Lady Smoke (The Ash Princess Trilogy, 2)

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A queen without a crown, without a throne, without a coronation. What, exactly, do you imagine you're queen of?” Fear and guilt overwhelm me as the pieces fall into place in my mind. I remember what I did to her; I remember why I did it; I remember her face on the other side of the bars of my cell, full of rage as she told me she would cheer for my death. I remember the bars being scalding hot where she’d touched them. Fear and guilt overwhelm me as the pieces fall into place in my mind. I remember what I did to her; I remember why I did it... This series has remained a fascinating fantasy story but has also focused heavily on Theos' various romantic connections. This book, however, retained the former whilst almost entirely severing the latter, and I feel it was made an altogether stronger concluding novel for that. It also ensured Theo herself grew in strength, without male attention to distract her, or allow others to renounce their belief in her solo power.

I force myself to stop that line of thought. How did I become so conniving? I do have feelings for Blaise and I know he has them for me as well, but I didn’t even consider that. I went straight to plotting, straight to seeing how he could be used to my political advantage. How did I become that sort of person? At every step, she must make a decision - To save her country or to save her loved ones. There is no right decisions. Archduke Etmond of Haptania, Theo’s first choice of suitor, is poisoned. Søren is arrested because he is of the same bloodline as the Kaiser's. Hoa is soon poisoned in place of Erik, who has left to gather armies.In a series of events, Theo discovers that Salla Coltania was the one who poisoned the Archduke and Hoa, willing to do anything to help her brother Chancellor Marzen (of Oriana) advance.

Dragonbane’s arranges a deal with King Etristo of Sta’Crivero. In exchange for the water gem mine, Sta’Crivero is hosting the heads of countries from all over the world to meet with Theo and offer their troops in exchange for her hand in marriage. Queens of Astrea do not marry, but this might be Theo’s only option for defeating the Kaiser and reclaiming her country. Artemisia: aka Art, is the daughter of Dragonsbane and Theodosia's cousin. With a hard past, Artemisia's demeanor is stone-like; however, she sometimes shows signs of fear or sadness. I haaaaaate that she kidnapped Soren. She saw her father die by her friend, almost died herself, married the Kaiser, and who knows what else happened to her and she still cares about a boy. He smiles briefly before glancing away. “It’s you who’s doing me a favor. I’m bunking with Heron and he snores loud enough to shake the whole ship.”

There’s no shame in reaching your limits, Theo,” he says, using a small gust of air to invigorate the weak fire into a full blaze. “It means you’ve given something your all.”Also, I’ve just found that I sort of can’t take these characters all that seriously, because well, look, they are like what, 16? It just seems sort of ridiculous because these characters don’t feel sixteen and the things that they are doing, or how they act are not normal sixteen-year-old things. Sure, they’ve grown up early, and while I used to eat this stuff up constantly, I just find it difficult to believe now, simply due to the fact that they are so young doing things that would make most people tremble. I mean, these lads are going around burning people to ashes and leading an entire people in a war - as a si