The Will of the Empress

This book is set slightly before and during Melting Stones, approximately 2 years after Battle Magic, approximately 4 years after the Circle Opens quartet and about 7-8 years after the originial Circle of Magic quartet.

The four foster siblings Briar, Daja, Sandry and Tris are finally all back in Emelan. All of them burdened with the emotional scars of their travel. Sandry though did not travel but she does have her own emotional scars collected over the years but she is not afraid to share them with her brothers and sisters. They on the otherhand have blocked their connection so as to not put their siblings through horrors in their minds.

Just as they get settled, Duke Vedris, ruler of Emelan and glorified uncle to the four foster kids (and actual uncle to Sandry) decides to call on the other three foster siblings. Empress Berenene of Namorn has been financially blackmailing Duke Vedris trying to encourage him to send Sandry to Namorn to look after her estates. She has also been taxxing the Landreg Estates to oblivion trying to get the the steward to send for Sandry to come to Namorn to appeal to have the taxxes reduced.

Sandry has only just found out and is wearing her nobles pride throuhgout most of this book. The Duke said it could be construed as an act of war to send more than a dozen or two soldiers with Sandry, but a dozen or two are unlikely able to protect her sufficiently and so he's come to bed the travel worn three to pack there bags after only a few weeks of reprieve to travel again to protect Sandry. They all agree to go and oh boy does Sandry need protecting. The Empress wants Sandry to live and settle and Namorn and wants the other three to do so as well and she's throwing money and titles around like candy to try and entice them to stay.

Meanwhile the men of Namorn have this horrid ancient tradition that is completely legal called a Horse rump wedding where they capture a woman and hold her away from friends and family until she signs the wedding licence or until she escapes or is rescued. It is usually used as a form of elopement but there are dozens of cases where it is not. With the Empress so eager to keep Sandry in the country, you've got one guess and one guess only as to what men keep trying to do with Sandry. The first attempt was the one and only attempt where Sandry did not need rescuing

Point of interest though, we do see a return of an old character. Zhegorz is the mad man Daja rescues in the hospital fire in the book Cold Fire. Turns out he's only as mad as Tris may have become if she was not found. He sees and hears things in the wind and has done so since he was around 15 years of age. He is now approximately 52 which means everyone including himself has believed him to be mad for the past almost 40 years. It's enough to make anyone loopy.

Thoughts

This is basically a story of the reforging of the circle out of sheer necessity. It's a re-acquainting of old ties as they slowly remember "oh yeah, I forgot they did that when this happens". It's also the traditional story of "Yeah you underestimated them again." though to be fair the foes pull out all stops and use their biggest and baddest to stop them but it all ends for naught but magic used and wasted.

If you've never read any of the circle books, this book will be quite hard to follow. Do-able, but not where you can enjoy it just as much as an avid fan. That being said, this is the LAST book released in the emelan universe to dat and so it would be difficult to make it just enjoyable for joe blog when there's masses of world building and character building from the previous books that you just can't shove into one book.

I give this book 7.4/10, It's a solid read but it's definitely one for the fans.

This is the LAST book in the emelan verse. I will be sorry to say goodbye to Briar, Daja, Sandry and Tris. Their characters are so fleshed out that you easily feel like you could have conversations with them in your head.

I have one more book to review of Tamora Pierce, it's a collection of stories, but it's technically edited by her.