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i_read_whatWow. Hello! Much to my genuine shock, we've made to to the penultimate book of this entire damn series. Flight of the Raven is the seventh Cheysuli book out of eight. It's been a long trek to get here.
Also please ignore that I'm behind on like four separate tables of contents and a master list update. I'll get to them, promise.
Anyway, I have some recollection of this book. Mostly positive, though there are a few plot elements that I'm not really fond of. Especially the existence of kivarna. What's kivarna, you might ask? You'll find out, soon enough.
So, let's start with a prologue!
So we start with a rather cryptic scene:
He was small, so very small, but desperation lent him strength. The need lent him strength, even though fright and tension threatened to undermine it. He placed small hands on the hammered silver door and pushed as hard as he could, grunting with the effort; pushing with all his might.
The door opened slightly. Then fell back again, scraping, as his meager strength failed.
"No," he muttered aloud between clenched teeth. "No, I will not let you."
Aw, it's already kind of cute.
So we're with Aidan, who is still a child as of this prologue. He's trying to get into the Great Hall, and we learn that his goal is to "confront the Lion Throne".
It seems almost like a compulsion:
Small hands tugged at hair, twisting a lock through fingers. Black hair by night; by day a dark russet, red in the light of the sun. He peered the length of the hall, feeling cold stone beneath his feet. His mother would have told him to put on his slippers. But the need had been so great that nothing else mattered but that he confront the Lion, and the thing in the Lion's lap.
He shivered. Not from cold: from fear.
I think this is the first time we actually glimpse one of our protagonists as a child in their own book. GenWe might catch a glimpse of a protagonist in a prior book - like Donal in Song of Homana or Ian in Legacy of the Sword, but generally the books start with their primary lead character already being an adult - or near enough to one.
It's interesting. It gives Aidan a bit more of a vulnerability than we've seen in the prior protagonists.
Like here:
Aidan bit a finger. Bowels turned to water; he wanted the chamber pot. But he was prince and also Cheysuli. If he retreated now, he would dishonor the blood in his veins.
But, oh, how he wanted to leave!
Aidan rocked a little. "Jehana…" he whispered, not knowing that he spoke.
In the darkness, the Lion waited.
So did something else.
Jehana, you may remember is the Old Tongue for mother. I'm not sure how old Aidan is supposed to be during this scene. Very small, I think, though he seems healthy enough. Maybe he's outgrown the baby-sickness that he had during Daughter of the Lion.
So Aidan approaches the Lion Throne. He sees something glowing - a chain, with links the size of a large man's wrist. Then it turns to dust. The poor kid has an accident and starts crying. And well, we see some of the after effects of the royal family uprbinging:
He did not want to cry. He did not intend to cry, but the tears came anyway. Which made him cry all the harder, ashamed of his emotion. Ashamed of his loss of control. Of his too-Homanan reaction; Cheysuli warriors did not cry. Grief was not expressed.
But he was more than merely Cheysuli. And no one let him forget.
We're getting very close to the end of the line, prophecy wise. In fact, slight spoilers, there's actually no difference in terms of ancestral proportions between Aidan and the last protagonist in the series, Kellan. Either one just has to knock up an Ihlini for the prophecy to finish.
Which the book confirms in slightly uncomfortable language:
Only one more bloodline needed. One more outcross required, and the prophecy was complete. But even he, at six, knew how impossible it was. He had heard it often enough in the halls of Homana-Mujhar.
Outcross? You're not plants, kid. I don't blame Aidan, but man, that's a weird way to look at it.
There is something I rather like here though, even if it's also uncomfortable in a different way. Aidan muses about the last requirement of the prophecy:
No Cheysuli warrior will ever lie down with an Ihlini and sire a child upon her.
But even he, a boy, knew better. A Cheysuli warrior had; in fact, two had: his grandsire's brother, Ian, and his own father, the Prince of Homana, who one day would be Mujhar.
Even at six, he knew. And knew what he was meant for; what blood ran in his veins. But it was all very confusing, and he chose to leave it so.
On one hand, it's pretty fucked up that a six year old needs to know about this whole fucked up breeding program at all. What the fuck, guys?
On the other hand, though, I actually think it's good that they're not keeping what happened to Brennan and Ian a secret. It's pretty awkward to think of this sort of thing being explained to a six year old, granted, but this is a case where we have a family that's been terrorized by the Ihlini for generations now. Strahan might be dead, but Rhiannon and Lilith are still out there, and those are the two that have been the most effective at their schemes.
