I exhale and wipe my tears as Tzain pulls me into a hug. Even soaking wet, his embrace is still warm. He rubs his fingers up and down my spine the way Baba used to when he wrapped me in his arms. You carry all of us in your heart. We shall live in every breath you take. Every incantation you speak.” No. I push away the weight I could never bear. If Zélie were alive, she would've returned with Nâo. The monarchy killed her with their explosions. Zélie's sacrifice allowed us to win the war. This is the story we shall tell.

In that moment he grabbed my hand; laced his bandaged fingers between mine and stared into my eyes. It was then that I knew, even if Mama was gone, we still had each other. Despite Zélie's protests, Amari leads a mission to infiltrate their enemy's stronghold and kill her remaining family members. (Note: The Queen and Inan are hiding in Zélie's old village.) Zélie was destroyed by all that had happened to her in the previous book. She felt like she had done enough and she wanted to run as far away as she could from everything. Gradually though she found her light in the other magi and it was nice seeing her open up again. My main concern was the degradation of her trust in Amari. Their friendship was one of my favourite parts of Children of Blood and Bone and suddenly in this book they seemed to turn on each other at every hurdle which was extremely out of character in my opinion. Why couldn't they just have a healthy, strong friendship? The plot was stagnant and redundant. Nothing really happens and the inner conflicts between the main characters added nothing to the story. It is also riddled with annoying contradictions. The cover depicts Zélie as this fierce warrior goddess and she talks about how she must keep fighting for Baba and her people, but she wants to give up, but she takes important positions as a leader. Zélie unravels so much in this book that her chapters were almost unreadable. Amari could have been a fierce queen, but her character development was destroyed to the point of no return. Amari and Zélie had the same argument throughout the entire novel, people kept speaking over Amari, but she never left. Inan being conflicted and having no control over his surroundings was cute in book one—not so much in the sequel.

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He squeezes his palm against mine as the gentle mist transforms to a pelting rain. The downpour chills us to the bone. It’s like even the gods can’t help but mourn. We’ll survive.” Amari passes me the torch and my eyes linger on the new streak of white hair pasted to her cheek from the rain. A sign of the new magic that lives in her blood. A harsh reminder of the hundreds of nobles across Orïsha who now possess streaks and magic like hers. Ultimately, the plot was tedious. Chapters with different POVs became tiresome due to the characters being in the exact same place at the same time, it slowed down the rising action and tension Adeyemi desired, immensely so. Even dialogue from different characters repeated frequently! Maybe this was a struggle for Adeyemi due to pressure (which hello - completely natural - I haven’t written a freaking book!!!), so this result is a shame. Don’t get me wrong, the first book was great. I mean I had my issues with it but I was really looking forward to read book two because I believed that the author would learn from the mistakes of the first book. Unfortunately what I got was something totally different than I expected. There was so much potential! We had the tîtáns that suddenly appeared after the ritual and we could have had such great character arcs and a really solid and good story line but this wasn’t what we got. No.

I have read some spoiler tags for the book's later content, so I know that the characters do much more heinous things before the end. I'll add a Content Warning/Spoiler Warning below for those who are interested.Inan realizes that the monarchy is corrupt and decides to abolish it altogether. He then informs Zélie of his actions through a letter. But who should show up and become public enemy number 1? None other than Inan, Amari’s brother, Zelie’s ex and all around pain. Damn right I saw this coming from a mile away! Love interests that die in book 1 of a trilogy 9 times out of 10 return from the dead in the next book. And this was no exception. Amari is frustrated because (1) she holds no power over the Iyika, (2) she feels that no one properly appreciates her "sacrifice" aka her killing the father whom she hated, and (3) everyone likes Zélie more. She never seems to understand why everyone is distrustful and hostile to the daughter of the man who dedicated his life to killing them. I am so disappointed by this book—so much so that it breaks my heart. I am emotionally spent so I want to keep this as short as possible without ranting. I adored Children of Blood and Bone so much that I gave it five stars. The only reason why this isn’t getting one-star from me is because it’s not a bad book and I don’t want it to come across like it is because I have respect for Tomi Adeyemi. Also, their convictions and motivations drastically changed whenever the author needed to push the plot forward. Truly, this sequel can rival the character internal inconsistencies in the last season of Game of Thrones.