Even now that he's trying to do the right thing against his clan's wishes he still is dismissed and disliked by his former friend.
The other characters can be complex, too. One of them in particular was the blacksmith character Astarkos whom Hylas briefly met in the first book. He often acts antagonistic, but at the same time he does help out our protagonists sometimes and he does have a sympathetic backstory. He's a great morally gray character because you never quite know whose side he's on. He's mostly just on his own side and just so happens to share a partial goal with our heroes. Great character.
Also, I wouldn't be me if I didn't bring up Havoc, who is basically our animal companion this time around, like Wolf in Wolf Brother and Spirit in the first book of this series. Havoc, instead, is a female lion cub whom Hylas somewhat reluctantly takes in. Unlike his bond with Spirit in the last book, I could actually buy his bond with Havoc much better. Mostly because they didn't instantly like one another and because they interacted a lot, allowing us to see them grow close. Hylas and Spirit in the first book meanwhile were apart a lot of the time and only interacted a couple of times, so I never quite felt that their bond was fully realized. Havoc is of course still young, so her bond with Hylas and Pirra will probably grow in future books, but for now their connection was adorable.
I also appreciated how this book delved further into the lore of the book and the plan of the Crows. We'll no doubt get more elaboration on this world in later installments, but for now this is a good expansion of what was set up in the first book.
Now, the only thing I don't really care about in this series so far: the prophecy. It's not horribly executed or anything, but it just feels so trope-y in this otherwise pretty cool and unique story. Sure, it's not the most original plot out there so far, but I feel that the prophecy could've either been reworked to be less predictable and trope-y or just removed altogether.
The plot does hinge quite a bit on the prophecy, so removing it would require a major overhaul of the story, but I'm just not that fond it so far. The prophecy basically dictates that as long as Hylas possesses the bronze knife, he will bring an end to the Crows (Telamon's clan). Which is the reason of the Crows hunting down all Outsiders and the knife to prevent this from happening. And I mean...again, it's not a horrible idea for a story but it just feels so...done. Prophecy stories can be done well and I don't inherently dislike all of them because of the trope, but the way it is executed here just feels like a bit of a dime in a dozen. No really cool or unique twists or turns so far. I do appreciate the fact that Hylas is pretty much constantly fighting the prophecy in this book in favor of looking for Issi rather than just going along with it blindly, but outside of that there's not that much uniqueness to how it was executed this far.
But that said, this didn't dampen my enjoyment of the book. So far I still really enjoyed The Outsiders and The Burning Shadow. And, who knows, maybe future books will actually turn the prophecy trope on its head or do something unique with it. So I'm optimistic going into future installments.
Rating: 4/5
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