I am ashamed to admit how long it took me to notice the pun in the name of this book – Yrene’s last name is towers and her magic looks like white light.
I never claimed to be smart.
So this entire book takes place in the city of Antica in the Southern Kingdom. The culture seems to be based on the Mongol Empire, with the ruling class started out as a horse-based warrior culture. Their name for the ruler is Khagan, which is pretty close to Khan.
Mind you, the Baast cats are obviously a reference to Bastet, who was an Egyptian goddess, so maybe Maas just borrowed from everybody.
It’s kind of fascinating to see the differences between Antica and Rifthold through Chaol’s eyes – especially in the areas of health and education, which are free in Antica.
Chaol and Nesryn arrive as a couple, but it’s pretty obvious they immediately become interested in other people. I can’t say I’m really surprised, they always seemed like a friends with benefits situation. I did enjoy the fact that we get to know Nesryn a little better. She is a refreshingly low-drama person after all the Big Personalities that have populated the previous books.
I thought it was hysterical that Chaol named Skulls Bay as the one place Aelin would never go, given that I had just finished reading Empire of Storms.
A thing I noticed in this book is how consistently Maas seems to use physical exertion as a form of therapy. Chaol trains mercilessly when he’s dealing with his trauma and self-loathing, and I immediately started thinking about how Nesta and the Valkyries did the same in A Court of Silver Flames. I mean, she’s not wrong! I definitely use intense exercise as a way of getting out of my own head. If it works, it works.
Mind you, I could also say the same thing about death bonds – Feyre and Rhysand swear one voluntarily in, I think A Court of Mist and Fury? And now Chaol and Yrene have one as well, although they didn’t know what they were signing up for.
I will note that as delighted as I was that Yrene was finally back in the story, I was not expecting Falkan to re-emerge. I feel like we didn’t get to know him much in this book, so I’m looking forward to spending more time with him.
I also didn’t see coming that the spiders were a type of Valg. Maybe because the ones we meet in Assassin’s Blade seem to be so much less malevolent. Content to just trade their silk for time and dreams. I feel like I should have seen the Maeve reveal coming, but for whatever reason I didn’t think of that. It does explain a lot.
Right around the time that Chaol and Yrene discover his room had been ransacked I started wondering if one of the siblings was a Valg. I did not expect it to be Duva, but of course I should have looked for the least likely candidate. I knew it wouldn’t be Hasar, she’s too much of a bitch.
We also get our first description of what the Valg look like when they aren’t wearing somebody else’s face, and all I could think of was Gollum.
I feel like maybe people should start being more careful about the tunnels that always seem to be under libraries – the library in the palace in Rifthold also had secret tunnels underneath it. Now that I think about it, there are stairs going down in my own library and I always just believed the signs that said they lead to the activity rom. Maybe I should double check just to be on the safe side.
And now I want to read the next book just to find out what happens when Hasar meets Manon and Aelin, because I can’t imagine those three spending any amount of time together in a way that doesn’t end in blood. Somebody’s blood. Maybe everybody’s blood.