Kelsea wakes up in her bed in the palace, which means that…um…long lost princess returning after 18 years in isolation to an uncle that desperately wants her dead didn’t result in any drama worth reporting to us? That’s pretty weak, book.

Kelsea spends several pages describing the room to us and then explaining how everything in it indicates that her mother was a vain and selfish idiot. Although I’m not sure why everyone (in so many books) assumes that furniture in a pre-industrial world must have been bought/commissioned by the person who owns it? That huge jeweled mirror and stately oak wardrobe could have been in the family for generations, or given as gifts.

And putting empty bookshelves in the room just seems like overkill. Why wouldn’t her mother have books around? Even if she didn’t read them often, it’s common enough to just keep them around because it’s expected of you.

Everything that tries to make me hate Kelsea’s mom just makes me dig my heels in harder because 1) OMG STOP SHITTING ON THIS DEAD WOMAN ALREADY 2) it’s out of the blue after that utterly pointless attempt to make it a surprise and 3) it’s so fucking one-dimensional that it’s boring. I want to disbelieve the book 100% for the sake of making it at least mildly interesting, and a queen who did her best wasn’t suited to it is miles better than a queen who was just a thoughtless fop.

She wakes up Mace, who was sleeping in a chair in the corner. Apparently the previous day she did literally nothing except walk in the castle, hurry up to this room, and go to bed. Booooriiinngg.

“Is this place safe?”

“Yes, Lady. We’re in the Queen’s Wing, which is never left unguarded. Carroll went over every detail of this room before we left, and six days isn’t enough time for your uncle to accomplish anything elaborate. Today someone will inspect it more thoroughly while you’re gone, just in case.”

I bet it takes less than six days to leave some poison on your bed linens. Just sayin’.

Actually I bet six days is enough time for all sorts of elaborate things to be set up. I’m pretty sure that, if I had the motivation for it, I could set up a pretty kickass Rube Goldberg machine in far less than six days.

Mace is terrible at his job.

“I informed your uncle that you’d be crowned today, at your leisure

…cause apparently you can just do that in this world, and it’s not a huge ceremony that requires planning and witnesses and so on and such forth.

Mace mentions she’ll need the crowning to be performed by a priest or else it’s not legitimate. Yeah, better make sure there’s a priest, but representative members of your own government, psh, totally optional. They will take your word that it was all done right, no problems there.

Mace brings in the magical-dream-victim-woman, whose name is Andalie, as that lady is now her ‘dame of chambers.’ Kelsea has many questions about this woman’s ethnicity and zero about her qualifications to run a queen’s chambers. Damn, Kelsea, you just keep getting worse and worse.

Apparently…okay, let’s see if I can work this out. Mort emigrants come to Tear because they are valued for their better education (which of course completely negates that scene in an earlier chapter crying about a lost medicine ship, even though neighboring countries kept theirs), but also “ The Mort commanded a high price for their service” which would mean they’re not really emigrants but…on loan? Somehow? Agents of the Mort government that are under contract? The book doesn’t care. But Andalie married a Tear man, but she’s “too educated for her station in life” but if she came over for the sake of doing valuable work, then why did she stop doing that valuable work?

Everything about this situation makes more sense if you just remove that ‘commanded a high price’ line, because it’s throwing in all sorts of monkeywrenches. And I could live with tossing out the idea that a married woman has to stop working, too.

They talk about the whole slave trade thing and bring up child rape, because apparently this book thought it just wasn’t complete without a casual mention of that. Stay classy, book.

Later Kelsea talks to Mace about Andalie.

“I have only a few gifts, Lady, but they’re a strange, powerful few. Had there been danger to Your Majesty in the deepest part of any of these people, I’d have ferreted it out and they wouldn’t be here.”

Look, if this is openly-accepted-magic, could you just use the word magic and put me out of my misery? Because right now I have very little picture on what this culture’s stance on magic is.

“She’s not a danger to me, I agree, not now. But she could be, Lazarus. To anyone who threatened her children, she could be.”

Uh…she stayed with an abusive husband and did very little in the way of violence to prevent her youngest from being bundled off to slavery so…not really sure where you’re getting the idea she’s violently dangerous? She seems more the ‘buckle down and survive’ type, not the ‘hurt my kids and I’ll stab you’ type.

They talk about several things, with Kelsea asking questions and Mace giving very vague, barely informative answers. It’s the illusion of something happening while really it’s just wasting my time.

They argue about how Kelsea needs to wear armor, and she’s all “wah, it makes me look like a man,” (which doesn’t bother me much in context, of course she needs to worry about her image right now) and Mace says the armorers can make her ‘woman’s armor’ if she wants. Which, really, really bothers me, because I’m pretty sure what he means by that is “armor with boob cups.” Boobs squish just fine, and boob-fitted-armor is a terrible idea. That shit’s supposed to be smooth; god knows you don’t want any edges crashing into your sternum in a fight. If there’s any considerations that need to be taken, it’s the fact that many women have narrower shoulders and shorter torsos, and that’s not a matter of ‘woman’s armor’, that’s a matter of just getting the right size.

Stop with the boob armor, please, you’re going to break bones.

“It doesn’t even cover my back.”

“I cover your back.”

You are goddamn horrible at your job, Mace. That is the worse excuse I’ve ever heard.

Kelsea asks if there’s a library in the city, and Mace is all “um, no printing press, so books are expensive?” She mentions that nobles have probably hoarded some.

I’m sure most of them don’t read any books they might have, but all the same, they would never give them away.”

What the fuck is with this book and not understanding history? I just…just…why, why do you assume people are hoarding this valuable resource and then not reading? Why is Kelsea the only character who gets to read for pleasure? Why do you not understand that reading has been a beloved pastime for eons before the printing press was discovered? Why do you not understand that books existed before the printing press and therefore it’s not like you can only have pre-crossing books? Why is no one making handwritten copies of these books because that is what people do without a printing press, literally, that is the history of books, this is not some obscure circumstance that you have to guess at, we already know what happens in a world without printing presses, what the fuck is wrong with you, book ?

“Can we buy books on the black market?”

“We could, Lady, if anyone valued them enough.

“Books are very rare and valuable.”

“Can we buy them?”

“WTF, no, books are valuable, no one sells that shit.”

MAKE UP YOUR MIND, BOOK.

Uhg, the fucking soapboxing going on in this book is killing me. You know this is just in here so Kelsea can be special in her love for books/about the need for literacy.

And then Kelsea spends some time thinking about the whole room stuffed full of books at Carlin’s place, which just confuses things even more in this clusterfuck of a worldbuilding mess.

Paper books had been at a premium long before the Crossing; the transition to electronic books had decimated the publishing industry

Oh, go felate yourself.

That was what had happened to most of the books that originally came over in the British-American Crossing: the desperate had burned them for fuel or warmth.

…literally anything and everything burns better than books. Cow shit makes a better fuel source. Literally.

They talk about random other things, one of which being the dearth of doctors in the country. I’m still floored that 1) the doctors that they do get don’t train anyone and 2) you haven’t seen a dramatic resurgence of herb/healer women. Most of this shit was figured out through trial and error the first time, so after 300 years, you literally could have just re-discovered it all. There is exactly zero reason to assume that medical knowledge 100% and exclusively comes from a college in a different country.

Everything about this is such a goddamned mess that all I can think about it is “because soapboxing.” It’s the only thing that makes the least bit of an excuse as a reason. It’s just a collection of things someone wanted to rant about, with no thought given to the actual culture and history itself.