"We were so foolish in the end, I thought. So foolish and so, so wicked."

Up to 30% I was thinking "this is the exact vibe I want but with more mature writing and not as a standalone" and then the plot started plotting harder and harder and I had to eat my words, because beyond the writing style which does read more YA/NA, the actual story is 100% adult and has emotionally damaged me. It's brutal and tragic and beautiful and haunting.

First thing first: this is not a romantasy! This is a dark, political fantasy. Check the TWs.

I flew through this. The first part was good but definitely more surface-level. The writing felt particularly YA then, but I believe it fits with the character arc of Wei. She's young, she's naive, she's determined but knows nothing about.. anything, other than the narrow life she had in her village. She sees everything happening at the palace with a painfully unsuspecting eye and reassures herself that she'll never become like those people. And as she's faced with, and suffers, under the reality of the palace and its people's schemes and cruelty, she's forced to play their games to survive. I loved her character arc. It felt really natural and real. Wei's flawed, she's petty and strong, she's part selfless part power-hungry, trying to find a balance in a viper pit and I loved her through all stages.

But at the heart of it, it feels more like a character study of Terren through Wei's eyes. The narrative device of having other characters retell parts of his story and his brother's journal entries throughout the book really serves this idea as well. It feels like we're putting together the pieces of who Terren is as Wei does the same. He's not our MC but this is as much, if not more, about him than about Wei. I don't want to say much about this cruel, violent, twisted Prince; not to spoil anything, but I didn't think it was possible to make me feel such strong, deeply contradictory feelings about a character. This story, Terren, will haunt me for a very long time.

The themes are strong and really well explored. Power, what it does to people, what it can do for people; what's a country, a ruler's duty, the worth of a legacy; what expectations can do to people, to children... It also has a lovely, fascinating magic setting, that could almost be whimsy if not for... everything else. Imperial princes born with seals granting them powers over a specific magic, as varied as fruits and swords, as vague as roads; the overall magic of the setting, with ghosts and vines carrying away corpses, animals with vines and leaves as fur and manes; literomancy as a magic system? Poems to write magical blessings? Absolutely. Yes to all.

Do I wish this was a series? Well yes but then that's just the quest of my life. I want this, this vibe, this character depth, these layered court intrigues, with a GoT-length and grit. But this has a really really good pacing for a standalone, especially a debut. I can't wait to see what Shen Tao is going to put out in the future.

"If I am a star, then let me burn. Let me burn and burn until the whole empire is devoured, along with all its corruption, its villainy, its rot. Let me burn and burn until this night is not remembered, nor this year, nor this dynasty, until even history is buried in ash. And then maybe green things would grow again."