The conclusion to this duology is both better and worse than its beginning. I am somehow left both disappointed and satisfied. I’ve tried to keep this spoiler-free, but some of it might qualify for some. Proceed with caution.

Let’s start with the positives, as they are the easiest; I enjoyed the writing and pacing of TTC more than ODW. I felt engaged by the story pretty much the whole way through. I think the change to multiple-pov was utilized very well, both as a compliment to the pacing, and the obvious opportunity to give us more insight into other characters than Elspeth and the Nightmare, mainly Ravyn, Elm, and Ione, of course, but also Jespyr, Hauth, the King (I’m sorry, that name is too hard for me to remember. Something with a Q); even Petyr feels fully formed and like he has a life going on outside of the plot. Yes, we sacrifice Elspeth as a main character and instead have her as support, but I think it was worth it. But also, the way the multiple-pov is weaved together worked really well for the storytelling as a whole.

However! The negatives! Why this is a solid 4⭐️ book, instead of a 5 or 4.5; Firstly, the way we start off the book with Elm and Ione just felt kind of gross. It took me a long while to get behind on this (actually until after she was released from her Maiden, to be precise), and I just refuse to believe that there was no other way to show Elm’s early attraction to Ione without him selfishly and unnecessarily objectifying her. I said what I said.

Be that as it may, my biggest issue with this duology, is the “foreshadowing”, and I put that in quotation marks, because it is less shadowing and more the author repeatedly punching you in the arm going “get it? Get it?”. Reading ODW, I was thinking this would be a great book to reread (my favorite thing), to look for sly hints, and symbolism, and whatnot. I pretty much knew where we were headed in TTC by the halfway mark of ODW. But I had faith. I was expecting metaphors, wordplay, subterfuge! “There’ll be more,” I thought, “I wonder how this will come in to play,” and “what hints did I miss.”. Turns out I was wrong. There were no subtle hints. The big obvious ones, being repeated constantly - they were it. That thing I had figured out within the first half of ODW? Well, that was the “big reveal” in this one. The last hint, less a hint than a dead giveaway, came on page 23, and I essentially spoiled myself without knowing it, by looking at the Wikipedia page for Yew trees. Which, when every single character in your story has a very easily recognizable tree name, is the very least of what you should expect your readers to do when you introduce the first and only one who doesn’t! Even just armed with the limited knowledge the characters have (no googling for them), it is beyond believable that they don’t already know this themselves.

In conclusion, while I did enjoy this book quite a lot, it had so many missed opportunities that could’ve taken it from “good” to “great”.

Later edited to add: there exists a bonus chapter 51, that takes place between the last chapter and the epilogue. If you have finished these books but not read this chapter; do so! In my opinion, it is way more important than the epilogue, and I do not understand why those two weren’t switched.