First novel in a fantasy trilogy about a young girl named Kiva held in a dangerous prison named Zalindov, where she spent the last ten years. All changes when the Rebel Queen is captured, and Kiva is given the task to heal her enough for a series of elemental challenges, but instead she takes over her place. As not enough, Kiva is trying to figure out what is causing an epidemic in the prison.
Before we meet the notorious Rebel Queen, we are introduced to a newcomer named Jaren, who is one of the few to come over winter to the prison (It is not usual, as it was explained to us, because of bad weather). From the beginning on it’s quite clear, that this guy will be important to the story, and it is probable he will be also the love interest of our main character. Considering she survived ten years in prison, Kiva is sceptical Jaren will outlive more than few weeks (thanks to his good physical statue, he will be assigned to the hardest job) and decides to keep distance between them. As it usually is in romantasy books, the male main character is smitten with the strong and fierce female main character, and so is Jaren with Kiva in this book. Sadly, we don’t have his POV and cannot tell, what bewitched him so much about her. This gives us a nice and an easy start of their relationship.
Overall, we meet multiple figures, which are relevant to the story, but the POV is just from Kiva’s Side. For the story development is an eleven years old boy named Tipp quite important, who arrived at prison as a small child with his mother. Today, his mother is no longer living, but to whom Kiva promised she will take care of him. Thanks to him we learn who Kiva in reality is. A new guard stationed mainly at the healer quarters, Naari, with strong aura and natural respect will make you like her. She also has more to her character than that of an usual guard. Who else is worth mentioning is the prison director where I suppose, since he did not find his end in this novel, we will see him later on.
Long story short, Kiva is not able to cure the Rebel Queen and takes her place in the trials, to that she is threatened from Cresta to heal Tilda (Rebel Queen), or Tipp will be harmed…
Kiva is an enjoyable character with some secrets we figure out mainly at the end of this novel and maybe with more secrets to come in the following books. What I found quite shocking, was the fact that, Kiva wouldn’t survive any of the trials without the help of Jaren. I hoped at least in one of them she would be able to survive on her own, but no. Was it to show us, how teamwork and your friends can help you? Was it because, she didn’t wanted to show, who she really is? Will there be any growth to her character? Maybe we figure it out in the next books.
It was not surprising, that Jaren was someone special to the plot, besides the relationship with Kiva, he helps Kiva to survive all the trial thanks to his elemental power. Unfortunately, we don’t get the description of Jaren’s days in prison, how he survives the work, how he communicates with the inmates or how he tries to get information from the rebels.
The epidemic was a nice touch to story, so it wouldn’t be just about Kiva, Jaren and their relationship or the trials, which she was not able to survive on her own. The idea of poising the prisoners to get their numbers down with a toxic herb was diabolic from the prison director, who smuggled the poison as medicine to the clinic through two quite stupid helpers. But Tipp? He was an example of Kivas feelings, without him, some would have thought she is an Ice Queen, that she doesn’t care about anybody, besides her family with which she is still in contact thanks to secret notes in their code language. But for the past ten years, they say always the same.
Overall, it was a nice, relaxing reading, with no complex world structure or too many complicated characters. Interesting was the story about the elemental Queen and the magical King, which gives us the possibility to jump deeper into the world and their history. The plot and development of the story was for me personally bit predictable, but what I liked and didn’t see coming was the ending, which left us in surprise and suspense for the next book.