The novel starts out from one of the five major view points, the young demon hunter, Tash. She is demon bait, but she is also snarky, spirited, and obsessed with boots. Her chapter starts the book off strong, with action, depth, and a description of demons and demon smoke. She also hints at something more to the smoke, which reveals itself slowly throughout each of the narrations. Tash is such a fun character, with her strong loyalty to demon hunter Gravell, and her preteen love for boots. She regrets some bad decisions; however, her spunky, naive, but kind personality make others around her try to be better people. After Tash, we meet Princess Catherine through the most horrific way possible. She is attending the execution of a traitor to her father's crown. She is the most fleshed out character, the one character who experiences the most character growth. Her chapters focus a lot on political intrigue, the machinations of war, a woman's place within this fantastical world, and honour. Each of her chapters begins with a quote from a text from within this fantasy world (which helps to create a more cohesive understanding of the world which Catherine inhabits). Catherine's honour is continuously questioned, by her father and brother, Prince Boris, but as the story unfolds you see how hypocritical and inaccurate their opinion of her is; their misuse and treatment of her forces her to break her loyalty to Brigant. Catherine is smart, determined, honourable, loving, kind, and she hopes to win over the favour of Pitoria. Her story begins with darkness, but ends with fire. Ambrose is a dashing knight, one of Princess Catherine's personald guards, who is hopelessly in love with her. This love puts both himself and Catherine as risk, so he must flee Brigant. He was my least favourite character, with much of his chapters about pining after Catherine and his jealousy. However, his chapters are important for revealing a lot of the plot and the trouble that the heroes must confront. I hope in the next book he is less of a wooden character. March and Edyon were both interesting, and I loved when they met up. Their spark and witty banter kept me laughing. We got a bit of both their backgrounds, but I was hoping for much more. March is a fascinating character, with his anger and rage boiling just below the surface. He is able to hide all of his anger behind the facade of a good servant. He is a good man, but he has suffered dearly and that has made him blind to anything but his own revenge. He is easily persuaded by a countryman to do something he likely would never have thought of himself. In fact, until he met this countryman, he had no reason to dislike his life as a servant. Edyon is the comical relief, but he is also a sympathetic character who is thrown into danger simply because of his heritage. Edyon is also smart, he is the one who figures out the most important plot point of the novel, the one that propels our heroes on their own quest against Catherine's father. As you hurtle towards the moment all five of the characters will meet, the world around takes magnificent shape. With some characters you begin to love falling to the blade of assassins in the employ of Prince Boris or Noise (a merciless killer in King Aloysius employ). Nothing is as it seems, as we slowly learn. The story begins with action and excitement, then slows down as your journey with each of the five main characters, advancing slowly to the Northern most part of Pitoria and demon territory. I especially enjoyed the introduction of Prince Tzayn and really hope that he may have a larger part to play in the future. He uses his illness to make others believe he is weak, but his mind is sharp and he is honourable. I recommend this book to anyone looking to lose themselves in a great fantasy novel for a while.
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