The Archduke: 4 stars
Daindreth's Outlaw: 3 stars
The Archduke is a short novella, that can be found free on Elisabeth Wheatley’s website. It tells the first few chapters of Daindreth’s Assassin from the point of view of Daindreth, from his first meeting with Amira, when she tries to kill him and ends up fighting the demon inside him, to the negotiations with her father to change the marriage contract. Since the entirety of the first novel is from Amira’s POV, I liked the idea of getting to see how Daindreth experienced the same events. It also gives the reader more insight into how much he suffers with the demon inside him tormenting him, and how much energy he has to expend to remain in control.
Daindreth’s Outlaw, the second book in the series starts pretty immediately after the end of Daindreth’s Assassin. Having spent most of her life without full autonomy, since a magic curse had her bound first to her father (who turned her into an assassin and commanded her to murder his enemies) and later to her betrothed, after the controlling curse was transferred with the signing of the marriage contract, Amira was finally able to break the enchantment. When Daindreth was in danger and nobly tried to sacrifice himself, he ordered Amira and his cousin Thadred (also bound to him with the same type of curse) to leave the palace and get as far away as they could. Amira was not going to let the man she had fallen in love with die and after a gruelling internal battle was able to return to the palace and rescue her man, leaving countless dead bodies in their wake.
Now the three of them are fleeing the capital as fast as they can, trying to escape the grasp of the power-hungry empress. They need to track down the small tribe of exiled sorceresses who created the curse that led Daindreth to being possessed by a demon. While everyone says the curse can’t be broken, Amira has just proven that there are possibilities, however implausible. They need to travel incognito, as the empress has sent out her ruthless assassins to find them. She needs Daindreth alive, but Amira and Thadred are expendable.
The second book is absolutely more of a bridging book. The POV shifts between Daindreth and Amira, with the occasional chapter from Thadred, since he gets separated from the main group after a while. To keep the vast empire successful and safe from natural disasters and the like, the dowager empress, Daindreth’s mother made deals with demons. Amira rescued Daindreth before the next part of the demonic deal could be struck, and now the consequences are starting to show in terrible ways, like earthquakes, landslides, massive storms, and the like.
Amira and Daindreth are growing closer, and Amira clearly wants their relationship to become more physical, yet Daindreth is still far too aware of the demon lurking inside his mind, watching and waiting. Daindreth doesn’t intend to share and wants to wait until his curse is broken to do anything more than the occasional kiss.
If this had been the first book in the series, I doubt I would have kept going with the series. It’s clear that it’s setting up a lot for future books, and Thadred is clearly going on to have his own adventure, probably separate from Amira and Daindreth until I’m sure they are reunited at some later point.
Crossposted on Cannonball Read
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