I loved the first book and enjoyed much of the second but had real issues with this one. So much emphasis on the brutality of what was happening to our characters and not so much on the why. Agree with other reviewers about the villains-they were nightmare monsters without enough development as to why they were that way or why they followed their king. There were some beautiful moments: Twain’s chapters were well developed, and there was some complication of Inan’s journey (trying not to spoil), but a lot of the rest felt rushed to get to “boom” and “crash” in the battle scenes.