Once again, a much slower pace than I expected. Sullivan is really taking his time to place each pawn and develop them into who they need to be for the story. And just like book 1, I don't mind it because I enjoy spending time with those characters so much, and the "human discoveries/inventions" concept is also fun to follow.

4.25⭐ "Power has a way of seducing by saying what you want to hear. Remember, it’s easier to believe an outlandish lie confirming what you suspect than the most obvious truth that denies it, the old fane had said."

This is such a lovely surprise because, not to be that person but, beside a small handful, I haven't had the best track record with books written by men. The treatment of the female characters, the lack of emotional depth and description, the rather distant narrative voice... I always start them braced for disapointment.

But right from the beginning I felt like Michael Sullivan did an amazing job at setting up, in very few interactions, what kind of people the main characters are and what their dynamics are like, in a way that immediately made me like them and want to hear more about each and every one of them. I mean, Raithe is a man of few words and yet the way he was introduced and the few lines he had immediately endeared him to me. And then the same thing happened, character after character. They're all, but particularly the women, very real, unique, complex people and I'm craving so much more of them.

Because we start off with a life-changing altercation between humans (well, A human) and Fhreys that threatens to start an open war right off the bat, I kinda expected the plot of the book to be massively high-stakes and while it wasn't low-stakes, it was definitely lower stakes than the extermination of a whole species, which does hover in the background the whole time; so I was kinda left feeling "oh, we're doing that other thing? Right now? I mean.. Sure." the whole time. It was surprising but not unpleasant, and I'm really looking forward to see the scale of the story widen in the sequels.

"She's different." "Everyone is different." "Then let's say I like the ways in which she's different."