i_read_what | Daughter of the Lion - Part Three

So last time, Taliesin went out in a blaze of heroism. Keely is in the process of escaping her rapist captor and things are looking up!

I do admit to some sorrow over Strahan as a villain. He was so great in his introduction. The twist that the child "Sef" was actually Electra and Tynstar's secret child was very good. And given that Donal's parental instincts were one of the few positive traits the guy had, it was fun to see that taken advantage of.

The Plague in Track of the White Wolf nearly destroyed the Cheysuli race again, which was pretty effective. And kidnapping the boys in Pride of Princes at least involved some grand ritual and personalized torture. But admittedly was the start of his decline.

Here's he's just the hot villain rapist. At least in Pride of Princes, the fate of nations were at stake. Could he corrupt a link in the prophecy? Could he take over the kingdom? There's really very little of that in Daughter of the Lion. He doesn't even seriously attempt to convince Keely to his side or offer her immortality in her own right, and that's particularly ironic when you think about it, because Keely is the one character who has expressed open doubts about the prophecy.

I suppose we could take it as Strahan's ultimate flaw that he went with just base mind control and rape rather than corruption. He's suddenly decided that HE wants a link in the chain. Despite the fact that he's already got a breeding pair. Rhiannon gave birth to a daughter with Brennan. Strahan's kid with Sidra is a son. HELL, given how Ihlini lifespans work, he could just wait and marry Brennan's daughter HIMSELF, if that was his scheme.

It annoys me, I have to admit, because in a lot of ways I feel like Daughter of the Lion is a backslide to what made Shapechangers so irritating to me. It's MUCH better written, I admit that. But we've gone from the complicated world building of the later books in the series to just another rape fantasy. At least Strahan isn't presented as an endgame the way Duncan was, I suppose.

Oh well. I should look at the positives. Keely, as annoying as I tend to find her, is a fully developed and dynamic character. She isn't a poor sexy lamp like poor Alix had been. She's allowed to react to things and not like things, and her fear, anxiety and trauma are given a fair shake by the narrative.

And while I do not care for the rape fantasy aspects of the story, I don't feel like it glamorizes or normalizes the abuse the way Shapechangers did. So there is that.

But let's move on.

-

So Keely has dropped over the gate. She scrapes herself up pretty good when she lands. She also has a moment where she puts her hand across her belly and asks "her abomination" if it's dead yet.

As if in answer, there's godfire on the other side of the gate. So it's time to fucking for it.

Of course, Ihlini powers are better than Cheysuli powers and well, for whatever reason, Strahan's now right behind her.

He wore a circlet on his brow, rune-wrought, glinting silver, alive with alien shapes. And a blood-red, true-red robe, belted with silver bosses. The folds of the robe washed purple.

Strahan smiled his seductive smile within the shadow of his beard. Godfire flickered in eyes, in mouth, in nostrils, setting fingertips ablaze. "You," he said serenely, "are most direly in need of a bath." *

Now I did spit.

Strahan's smile widened. Teeth parted the clipped beard. "A bedraggled, cast-off kitten thrown down a well to drown, then pulled out unexpectedly by a very thirsty man." He paused for effect, lifting winged brows. Wrought silver gleamed on his brow. A painter, transfixed by beauty, would make Strahan a king. The Seker would make him a god. "Shall I drink you, then?"

Ugh.

I remember when Strahan's taunts seemed a little more sophisticated than this.

Keely curses at him in the old Tongue, and he responds, because apparently he's learned it. How? Keely notes that he's "equally at home in the old Tongue as he was in Homanan", but how exactly does that work?

When would Strahan have had time to learn? Rhiannon is part Cheysuli, sure, but I doubt Ian spent his time in captivity giving language lessons. The modern Cheysuli are pretty insular, and while Sef spent some time there, it doesn't seem like enough to gave him fluency.

It WOULD be an interesting hint toward shared Ihlini Cheysuli origins, I think, if Keely bothered to wonder about it. But it's rather understandable that she has other things on her mind.

But look at this nonsense:

Clearly he understood. "Reshta-ni," he answered, equally at home in the old Tongue as he was in Homanan. He held his ground even as I did, making no effort to move in my direction. Ten long paces lay between us. "You may run," Strahan said quietly, linking hands behind him, "for as long and as far as you like. I will not move to stop you, only to recover you when you fail. This is an island, Keely . . . there is no place you can go. Lir-shape is denied you, even with your Blood . . . and I am stronger now than ever before, less subject to the bindings other gods have put upon us."

