okay, I really really liked the Nikolai plotline of this story!! now, I'm biased because, obviously, we're married but ahhh I loved this!! nikolai is such a funny character in the s&b series and finally reading from his perspective was such a delight! he's hilarious dude😭😭 and getting to hear his backstory and motivations... ahhhhhh love! I'm starting to realise that I love love love political fantasy!! I'm really glad that leigh bardugo went down this path, she knows this world like the back of her hand and it's so fun to watch her play!!!!

I thought that the zoya plotline was also interesting and I liked seeing her backstory a bit more. it was also nice to see how the second army was going in a post-alina/post-war world. zoya, genya and David are such a great trio! I just got lost in the sauce a little bit towards the end. I really really liked the first half of this book. I was captivated by how Nikolai was navigating everything and it really had that rooting for the underdog feel! isaac was also slay and fun to follow for a short time (...). the dynamics between all the characters are so natural and it was fun to see how they all fit in together, a lot of them don't interact a lot in the main series and despite the three year time skip, I didn't feel like I'd missed anything! 

however. (spoilers) when he goes into the fold, that was when I got lost. I didn't really understand the dragon thing or Zoya's special ability and I just didn't really know what was going on or why I should care💔💔. I kind of just wanted them to get back to os alta and go back to trying to prevent a war. 

Also, Nina. I love you girl. I understand that you're going through things. You're in a lot of pain, that's really hard, but I'm so sorry all of Nina's parts were so so boring. I'm sorry but they were! I didn't care at all. every single time we got to a nina chapter I would literally roll my eyes, I wanted to get back to the action. I knew that they would tie together with the next book, but I just couldn't be bothered. I thought adrik was fine. I didn't really care that much for leonie and you know their story was like kind of interesting I guess. but it just didn't hold a candle to what the other people were doing so I was just so bored.

also that ending gagged me omgggggg!!! i am writing this review having already finished reading the rest of the series but girl that had me!! i was excited!!

so yes this was a bit of a rollercoaster of a read, therefore I give this 3.75 stars