Despite how much promise there is in the premise of this novel, I was ultimately fairly disappointed by it. I'll start with the positives: it's set in a diverse and creative fantasy world with multiple different countries and cultures. It has several queer characters, including one of the four POV characters. It has dragons, even though I think they were severely under-utilized. It is also far too long, and astonishingly, nearly every scene in the book felt rushed. I think it actually had too much plot; if I had been editing this book I would have suggested the author cut one of the POV characters and use the freed-up space to flesh out the queer love story, which was the emotional heart of the book. This book is marketed as adult fantasy, yet whenever a character is in serious danger they are nearly always rescued by a talking animal with super-speed abilities. Choices like this book made the book read younger than I expected. It also suffered, perhaps unfairly, due to the fact I read a book with a much smarter and more interesting use of dragons, human/dragon cultural tensions, and dragon politics earlier this year: Seraphina by Rachel Hartman, which I would recommend over Priory any day of the week.