We’re going to need a bigger torch
Synopsis
What would you sacrifice for duty?
The war between the Eileerean sisters left a legacy far worse than the corpses of the fallen soldiers. The peace forged by Daelyn’s grandmother is crumbling.
Callandra was left under the rule of a tyrant, and while Gaelyr and Lyhtana brace for another war, tragedy strikes Vaedora, in an ominous turn of the Wheel of Fate.
To save Atheatis, Daelyn must protect her only child, Elara, even if it means sacrificing her whole Queendom.
Thrust into a fate she was not prepared for, Elara will be forced to watch her world burn.
New alliances will be forged. New enemies will rise.
Elara will learn the darkest secret of the Eileerean House, and yet the greatest mystery of all remains stubbornly out of reach.
Your fate will find you.
Review
Epic fantasy comes in two varieties these days; there’s your modern fantasy, with its own style and originality and politics, and there’s more classic old-school fantasy. But with the Eilereean Saga, Bella Dunn has split the difference, and it makes this a very fun read. This is a series that, in its magical mysteries and sense of fate and olde worde dialogue, has strong Wheel of Time vibes, allied with the court politics and brutal deaths of A Song of Ice and Fire, but it also throws in a spot of very modern worldbuilding: this is a world heavily inspired by Gaelic mythology, and crucially it’s a matriarchal one, not patriarchal. Here it’s the Goddess and the queens who rule the roost, not the kings and the gods. And while the first book was great fun and very promising, this sequel does what all good follow-ups do and goes bigger, badder, and more epic. This is a thrilling tale of magic, secrets, depraved villains, alliance-building, romance and how awesome forests are that gallops along faster than a nitro-glycerine racehorse. I liked the first book; but now I’m seriously excited about this series.
This sequel continues the overall arc of the series, which is the quest of the royal women of the Eilereean family to complete the prophecy of reuniting the four disparate kingdoms of Atheatis together, which has been made infinitely harder by one of them, Princess Haewyn, going full-on dark magic villain mode. The book begins a few years after the tragic events of the first; Princess Elara is fully grown now and ready to take on the magic of her mother the Queen. But the old forces of evil are returning, more demented than ever before, and soon Elara will need all her allies to save her kingdom and discover the secrets behind her magical powers.
This sequel feels a lot different to the first, and I say this with no slight on either. The first book was a time-jumper, taking us down the generations of the Eileerean ruling women till we got to Elara, who is the series’ main focus. As well as a long intro into the story main, it was full of very entertaining court politics and backstabbing, and a series of tragic romances. But now, in Darkness Unleashed, we’re firmly in the main plot, and it’s enormously fun and fast-paced, centred around just one timeline, that of Elara and all her allies in her bid to save her kingdom against the terrifying forces of darkness. There’s a little less of the romance and court politics in this one (though a key romance is bubbling away in the background nicely) and more of the “on the run, making allies, learning magical secrets” variety. Which gives this book a sense of thrilling momentum, with vague clues turning into satisfying character reveals, and all given a shot of adrenaline by Dunn’s fun habit of switching POVs in action scenes.
We also get a sense of the expanded world of Atheatis, and of Dunn’s excellent worldbuilding ability. The Gaelic-inspired magic system—a goddess who literally puts her life power into the female rulers, who also function as mother priestesses of the religion—was already fascinatingly sketched in book 1, but here we learn more. In particular, I like the twist that wizards are allowed magic by the goddess but don’t have true powers; they must take magic from nature and generally stick to healing. It’s an intriguing inversion of the “powerful wizard” trope. We also get to meet new races, including the faery people and a fascinatingly described hidden lizard people, which doesn’t sound Gaelic-inspired but, or so my one minute of Googling suggests, does seem to be based in that mythology.
Dunn also has a great ability to really make you care for a character in the briefest of scenes, and you really start to care—and fear—for Elara’s retinue in this book, especially as we know from the first one that Dunn is not afraid to ruthlessly kill off characters George R R Martin-style. The previously background character of old wizard Renrik gets a brutally tragic backstory and bam, you really care for him. It’s great storytelling. New character Brern is also a welcome addition; a young angry man with a secret destiny who has to control his temper and level up quickly in maturity. By the end of the book, which sets things up really nicely for the third outing, you are ready to follow these characters anywhere.
Overall, this second entry in the Eileerean Saga is a slice of old school fantasy but with a pleasingly modern twist—make it Gaelic, make it matriarchal—and a fast-paced thrill ride of old secrets, inventive magic, epic worldbuilding and high-stakes action that cements this series as one of the most compelling indie fantasy offerings around.
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