Rain ran down my face, washing the blood from my chin. "This is the Crystal Isle, the birthplace of the Firstborn. We hold dominance here, even as Ihlini do in Valgaard."

"Once, aye, with me, and over others, still. But things have changed, Keely . . . even as I have changed."

I bared my teeth. "Are you a godling, now? Has the Seker taken your manhood and given you back divinity?"

Strahan raised one brow. "As to the state of my manhood, surely you can tell me. You have reason to know if I am made castrate by greater power, giving up one for the other."

So we have Strahan making a stupid villain mistake of taunting Keely instead of actually recapturing her.

We have incredibly childish rape taunts.

What happened to the Strahan that was actually interesting and not a rehash of Tynstar's stupidity?

Oh, but here's a long villain rant.

He overrode me. "What I have said before is true: the completion of the prophecy will destroy Ihlini and Cheysuli. Stopping that completion will void the extermination of my race, which is what we all face. You. I. All of us." He shrugged, frowning a little, then banished it with a wry twist of his mouth. "You name me demon, I know, and the servant of even worse . . . well, I will not stop you; you may call me whatever you like. No doubt there is some truth in it, when viewed through Cheysuli eyes." Strahan no longer smiled. "But the blade is two-edged, Keely. You and the rest of your House are doing everything you can to harm my race. To stop it, I must harm yours." He grinned slowly, disarmingly, astounding me with humanity: man in place of demon. "It was, after all, what I was bred to do, being born to Tynstar and Electra. I was reared in Valgaard, not Homana-Mujhar. The Seker is my lord, not the pantheon you serve." The mismatched eyes were eerie, reflecting self-made godfire. "I honored my jehan and jehana as much as you honor Niall. Are we so very different?"

I'm going to be generous to Roberson here and assume that Strahan doesn't mean a literal destruction of the races. For one thing, the culmination of the prophecy is ONE guy, and he might want to marry and have children himself one day.

I suppose if she made him more coherent, pointing out that this super-race they're trying to bring back would essentially be their overlords and maybe enslave them and wipe out their individual cultures, it'd be harder to argue against that idea. The fact of the matter is that the Cheysuli have no idea what'll happen after they bring back the Firstborn.

(One thing I liked about Pride of Princes is we had a moment where each brother got to describe what they thought that would actually mean.)

But we are getting into some bizarre Robersonisms here as Keely demands to know why Strahan wants to become a god. Even though he's done nothing here to that effect. It's a question that might have made sense in Pride of Princes, since Corin believed that was Strahan's aim. But it doesn't make sense here, when all Strahan seems to want to do is fuck Keely.

The really stupid thing about that is by fucking Keely, he'll make the prophecy happen anyway, just like Rhiannon did with Brennan. Or almost, if we go with Roberson and forget that they've already got the Erinnish in their bloodline. It wouldn't be that hard to get that missing blood.

That's the funniest part of the Ihlini machinations in this half of the story. The hardest part about getting the prophecy to happen is SUPPOSED to be the part where the Ihlini and Cheysuli fuck. And indeed, that's going to be the last book, when Kellin is pretty horrified by the idea that he might have to marry (or at least fuck) an Ihlini to make it happen.

But the bad guys have ALREADY made that happen. Lillith and Ian. Rhiannon and Brennan. Strahan and Keely. They're MAKING alternate prophecy paths. Well, and also the main prophecy path. Because, here's a shock. It takes TWO parents to make a child. Kellin is the direct decent main character. But well, he's going to marry someone right? Wouldn't it be convenient if he found an Ihlini who already had a lot of the bloodlines herself?

And yeah, she'll probably be a first or second cousin. But what's a bit of cousin fucking in this group?

Okay, I'm going to stop ranting. But I still miss early Strahan.

Look, there's more to the dialogue but I'm too busy rolling my eyes. Keely runs for it. And she finds something:

I ran. I ran. But I did not reach Homana. What I reached was something, somewhere other. A place of ancient and binding power, though lost to long disuse.

