2019 SF, second of its trilogy that's also a sequel to the Indranan
War series. Believing almost all her advisors and friends dead, Empress
Hailimi does her best to work towards peace rather than the big battle
everyone else seems to want.
Well, yes, for a significant chunk of this book Hailimi is going
through a full-blown mental health crisis: after everyone has been
telling her they trust her leadership and they're willing to die for
her, it seems that that has happened, and she retreats inside herself
(and away from the few survivors) to try to remain functional. It's
gruelling but good stuff to see both how she goes in there and how she
starts to come out again.
Meanwhile she's being trained to fight the gods. Well, not really
the gods, only super-powerful aliens whom the most advanced species
out there treat as gods. That's so much better, right?
"So they fucking hired him because he was basically the only one
left?" I laughed. "Oh, he's going to be pissed for all of two
seconds when I tell him that."
"Only two seconds?" Alba asked.
"He'll be dead after that," Hao replied.
Not at all what I'd expected, and I found the central romance
profoundly unhealthy (gur ybir vagrerfg naq ure oebgure unir
qryvorengryl nyybjrq Unvy gb pbagvahr gb oryvir gung nyy ure sevraqf
ner qrnq fb gung fur'yy pbafrag gb gurve ercrngrqyl orngvat ure gb
qrngu naq erfheerpgvat ure va beqre gb znxr ure fgebatre sbe gur ovt
svtug), which rather soured the majority of the book for me; but that
first third or so is solid.