Telling without showing. The first 50 pages are just summary of the war between the realms; their incompatible religions; the mandatory militarization of all magic users; Wren's completed military training, time in the field ignoring orders, completed scandalous hookup with her superior officer, and dishonorable discharge; Wren's neglectful and borderline abusive sequestering in a monastery, twice; Wren's contentious history with her aunt, the queen; Said queen's fall from popular favor for lack of military successes - There is a whole book before the book starts!!! There is no atmosphere, practically no dialogue, no action, no meaningful character interactions of any kind to build these rises and falls from grace. All the conflicts have already happened and been resolved, and are being quickly info-dumped on us by Wren's internal monologue. The entire first third of the book could have been cut, and revealed later through dialogue or flashbacks. Or, not at all! For example, there is no payoff for Wren's involvement with Una, it's just queer-baiting. Cut it, and the story flows smoothly as a YA enemies-to-lovers. There was just too much being told that wasn't central, wasn't drawing the reader in and propelling the story forward.

What little literary attempts were made were ham-fisted. The metaphors were often medical, I assumed to underscore Wren's proficiency, but they just read very awkwardly. Ex. "The silence between them buzzed like tinnitus." Often a technical or overly complex word (I like to call them S.A.T. words) was used in place of something more accessible, but then the rest of the prose was colloquial (with a lot of contractions), and the jarring rare word in a juvenile internal monologue made me feel as though this writer had just consulted a thesaurus to make Wren sound smart. Also also, this writer was prone to LISTS! Long long lists describing everything Wren saw or heard. Sometimes, less is more. A description shouldn't need five examples to build a picture in the reader's mind, the word choice should do the tonal heavy-lifting.

TL;DR - Needed a lot of editing. Too much world-building, not enough tone or character or PLOT building. Like reading the appendix instead of the book proper.