On earth, in heaven, and within,
Three wars to lose, three wars to win.
Cut the path. Mark the days. Turn the tides.
Three tasks before the season dies:
Turn rotten fruit to flower,
Slay the god-bride still unloved,
Press the son to fell the sire.
Victory then to the Carrion King who in winning loses everything.
Rebecca Roanhorse begins the final book in her Pre-Columbian fantasy trilogy with a prophecy, and a revenge plot that’s spun so far out of control it’s now crossed the ocean and threatens to tear apart the lives (and possibly souls) of every person even a little bit involved.
It’s bittersweet coming to the end of this trilogy. I’m going to miss the world of Meridian that Roanhorse has created here: the sprawling South-American(ish) cities drenched in dazzling artwork and sorcery, cursed underground graveyards, tropical islands populated by a race of magic-wielding amazons (sort of), and warrior clans with eagles and crows big enough to ride.
Roanhorse has been expanding our view of Meridian throughout the trilogy, and in this book we see even more of the different cities, the factions of Tova, and all the unique elements of this setting (we’re finally introduced to the giant bugs of the Water Strider clan, but the corvids of Carrion Crow are still the stars). The history is expanded on as well, although here the focus is slightly more on the individual history of the six main characters: the unique traumas that shaped them, their ties to their families, their lovers, their gods.
And everyone is capable of lying, abandoning, and putting a knife in someone’s back, metaphorically or literally. And not always for evil reasons. There’s a lot of talk about people needing to make sacrifices, but “sacrifice” looks an awful lot like “betrayal” to the person who’s currently bleeding.
Even among your enemies there are allies, and among your allies, enemies.
– On the Philosophy of War, taught at the Hokaia War College
Serapio – Carrion King and living avatar of the Crow God – is still ruling over the city of Tova, now permanently in shadow from an eclipse that’s still impossibly hanging over the capital city and nowhere else. He’s trying to serve his god after ruining a decades-long revenge plot by not dying, and trying to figure out how to defeat the planned invasion of Tova by all of the other cities that used to be part of the Treaty. But he’s also dreaming of a life for himself, something that doesn’t involve constant killing and fighting in the service of a god and the worshipers who created him to be a weapon. The discovery of a prophecy featuring the Carrion King has Serapio frantic to try to fulfill the prophecy while also thwarting certain elements of it, like the part where the god-king’s bride has to be killed. Serapio isn’t sure how, but he’s determined to not let that be his star-crossed would-be lover Xiala.
Serapio’s nemesis, Naranpa, living avatar of the Sun God, is holed up with a crotchety old witch in a tiny cottage far from the capital city. She spends her time cleaning the cottage, tending to livestock, and learning whatever she can about dreamwalking so she can somehow prevent her vision of the entire city of Tova on fire. Terrifying foreshadowing of what she thinks the mysterious Jaguar Prince is capable of aside, Naranpa’s surprisingly happy living with her grumpy teacher. The pleasant vacation ends though when Naranpa sees her old friend Iktan in a dream, in more trouble than xe can easily deal with, and sets off to rescue the person who we’ve all known for a while is the love of her life.
(Iktan. Good God. I think Iktan may have become my favorite character this book. The disillusioned former priest-assassin is just brilliantly terrifying. People can sense it even if they don’t know who xe is, and xe becomes even more so when xe finds out that xe’s supposed allies have been lying about Naranpa this entire time.)
Most had died where they sat, but some had tried to run. They had not succeeded.
Xiala Princess of Teek and Okoa crow-rider are both having a tough time overcoming their pasts. Xiala managed to worm her way out of trouble in the last book by promising a fleet of Teek ships to the army that’s set to invade Tova. She hasn’t been home on Teek and reunited with her old friends for long before the invaders arrive looking for the promised ships. The fact that Xiala still has the abilities of her Song (something that can and does literally make her enemies explode), and also has her newfound powers of transformation should have made this an easy battle. But it doesn’t, not with an enemy that’s willing to shoot on sight and hold the island’s children hostage in order to force the islanders to build an impossible number of ships, or else.
Okoa, meanwhile, is the person who’s chapters were the hardest to get through, mostly because I like Okoa and he seems to have a giant target on his back. Poor Okoa isn’t an avatar of a god, or someone with magical song-powers, or even a highly-trained assassin who terrifies people by smiling. He’s just a skilled crow-rider who happens to be surrounded by people who either never trusted him (because of his father’s traitorous past), or don’t respect him (because his sister is a cast-iron bitch and her brother won’t do what he’s told), or they both like and respect him but they’ve already decided that what they need to do is worth sacrificing Okoa’s reputation. And happiness. And life. And all Okoa wants for the entire book is to be better than all of that.
One great act. That was all he needed. A way to show once and for all that he was more loyal than his father the traitor, more honorable than his mother the betrayer and betrayed, more loving than his sister the faithless.
And he would find it. Somehow. And prove that he was worthy, not only to Serapio but to himself, once and for all.
Probably the most fascinating chapters to me were the ones featuring Balam, the would-be future Jaguar Prince who helped put all of this in motion years ago. Balam’s experimentation with dream-walking and shadow sorcery has been slowly rotting his brain and causing all kinds of interesting hallucinations, even while he’s plotting the invasion of Tova. But it’s his history that’s the most interesting part. We’ve already seen flashbacks that show how Serapio was shaped to be a weapon, but this is the first time we’re seeing how all of that started, as a wealthy young man with a father who didn’t love him, and as a young man in love with another man’s wife, a woman who would never love anything other than her grand plan for revenge.
Balam had never forgotten it. In ways he would never admit, it had defined him.
Don’t think that any of this redeems Balam, or even humanizes him much. Balam is ruthless in ways that kept surprising me. Everyone is, actually. The entire book is a parade of allies who get to stay alive up until the moment that they’re not useful anymore. Serapio is finding out that loyalty is hard to come by, and it’s easier to slaughter an entire clan of people if he thinks they can’t be trusted. Xiala gets a demonstration of how much her people’s lives are worth the second the invaders’ ships arrive, and her payback of that is something to behold. The Winged Serpent clan is apparently very good at torture, the kind that can be drawn out as long as they want and doesn’t necessarily have to obey the laws of physics. And Balam, well, Balam has access to shadow magic, something which is powered by blood, and Roanhorse gives us some effectively fleeting glances at what he’s prepared to do to power an army’s worth of magic.
If only there were more sorcerers to bleed.
If anyone’s been hoping for a resolution to the romantic tension that’s been building throughout the trilogy, then you’ll be very happy because there are some idyllic moments and happy reunions and even a little humor to balance out all the slaughter and betrayal. And yet…I’m still not sure what I think about the ending to the trilogy. The magical abilities of the main players keep growing as they try to fight both for their loved ones and serve the gods that have zero concern for the lives of ordinary people. Everything builds to a crescendo and then just…stops. There are even parts of the war and the aftermath that take place offscreen, just a quick little summary by someone who’s busy with something else at the time.
I don’t think some of the characters got the ending they deserved, but I’m kind of hoping that means this isn’t the ending. There’s plenty of unresolved issues and entire world to play in; if Roanhorse ever wants to return to this world then there’s more than enough stories left to tell.
Cover art by John Picacio