2022 romantic fantasy. Princess Marra's eldest sister went off to
marry the prince of the Northern Kingdom, and died. Her second sister
went off too, and isn't doing well. What can she do about it?
But the opening chapters are much more in the style of
Kingfisher's horror: we open with Marra wiring together the bones of a
dog, in a cursed land where the gods send the cannibals. (Going by the
afterword, this is the section that came to her first, and the rest of
the story was wrapped round it.) Things shift more into the usual
fantasy mode, but they never quite get comfortable; this isn't
another White Rat paladin romance.
Indeed, everyone here is damaged in various ways, by their nature
or by their experience, Some of them manage to overcome it. Some don't
even try.
Marra sets off and seeks the help of a dust-wife, who lives near
graveyards and hears the dead, and carries on accumulating companions,
including a demon-possessed chicken.
"Is your demon for sale?"
Everyone looked at the brown hen. The hen said, Errrrrrk, in much
the same tone that the Sister Apothecary used to pronounce someone
dead.
"No," said the dust-wife. "She's my best layer."
They have powerful, but very specialised, magic, and the real
challenge is in working out how to frame the inevitable conflict in a
way they have any hope of winning, rather than in terms of (say)
barely-competent infant blessings.
"She had six litters and every kitten was a tom. The barn was
overrun. Nothing but fighting and pissing everywhere, and yowling
when they weren't pissing."
"Just like the barracks," said Fenris nostalgically.
This starts off stark and ends almost comfortable. But not quite:
there are still things to be done, even if the story here is complete
in itself. Really rather a fine book, particularly a relief after the
minor disappointment of Paladin's Hope.
Nothing is fair, except that we try to make it so. That's the point
of humans, maybe, to fix things the gods haven't managed.