*ARC received from the publisher -Macmillan/Tor- for review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.*

I usually love fantasy standalones when they were well-executed but I think this could have done more being a first in a series.

The magic system wasn’t the most intriguing to me because it was mostly just elemental magic so it pulled me out of the story a lot and i feel like it wasn’t as utilized as it could have been. But the action scenes were well-imagined and tense, which i find enjoyable. The characters were not as well established as I would have liked since it was so short but i did appreciate the society-normalized queerness present throughout the story.

It’s a short but fast-paced high fantasy standalone that read more like an action-packed side story that expands to something bigger but whether that’s good or bad is ultimately up to you.

— 3.0 —