I Read Books: Kushiel's Mercy

 

Kushiel’s Mercy

Imriel and Sidonie are in love, in Terre D’Ange this is holy as Elua, the founder, declared that Love As Thou Wilt as his precept. This however is a political problem. Sidonie is the Dauphine, heir to the throne. Imriel is the son of the country’s greatest traitor, Melisande Shahrizai (see the earlier books for more details). Feelings are still raw, with the queen’s cousin Barquiel L’Envers having plotted against Imriel.

The queen lays down an ultimatum. She will not stand in the way of love. But love is love and politics is politics. If Sidonie wishes to marry, to have her relationship with Imriel acknowledged, and inherit the throne, Imriel will have to bring his mother to justice.

Well and good. Having been out of the country seeking justice for Doriel his deceased wife (see Kushiel’s Justice) they make a plan that doesn’t require him to leave immediately. They consult Hyacinthe, the Master Of The Straits and he undertakes to search Alba and Terre D’Ange with the sea mirror. Meanwhile Imriel seeks members of the Unseen Guild, the secret society that claims to control events, to offer them a trade for information on his mother’s whereabouts.

Carthage are threatening Terre D’Ange’s ally Aragonia (Fantasy Spain). In an effort to calm things they send a delegation with their new general Astegal, and great gifts. They also promise a spectacular event, their horologists setting up a mirror in the city. Imriel is suspicious but distracted; amongst the delegation are Unseen Guild members and he gets information from one that his mother is in Cythera (Fantasy Cyprus).

The Carthaginians cast a spell, to which Imriel is immune as just before he’s stabbed with a needle that turns him mad. When he recovers a month later he learns that Terre D’Ange is allied to Carthage and Sidonie has married Astegal, a love match, and left with him. His only clue is that just before he was stabbed with the needle, it was described as a gift from his mother. He goes to seek her, and to try and learn what the spell is and how to break it.

The series propels into action, with dark magic that seems actually monstrous. People we know from previous books are themselves, but convinced of things that are immensely wrong. Imriel spends a fair amount of the novel out of his right mind, firstly through the needle, then later with other magic in his attempts to break the spell. Perhaps a more conventional quest than usual, though a convoluted one, to enter the enemy’s city, spend time with an ensorcelled woman at the heart of their defences, and try and find the source of the magic. That each part of Astegal and his magician’s plot works on it’s own, with or without them is the most insidious part. The book does drag out the end.

Read This: Adventures, strange magic, resolution to the story
Don’t Read This: Still a lot of wandering around being told where to go and what to do