In this section, Talia reaches Haven, and Everything is Revealed. Indeed, the revelations are so detailed and extensive that Talia requires the services of a team of exposition fairies working in shifts. Every single person who is going to play a major role in the next two books appears in these chapters. Plus, we get a detailed description of the Collegium’s plumbing. I don’t know who invented that, but I make certain assumptions so THANKS, VANYEL!
The Summary: Talia finishes her long, puzzling ride from her hometown of Sensholding to Valdemar’s capital city of Haven. She gets food and warm thoughts from Road Guards who refuse to resolve any of her confusion about what’s going on, but do let her know that the Companion she’s riding is named Rolan. His hooves continue to chime musically on the roads.
Rolan takes Talia to the Palace in Haven, which is also the Collegium. The guards there take Rolan away and leave Talia to meet Elspeth, bratty heir-presumptive to the throne of Valdemar, and Selenay, the queen. Selenay explains that Valdemar is facing a crisis. In order to inherit the crown, Elspeth has to be Chosen by a Companion to be a Herald, which won’t happen unless she becomes a decent human being. Unfortunately, Elpeth’s nursemaid has been spoiling her, and the result is a looming succession crisis. The previous Queen’s Own thought he had a solution, but sort of mysteriously died before he could implement it. In other words, the kingdom is facing a crisis that has claimed the life of the highest-ranking Herald in the land because Selenay can’t fire her nanny.
The Queen’s Own Companion went out to wander the countryside to find someone who can solve Valdemar’s problems, and after two months has finally returned with Talia. Who now remembers being chosen and needs a crash course in all of everything so she can become the new Queen’s Own.
Talia is excited to have travelled so far, both geographically and in the scope of her personal agency, but she’s also worried that she won’t fit in. She’s shy and she has to over come the dysfunction and cultural alienation she has grown up with back in Sensholding.
We, as readers, benefit from a third person perspective that assures us that everyone thinks Talia will grow into her awesome responsibilities – although it doesn’t really matter what they think. Rolan has chosen for them, and they don’t have the power to suggest that Talia be reassigned to floor-scrubbing so Rolan can go find someone who takes a more enlightened view on spanking. Talia can’t see all this, so she continues to feel insecure.
This section is particularly heavy on the world-building. If you’ve never read the book before, then you need these five mainly expository chapters that introduce absolutely everyone. By name. Usually at length. Dirk appears for just long enough for readers to notice that he might be important later. Skif picks some pockets and starts warming up towards an attempt to flirt. Weaponmaster Alberich starts teaching Talia knife-fighting. In my favorite character introduction ever, Talia shyly eviscerates her future mentor, Kris, for mansplaining. Retired Herald Jadus starts giving Talia voice lessons. We get to know the Collegia surrounding the Palace. There are four of these, color-coded for our convenience. Grey is for trainee Heralds, Red for Bards, Green for Healers, and Blue for Slytherin. The introductions are so extensive that Talia takes a whole class just for more introductions. This is the context in which we discover that Vanyel died horribly, and that Talia has been disowned. And while that information is all great and useful, Lackey makes some bizarre choices about what readers need to know. These chapters also introduce Valdemar’s hot water heaters. And all the palace’s kitchen equipment.
In chapter 5, Talia starts getting bullied. I have never in the history of literature been so thrilled to see someone get shoved around, because it means that finally something is happening. It also means that I’m a horrible person. It’s terrible that Talia is getting bullied. It wreaks havoc with her insecurities and also continues the nefarious plots against Valdemar’s government. The nefarious plotters and their horrible children attempt to drown Talia in an icy river in chapter 7. Rolan leads her dramatic rescue, closely followed by Talia’s friends Keren and Sherrill who drag her out from under the ice! The knock on the head seems to have made Talia psychic! Talia will take some time to recover from concussion and pneumonia, but the plot is back in motion.
What’s your favorite introduction? Tell me in the comments and tune in next week!
Ellen Cheeseman-Meyer teaches history and reads a lot.
I had remembered that Lackey does a lot of expositioning, but good grief this whole book is pretty much exposition. And Waiting For Things to Happen. Selenay gives us only a couple of slim reasons for why she never does anything with her child other than be puzzled and sad and hope someone else will fix the problem in two or three years (Elspeth looks too much like her father, Selenay is “busy”). Everyone expresses their dismay at the Brat, but no one–not even Talia–does anything until a plot-convenient moment. At which time the solution takes 2-3 pages of summary and we move on.
In fact, most of the book is told as a summary, with only select scenes pulled out for dialogue and actual character interaction. Otherwise it’s “Talia went to classes for several months, and here’s what she learned in one class,” which…well, that’s one way to make one slim book cover three to five years of time, but it’s certainly not a very interesting way.
(Does anyone else have trouble labeling Keren’s age? She and her twin are both “greying,” and possibly arthritic, but she mentions at one point that she’s a little more than twice Talia’s age, which would put her late 20s at the oldest. And yet it’s mentioned at another point that Teren was Chosen as an adult, with grown children…)
Teren’s children weren’t grown when he was Chosen; when Keren tells that story she says the kids are around Talia’s age. It’s established that people marry young where they’re from, so yeah, probably late twenties.
This might be a dumb question, but is there a schedlue for which chapters are being read each week?
I’m not sure how far I’m supposed to have read to be up with everyone else.
Thanks.
I think Keren is older- based on the Vows series. Alberich was around for ten years before the final battle, and Keren was a grown/working Herald during that time.
I always thought of Keren/Teren as in their late 30s/early 40s in this book. For some reason, I thought that the point where it is mentioned that Keren was more than twice Talia’s age was about halfway through the book when Talia would have been about 15 or 16.
I loved Mero the cook when I read this as a teen, though looking back at the text, he really doesn’t show up all that often. Strange how you remember minor characters as though they played a much bigger part.
@3 – rocalisa, I should really lay that out, huh? This week is chapters 7-10, and next week finishes Arrows.
“Blue for Slytherin.” Done.
True in this novel, although I like that Lackey takes pains to show that the Blues are just like any other group of people- some good, some bad, later on in her series.
Well, the Goodreads’ group Sword and Laser have pick this novel as their book of the month for Dec 2015. A nice way to end the year with an author I have been intending to read for a while now. Nice to have a push. A lot of the comments on Goodreads have been about how they have read this book being a teenager and I look forward to how all that shakes out.