This story
follows Lady Amalia, booklover and daughter of La Contessa Lissandra Cornaro
(‘The Countess Lissandra Cornaro’) when she becomes a Falconer to Zaira, her
Falcon (a mage). It takes place in two locations: Raverra, capital of the
Serene Empire, and Ardence, where Amalia’s university friends live.
Background
There are
four kinds of mages: alchemists, artificers, vivomancers (manipulate plants and
animals) and warlocks (the elements, so fire and storms). Mages can be
identified by the ring they have around their pupil. Zaira is a fire warlock.
Lissandra
sits on one of the four de facto hereditary seats on the Council of Nine which
rules the Serene Empire from Raverra. Lady Amalia living up to her Cornaro name
and testing her capabilities to be in charge of the empire are recurring themes
which are undercurrents to the main story.
The
Council of Nine is led by the Doge of the Serene Empire. (‘Doge’ is equivalent
to ‘Duke’ and empires are ruled by emperors, not dukes, so I don’t know how
that came about.)
Usually
Falconers have to live with their Falcons in their compound. Due to La Contessa
Lissandra Cornaro’s elevated position, she gets her daughter out of that
arrangement and instead uses the situation as an opportunity to test out her
daughter’s tactical capabilities.
Falcons
are used for the Serene Empire. Zaira hates that she no longer has control over
her magic and movements (her bitterness is very prevalent). Most Falcons are a
bit more laid back: Istrelle (an artificer) is happy as a Falcon, although this
is because her Falcon (Lieutenant Verdi) is also her brother.
***SPOILERS***
Story
After
buying a book, Amalia sees a girl (Zaira) being accosted by a man. Amalia tries
to interfere but Zaira uses her fire magic to get away. Lieutenant Verdi (who’s
been tracking Zaira) asks Lady Amalia to tether Zaira which stops her magic.
A
Falconer tethers a mage with magical jesses (making said mage a Falcon) and
uses words allow and stop their Falcon from using their magic. So as Zaira
didn’t have permission to use her magic, Amalia putting jesses on the mage
stopped the magic. This also meant Amalia became a Falconer.
After Lady Amalia is acquainted with
Falconer life, the Doge sends her and Zaira to Ardence. The heirs to all the
important families have gone missing and the Ardence’s Duke blames the Falconers.
(Yes, the same empire has both duke and doge which mean different things
despite being part of the same Italian-based culture.)
Amalia,
being both Falcon and heir to the Council of Nine, is thus the perfect person
to represent the Doge’s interests: convince Ardence not to secede from the
Serene Empire with politics and, if failing that, with Zaira’s fire.
The Duke is hosting Prince Ruven,
son of one of the thirteen Witchlords of Vaskander (the country north of the
Serene Empire). Amalia discovers Ruven persuaded the Duke into secession to
distract the empire, making it easier for Vaskander to invade. With the help of
Zaira and Verdi, Amalia seeks to solve the situation.
Mistakes
This idea
of bonding mages with someone else and, the mechanics of this system, is
interesting. There were a few inconsistencies that weren’t addressed, however.
The
Falcon-Falconer bond is lifelong and this causes contention throughout the book
because no one can think of a way to get Amalia out of it. (Except, that is,
for these same characters explaining one Falconer retiring so their Falcon gets
a new Falconer. The book seems to glance over that, though. No one thought to
transfer Zaira to another Falcon?)
A mage only becomes a Falcon once
someone puts on jesses and then that someone becomes a Falconer. Yet when
Istrella and Verdi joined the Falcons, Istrella grew up wearing her jesses yet
Verdi had to wait four years to become her Falcon.
There were
two outright grammatical mistakes that were really obvious. I hope they were
unintentional but if they were conscious decisions on part of the author or
editor then I despair.
The first: ‘Half Ruven’s servants’.
Where is the ‘of’ between the first two words? If it was all the servants,
would ‘All Ruven’s servants’ have been written?
The second: ‘So it was two days
after the Council of Lords meeting, we prepared to leave.’ That comma has no
business being there. It is purposeless. It’s neither separating items on a
list nor separating clauses from one another. The comma should have been remove
and perhaps replaced with ‘that’.
Verdict
The
politics of this novel were well thought out and thoroughly enjoyable. That
alone makes this story worth a read. Plus the Falcon-Falconer relationship is
fascinating, if a little flawed here and there to suit the story as and when
needed. Zaira, whilst annoyingly (if not understandably) bitter, came up with
the best lies and was rather humorous. My favourite character was Ciardha, La
Contessa Lissandra Cornaro’ maid. You’ll have to read it to discover Ciardha’s
brilliance.
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