Actual rating: 3.5 stars

I fell in love with the story and its characters very early on when I picked up An Ember in the Ashes not even slightly being able to fathom in which direction this story is heading. From the dangers of Blackcliff Academy to the past of the jinns, the world got bigger and bigger with each installement and each new path the characters had to go through. Thus is why I was excited to read this finale installement, especially because while the previous book, A Reaper At the Gates, was partly underwhelming, it did open new doors and pose new questions which I eagerly wanted to see answered.

Now where do I begin? Because my heart is still aching after everything that went down in A Sky Beyond the Storm. Each of the three main characters finds themselves on a path of suffering and hope. Helene wants to secure the Empire, and defy her enemy, the Commandant. Laia, fighting for the Scholars, is set to defeat the Nightbringer. And Elias? Struggling with who he had to become, he wants to save the ghosts of the dead, letting us wonder if he will ever be able to find what he had to let go of in order to be the Soul Catcher.

While the characters were mostly seperated from each other in the third book, we slowly get to see their lives once more intertwined with each other. Something that I was desperate for. Each of them grows more through the challenges they have to face - seperately and together - until we reach the final climax of the story, where once more things I wouldn‘t have seen coming happened and took my suprise. However, as much as I enjoyed the direction this story was going, the pacing tended to be too slow at some times, and too fast at others which made the whole impact of the story feel a bit underwhelming to some extent. Especially the characters were something of a bigger issue to me in this book. While I appreciated some scenes, and loved to see them all together in this book, they have grown far from what they used to be. While I strongly consider their development important and necessary, the one thing that didn‘t work anymore was the bond between them. I would have wished for some more calmer moments where these characters find their way back to each other, sharing their growth and developing their bonds further.

The message of hope which had been omnipresent from the very first book continues to strongly carry this one, and I must say I loved to see that represented in the many characters. Characters that I came to like because neither of them was wholly good or evil, and that layer to them makes this conclusion so hard to swallow, because one doesn‘t want to say good-bye to them. Nevertheless, I‘m happy that we reached the epic finale of this story because if this means less suffering for the characters, it also means less pain to my own heart. While this book is unfortunately not my favorite installement, I believe the message this story carries is one that leaves an impact and a huge reason on why this series can be considered a classic in the modern YA fantasy genre.