Given everything established about Homanan/Cheysuli culture, I'd have expected the characters to try to hide the shame and trauma of their experiences, but arguably that would be irresponsible. We've had sequential generations of characters captured, raped and tortured by the same group of immortal assholes and as horrible as it must be to try to explain this to a child, maybe it's better that the child has some idea of the dangers and the risks. Maybe Aidan will be less likely to sneak out and get into bar fights. He'll at least be more alert when it comes to over-friendly wine girls...
So Aidan is crying for his chain. And his mother comes in, distraught and worried. She's putting on a brave face and...as much as I've criticized Roberson in the past, she has a very deft touch with the narration here:
The familiar lilt of Erinn echoed in the Great Hall. "What are ye doing, my lad? Paying homage to the Lion?" Aileen's laugh was forced. " 'Twill be your beastie, one day—there's no need for you to come in the night to see it!"
She meant well, he knew. She always meant well. But he sensed her fear, her anguish, beneath forced cheerfulness.
Aidan, you might notice, is surprisingly perceptive for a six year old. I'm not going to get into it now, because the story doesn't, but that's actually purposeful rather than careless writing.
Anyway, poor Aidan tries to explain about the chain, but he's six. Aileen has no idea what he's talking about, and his fears about the Lion meaning to eat him just sounds like nightmares.
She did not believe him. He hurled himself against her, trembling from a complex welter of fear, anguish, insistence: he needed her to believe him. She was his rock, his anchor—if she did not believe him—
In Erinnish, she tried to soothe him. He needed her warmth, her compassion, her love, but he was aware, if distantly, he also required something more. Something very real, no matter what she said: the solidity of the chain in his small-fingered child's hands, because it was his tahlmorra. Because he knew, without knowing why, the golden links in his dreams bound him as fully as his blood.
Aw, poor baby.
We also get to see Brennan here too.
A sound: the whisper of leather on stone, announcing someone's presence. Pressed against his mother, Aidan peered one-eyed over a velveted shoulder and saw his father in the hall. His tall, black-haired father with eyes undeniably yellow, feral as Aidan's own; a creature of the shadows as much as flesh and bone. Brennan's dress was haphazard and the black hair mussed. Alarm and concern stiffened the flesh of his face.
"The nursemaid came—what is wrong?"
Aidan felt his mother turn on her knees even as her arms tightened slightly. "Oh, naught but a bad dream. Something to do with the Lion." Forced lightness. Forced calm. But Aidan read the nuances. For him, a simple task.
The alarm faded as Brennan walked to the dais. The tension in his features relaxed. "Ah, well, there was a time it frightened me."
Aw. I'm glad to see my favorite protagonist again. Aidan tries to explain about the chain, but Brennan doesn't understand any more than Aileen does, which devastates Aidan.
" 'Tis fanciful foolishness," Aileen admonished, rising to stand. "We'll be having no more of it."
A dark-skinned, callused hand was extended for Aidan to grasp. Brennan smiled kindly. "Come, little prince. Time you were safe in bed."
It was shock, complete and absolute. They do not believe me, either of them—
His mother and his father, so wise and trustworthy, did not believe him. Did not believe their son.
He gazed blindly at the hand still extended from above. Then he looked into the face. A strong, angular face, full of planes and hollows; of heritage and power.
His father knew everything. But if his father did not believe him.
Aidan felt cold. And hollow. And old. Something inside flared painfully, then crumbled into ash.
One of the surprising rewards of reading this series is seeing how Roberson improves as a writer. Because this is really good. I think it's a jump in quality even from Pride of Princes, which has been my favorite of the books so far.
I also love the way this conflict is structured. Because it can be tricky, when you have a generational story, to introduce problems for the younger generation without imputing flaws on the older. We can see examples in this series: Carillon being stupid enough to give Aislinn unsupervised time with the mom who explicitly likes to fuck with people's heads and has tried to kill him. Niall ignoring all of the problems his own betrothal gave him to not only betroth his oldest son and legitimate daughter at birth, but somehow allow them to never have any real communication with their would-be spouses, while letting his younger sons completely slack off from any leadership training.
The conflict that we have here, though, is different. Aileen and Brennan clearly love their child, and there's nothing they're really doing wrong here. Their six year old kid seems to have had some kind of dream or nightmare. He's wandered into the throne room. He's saying strange things and crying about something they don't understand.
And they're also not purposefully telling the kid that they don't believe him either. Poor Aidan is just more perceptive than the average six year old (and mild spoiler, this is again on purpose rather than bad writing) and has picked up on what they're not saying. He's hurt by this, and he's probably going to carry this hurt for a long time, but it's not because of cruelty or maliciousness, or even a deliberate intention to NOT understand. It's just complicated.
Anyway, poor Aidan gets taken off to bed and the prologue ends.
Also please ignore that I'm behind on like four separate tables of contents and a master list update. I'll get to them, promise.
