To be completely honest, I'm not sure how to feel about this book. I had incredibly high hopes going into it (which may have been my mistake), and the beginning of the story seemed to live up to these expectations. The tech/fantasy combo was well-executed, there was interesting worldbuilding, and some of the characters were very unique. But something about this book didn't quite click with me, and I think I've identified the main reasons.

This book stars three characters--Elena, a princess who must learn to hold fire before her coronations, Leo, her father and the morally-iffy king, and Yassen, a former assassin serving the crown. The story follows the three of them as the King hunts for the Prophet, essentially a mysterious someone destined to destroy the world, and as Elena's coronation rapidly approaches and the political stakes grow.

At first, the perspective of the older king really intrigued me. It's not typical that we get a parent POV in YA fantasy, so I was eager to see how it would work. But it mostly confused me. I felt like I was supposed to see Leo as a bad guy, and while some of his actions were very evil, I never really got the "power-hungry" vibe he kept being advertised as.

On the other hand, I really appreciated some of the other characters. Seeing Elena and Ferma both portrayed as strong women with political power and physical strength was AMAZING, And Yassen and Samson were both interesting characters with complex backstories, which I appreciated. However, this cast of characters gets cut down a lot over the course of the book, and at the end it's just Elena and Yassen, which was.... fine. I cared about them enough to see what happened to them, but I felt as if the story was MUCH more character-focused than it should have been. The romance that I was supposed to be super invested in felt flat, and didn't really add much to the story for me.

I had other small issues, mostly with the pacing and the strange switch in tone/subject as the plot moved forward. BUT. I truly believe this book had potential. The writing was good, the story was interesting, and the political intrigue and worldbuilding were both well-developed. Hopefully this review makes sense, I stayed up late to (finally) finish the book.

In conclusion: This story did not click for me, but it's not by any means a bad book :)