It loomed before me, made of stones atumble one against the other; a small, private place, shining wetly in the lightning, washed black and silver by rain. of d, ancient stones, set in a crumbling circle. Time had toppled them, spread them, knocked their heads together like drunken soldiers in a tavern, while their bodies slid slowly apart.

The light of the storm was fading. In its place was darkness, the deep, heavy darkness of a spent storm only sluggishly giving back the world the moon and the stars it has stolen.

Light came up from behind me. A cold, spectral, purplish light, cast in the form of nightfog rolling low against the ground. I had seen its like before. I knew it all too well.

Five steps only, and I was inside the tumbled chapel. It smelled of mold, of age, wet stone, mud. But more: it smelled of power.

I swung back and faced the fog. "Well, then, will you come?"

Well, that's convenient.

Actually, I'm not being fair. Keely had said herself that the Crystal Isle was a source of power for the Cheysuli, and the original home/birthplace of the Firstborn. Strahan has always had a thing for this place since his mother was imprisoned here. He murdered Finn here and had Donal captured here.

So actually it's a pretty nice set up. By taunting his enemies and their prophecy, he's playing into his own defeat.

It came. It flowed like Sleeta, hunting; like Brennan running with her; like me, in sleek strong cat-shape, flowing smoothly under the sun. It came now hunting me, throwing itself forward to enter the chapel, but found it could not do so. I stood back and laughed as it tried, splashing against an old and abiding magic it had no power to break.

So this is pretty cool.

A shaft of new moonlight lay upon the remains of an altar. It tilted precariously sideways, pedestal plinth shattered, propped up by another stone. It was choked with vines and lichen, but beneath them I saw runes.

I crept forward slowly and knelt down before the altar in wet, leaf-strewn earth. I put out a scraped, muddy hand and tore away the lace of ivy, the soft cloak of bronze-green moss. Beneath my fingers were runes, grown smooth over the years, but depressions nonetheless. I let my fingertips linger, following the shapes. old Tongue, and very formal. The form only infrequently used in the clans, and then mostly by the shar tahls. We have grown too far away from the old language, and the years have altered our tongue into a mixture of Cheysuli and Homanan. This language humbled me. This made me feel unworthy.

This language put me in awe.

So anyway, Strahan appears at the doorway. Taunting her. This bit annoys me though:

He wore no knife, no sword. He needed neither of them. Strahan was power incarnate.

Yes, we get it Roberson, Keely's rapist is sexy.

He continues to taunt, declaring how even if she loses this child "through this night's folly", there'll be another. He's decided to make a child a year. Because...more prophecy is better than less? It's not like Ihlini don't occasionally change sides, dude. Taliesin is proof of that. You COULD be providing your enemies with a new friend...

Keely taunts him back telling him to make another now. Maybe he'll even make two, since she's twin born after all.

I don't think it works that way, Keely, but well, genetics in this world are weird. (And often racist, as we've pointed out.)

This taunt though is interesting:

"What if I die?" I asked. "Women do, bearing children. Or what if, in losing it, I become barren? Women do, Strahan. And our House is full of it ... how is your own, I wonder? There is you, and Lillith . . . Rhiannon? How many of you are left? How many Ihlini like you inhabit the House of Darkness?" I paused. "There are others, Strahan . . . others like Taliesin. Your House is a minority—how many of you are there?" Again I waited a beat, altering emphasis. "Haw few of you are there, Strahan, beloved of Asar-Suti?"

This is interesting but also a bit contradictory to prior books. Since back in Shapechangers and Song of Homana there were any number of Ihlini underlings that were nameless cannon fodder.

The Ihlini are to Solinde what the Cheysuli are to Homana, but without the purges or plagues that we know about. So where are they now? Why doesn't Strahan have lesser Ihlini here the way he presumably did in Valgaard?

And for that matter, what about common Ihlini people. We've met a few who weren't high powered types: that old woman, Taliesin, Varien, but they're still sworn to Asar Suti. IS every Ihlini in the same boat?

Keely starts getting confident that Strahan can't enter the chapel. But then he draws a star with godfire and steps through it. Fuck.

Keely backs away, falls, and finds something sharp under her hands. It's a knife.

The chapter ends with an admittedly very satisfying line:

I thrust it home in his heart, clean to the twisted gold hilt.

Nice.