Anyway, I have some recollection of this book. Mostly positive, though there are a few plot elements that I'm not really fond of. Especially the existence of kivarna. What's kivarna, you might ask? You'll find out, soon enough.
So, let's start with a prologue!
So we start with a rather cryptic scene:
He was small, so very small, but desperation lent him strength. The need lent him strength, even though fright and tension threatened to undermine it. He placed small hands on the hammered silver door and pushed as hard as he could, grunting with the effort; pushing with all his might.
The door opened slightly. Then fell back again, scraping, as his meager strength failed.
"No," he muttered aloud between clenched teeth. "No, I will not let you."
Aw, it's already kind of cute.
So we're with Aidan, who is still a child as of this prologue. He's trying to get into the Great Hall, and we learn that his goal is to "confront the Lion Throne".
It seems almost like a compulsion:
Small hands tugged at hair, twisting a lock through fingers. Black hair by night; by day a dark russet, red in the light of the sun. He peered the length of the hall, feeling cold stone beneath his feet. His mother would have told him to put on his slippers. But the need had been so great that nothing else mattered but that he confront the Lion, and the thing in the Lion's lap.
He shivered. Not from cold: from fear.
I think this is the first time we actually glimpse one of our protagonists as a child in their own book. GenWe might catch a glimpse of a protagonist in a prior book - like Donal in Song of Homana or Ian in Legacy of the Sword, but generally the books start with their primary lead character already being an adult - or near enough to one.
It's interesting. It gives Aidan a bit more of a vulnerability than we've seen in the prior protagonists.
Like here:
Aidan bit a finger. Bowels turned to water; he wanted the chamber pot. But he was prince and also Cheysuli. If he retreated now, he would dishonor the blood in his veins.
But, oh, how he wanted to leave!
Aidan rocked a little. "Jehana…" he whispered, not knowing that he spoke.
In the darkness, the Lion waited.
So did something else.
Jehana, you may remember is the Old Tongue for mother. I'm not sure how old Aidan is supposed to be during this scene. Very small, I think, though he seems healthy enough. Maybe he's outgrown the baby-sickness that he had during Daughter of the Lion.
So Aidan approaches the Lion Throne. He sees something glowing - a chain, with links the size of a large man's wrist. Then it turns to dust. The poor kid has an accident and starts crying. And well, we see some of the after effects of the royal family uprbinging:
He did not want to cry. He did not intend to cry, but the tears came anyway. Which made him cry all the harder, ashamed of his emotion. Ashamed of his loss of control. Of his too-Homanan reaction; Cheysuli warriors did not cry. Grief was not expressed.
But he was more than merely Cheysuli. And no one let him forget.
We're getting very close to the end of the line, prophecy wise. In fact, slight spoilers, there's actually no difference in terms of ancestral proportions between Aidan and the last protagonist in the series, Kellan. Either one just has to knock up an Ihlini for the prophecy to finish.
Which the book confirms in slightly uncomfortable language:
Only one more bloodline needed. One more outcross required, and the prophecy was complete. But even he, at six, knew how impossible it was. He had heard it often enough in the halls of Homana-Mujhar.
Outcross? You're not plants, kid. I don't blame Aidan, but man, that's a weird way to look at it.
There is something I rather like here though, even if it's also uncomfortable in a different way. Aidan muses about the last requirement of the prophecy:
No Cheysuli warrior will ever lie down with an Ihlini and sire a child upon her.
But even he, a boy, knew better. A Cheysuli warrior had; in fact, two had: his grandsire's brother, Ian, and his own father, the Prince of Homana, who one day would be Mujhar.
Even at six, he knew. And knew what he was meant for; what blood ran in his veins. But it was all very confusing, and he chose to leave it so.
On one hand, it's pretty fucked up that a six year old needs to know about this whole fucked up breeding program at all. What the fuck, guys?
On the other hand, though, I actually think it's good that they're not keeping what happened to Brennan and Ian a secret. It's pretty awkward to think of this sort of thing being explained to a six year old, granted, but this is a case where we have a family that's been terrorized by the Ihlini for generations now. Strahan might be dead, but Rhiannon and Lilith are still out there, and those are the two that have been the most effective at their schemes.
Given everything established about Homanan/Cheysuli culture, I'd have expected the characters to try to hide the shame and trauma of their experiences, but arguably that would be irresponsible. We've had sequential generations of characters captured, raped and tortured by the same group of immortal assholes and as horrible as it must be to try to explain this to a child, maybe it's better that the child has some idea of the dangers and the risks. Maybe Aidan will be less likely to sneak out and get into bar fights. He'll at least be more alert when it comes to over-friendly wine girls...
