Synopsis
Fear lies in the depths.
Daruhm just wants to be left alone, away from the broken world he inhabits.
However, as one of the last remaining scribes of his kind, he is tasked with joining the Iron Dragon for a voyage across the Great Sea, giving an account of their findings, alongside an ancient race that are now seen as mere slaves. But the waters are not what they seem. None who yet traverse them ever return. Vast storms and territory not known on any map await them, and an old myth come to life.
The Sirens will sing once again.
Review
“Now she understood. The old war hadn’t ended with the elves and dragons. It had merely passed to the next generation.”
Thank you @cameronmichaelsauthor for the eARC. I always enjoy indie fantasy prequel novellas and this was no exception. I had such a good time with it that I immediately ordered a physical copy for my shelf.
We follow two main characters and I found both of them to be very intriguing. One was a master scribe with a hidden past. I don’t remember reading a fantasy book with a scribe as the main POV at least in recent years, so that was fascinating. And the other is an elf-dragon descendant who is being held captive. I was amazed at her devastating displays of power throughout the book. Both of their character arcs were done so well that I cannot pick one over the other as my decisive favorite. And also, I have to mention that the characters the readers are supposed to hate, I absolutely hated.
Even though this is a novella, the world built here seems to be very rich in lore. With each reveal (particularly the ending one) I wanted to know more about the history and how the current political scenario came to be. There appears to be a whole nother age with dragons and elves in prominence and mentions of a “battle of fate” that I hope gets expanded upon later. The magic system also was very good. It is elemental based and we get to see only 1 type of it explored in this novella but the way it was used is ingenious. The sirens are also properly spooky. I got chills when they attacked the ship.
The writing was also excellent. I flew through the book in a day. It was a fast-paced story and yet it also did a great job of introducing the characters, setting up the world and introducing challenges and character motivations for future events in the world in addition to having a complete and satisfying plot of its own. I really liked where the story ends and am very interested to start Book 1(The Faded Dragon.) With indie fantasy book series, there’s always this discussion – prequel novella first or should it be read after Book 1. I went into this book without having read Book 1 and I think this is a great entry point to the world
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