Finished this one first thing in the morning and now I'm left here feeling pretty neutral about it. 

The basics: the book's plot is set up with past and present timelines that run concurrently, each one slowly throwing out crumbs for world building. Each timeline has a pretty compelling plotline with (mostly) the same characters, so they grow on you.

Pros: 
       - The setting. The world in here is interesting, the races, politics, grand schemes all seem to interlock and have purpose (even if we still don't know all of it at this point).
       - The characters. The main cast is great! Each one seems to have their own abilities, attitudes, and values, and even if this book crashed and burned in absolutely every other aspect, I'd still pick up book two just to learn more about

Kai and Bashasa's relationship

and the others.

Cons:
       - The exposition was lacking. Even having a huge list of all characters and their traits at the front of the book did not make piecing together the world building easy. (Probably a red flag for those that dislike convoluted fantasy worlds.) And after almost 500 pages I think I still have too many questions about certain, important and prevalent, races and politics.
       - The lost character building potential. I have so many questions about, well, just about every character because while they're fleshed out personality-wise, they're all seem to have their own personal quest plot-holes or obscured/unanswered background that's not even mysterious, it's just never mentioned but context makes it obvious that something did/should've happened. Some examples:

How do Zeide and Tahren have biological children? I'm curious. What happened to Dahin to make him go from enthusiastic scholar to paranoid Immortal Blessed hater? What happened between Kai and Bashasa to make Kai so loyal even 60 years later? What the hell was up with the entire Arn-Nefa mini plot???

       - The future plotline

basically ending with Kai telling Ramad "I knew all along lol" and the mystery behind 'where is Tahren and why' is just.... thrown away like hot garbage. It made all the buildup before seem pointless. Also I think that the switching timelines was too choppy and made any excitement for other parts wane as you're stuck reading 50 pages of plotting and chatter or something when it had just left off on a tense cliffhanger.

This is also a small complaint of mine, but I read an author interview with Martha Wells about this book in Book Page and they talked a lot about the themes of decolonization, which got me hyped for this book, but it's really not in here. There's a small bit towards the end, i.e. "finding things to unburn", but I can't call it a central theme or even a large one. So, that was disappointing.

In all, I think it would've been a stronger read as two separate books that follow a linear timeline. There's obviously enough material and plot to do so and the characters would actually have the space to shine and develop. Also I would read a novel that was just Kai and Bashasa.