The second book of the Prophecy Rock trilogy sees both sides face a different set of challenges, but the war won’t stop just yet.

Note: it seems that I screwed up and forgot to post this, but I posted the review of the third book already. What a mess… sorry for that.

As both sides retreat to recuperate after the destructive battle for Sargatum, the story splits, once again, into two plot lines.

The Vicedonian half sees Prince Aric return home, with his newfound power and a silent bodyguard of pure Shadow at his command. Believing he can now step out of his brother’s shadow, Aric wants to take the fight to the enemy. However, there are troubles much closer to home. The Gokstads, one of the conquered groups in the kingdom, flees to the capital from unnatural events the reader recognizes as being connected to Raden’s battle with the other candidate.

Now, these people, far from home and treated as second-class citizens, are becoming sick. Revolts start as the nobility turns a blind eye to their struggle. Aric, believing them to be barbarians incites further fights and frames them for the sickness spreading through the city, especially as the King himself becomes sick. He isolates them in a former arena, where the sickness cuts through their ranks.

He then plants to use his dark powers to cripple the enemy – by infecting one of the main sources of water for the Renzai capital. Despite protests from both the King and the other ranked officers, he goes on with his plans, and during the next council – as the King’s health fades each day – suggests taking advantage of the enemy’s predicament to end the war once and for all. In a heated debate and a conflict between honor and desire for victory, the King eventually agrees with the attack.

On the Renzai side, Raden spends some time training his powers to get better control of them. His absence spares him and his friend Gama from the decline of the capital, but to save his nation, he must embark on a journey to places of power, in search of an artifact like no other.

A chance brings Raden to emerge at the battlefield where the armies clash, and his assistance helps to even the odds. Raden and Aric clash in a duel of immense power but neither is able to overpower the other and the casualties once again force both armies to withdraw. Raden, however, has gained the artifact he searched for and is able, with some difficulties, use it to help his people – but he knows that defeating Aric and the dark powers he wields would be no easy feat.

Meanwhile, Aric returns home – where he not only finds out that his father had perished to his sickness, but the Gokstads are leading an army to the capital, eager to regain their freedom and led by someone whom Aric had thought to be broken…

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Read date: 11.-20.2.2024
Published: 2.7.2015
Goodreads/Amazon rating: 4,43/4,6
My rating: 80%
Length: 428 pages
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The book keeps the same pace as the first book, and keeps the same flaws in head-hopping, so my rating stays the same. An enjoyable and gripping story, even if quite simple in the idea, and I’ll definitely continue to the final book.