This one started off rocky, but ended on a high note.

The first third of this book, I genuinely was not following anything. I truly didn't know what was happening. But by the second half, I was invested and loving where the story was headed.

- The dynamic between Teriana and Marcus was tense but great. The way they reluctantly worked together and eventually learned to... not exactly trust but at least appreciate each others' role in everything.
- Slowwwww burn (but it's worth it)
- The setting was so fun - the ships and then the island, it was a nice way to keep the setting fresh
- There was a lot of discourse on conquest and its effects on groups of people, plus the inner battle of what is best for your people versus best for all people. It was a lot to process at times, but I like the way the characters have to face these issues.
- The gods were hard to understand at first, I feel like there wasn't a lot of explanation or introduction to them it was just talking about them as if I should know already... which I didn't, and this contributed to my confusion early on in the book.
- This book suffered from "this seems important but we're not going to actually tell you anything else" because what happened to Lydia/Cassius? I feel like this was such a strong motivator for Teriana, but other than her thinking about Lydia every once in a while, that element was not nearly as important as I thought it would be.
- At one point I did not trust anyone. And I kinda loved it.