So Aidan is crying for his chain. And his mother comes in, distraught and worried. She's putting on a brave face and...as much as I've criticized Roberson in the past, she has a very deft touch with the narration here:
The familiar lilt of Erinn echoed in the Great Hall. "What are ye doing, my lad? Paying homage to the Lion?" Aileen's laugh was forced. " 'Twill be your beastie, one day—there's no need for you to come in the night to see it!"
She meant well, he knew. She always meant well. But he sensed her fear, her anguish, beneath forced cheerfulness.
Aidan, you might notice, is surprisingly perceptive for a six year old. I'm not going to get into it now, because the story doesn't, but that's actually purposeful rather than careless writing.
Anyway, poor Aidan tries to explain about the chain, but he's six. Aileen has no idea what he's talking about, and his fears about the Lion meaning to eat him just sounds like nightmares.
She did not believe him. He hurled himself against her, trembling from a complex welter of fear, anguish, insistence: he needed her to believe him. She was his rock, his anchor—if she did not believe him—
In Erinnish, she tried to soothe him. He needed her warmth, her compassion, her love, but he was aware, if distantly, he also required something more. Something very real, no matter what she said: the solidity of the chain in his small-fingered child's hands, because it was his tahlmorra. Because he knew, without knowing why, the golden links in his dreams bound him as fully as his blood.
Aw, poor baby.
We also get to see Brennan here too.
A sound: the whisper of leather on stone, announcing someone's presence. Pressed against his mother, Aidan peered one-eyed over a velveted shoulder and saw his father in the hall. His tall, black-haired father with eyes undeniably yellow, feral as Aidan's own; a creature of the shadows as much as flesh and bone. Brennan's dress was haphazard and the black hair mussed. Alarm and concern stiffened the flesh of his face.
"The nursemaid came—what is wrong?"
Aidan felt his mother turn on her knees even as her arms tightened slightly. "Oh, naught but a bad dream. Something to do with the Lion." Forced lightness. Forced calm. But Aidan read the nuances. For him, a simple task.
The alarm faded as Brennan walked to the dais. The tension in his features relaxed. "Ah, well, there was a time it frightened me."
Aw. I'm glad to see my favorite protagonist again. Aidan tries to explain about the chain, but Brennan doesn't understand any more than Aileen does, which devastates Aidan.
" 'Tis fanciful foolishness," Aileen admonished, rising to stand. "We'll be having no more of it."
A dark-skinned, callused hand was extended for Aidan to grasp. Brennan smiled kindly. "Come, little prince. Time you were safe in bed."
It was shock, complete and absolute. They do not believe me, either of them—
His mother and his father, so wise and trustworthy, did not believe him. Did not believe their son.
He gazed blindly at the hand still extended from above. Then he looked into the face. A strong, angular face, full of planes and hollows; of heritage and power.
His father knew everything. But if his father did not believe him.
Aidan felt cold. And hollow. And old. Something inside flared painfully, then crumbled into ash.
One of the surprising rewards of reading this series is seeing how Roberson improves as a writer. Because this is really good. I think it's a jump in quality even from Pride of Princes, which has been my favorite of the books so far.
I also love the way this conflict is structured. Because it can be tricky, when you have a generational story, to introduce problems for the younger generation without imputing flaws on the older. We can see examples in this series: Carillon being stupid enough to give Aislinn unsupervised time with the mom who explicitly likes to fuck with people's heads and has tried to kill him. Niall ignoring all of the problems his own betrothal gave him to not only betroth his oldest son and legitimate daughter at birth, but somehow allow them to never have any real communication with their would-be spouses, while letting his younger sons completely slack off from any leadership training.
The conflict that we have here, though, is different. Aileen and Brennan clearly love their child, and there's nothing they're really doing wrong here. Their six year old kid seems to have had some kind of dream or nightmare. He's wandered into the throne room. He's saying strange things and crying about something they don't understand.
And they're also not purposefully telling the kid that they don't believe him either. Poor Aidan is just more perceptive than the average six year old (and mild spoiler, this is again on purpose rather than bad writing) and has picked up on what they're not saying. He's hurt by this, and he's probably going to carry this hurt for a long time, but it's not because of cruelty or maliciousness, or even a deliberate intention to NOT understand. It's just complicated.
Anyway, poor Aidan gets taken off to bed and the prologue ends.
no subject
Date: 2026-01-20 04:55 pm (UTC)This reminds me that I should finish reading your reviews of the other Cheysuli books, so you'll first see me at Song of Homana before I get here!
no subject
Date: 2026-01-21 02:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-01-21 03:28 pm (UTC)It'll probably be today, as I just need to finish and post a review (and then I should be able to post more of Eragon within the month, hopefully).
no subject
Date: 2026-01-20 11:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-01-21 02:12 pm (UTC)