★★★★☆ It all comes right

Emberclaw

L.R. Lam

Humans and dragons used to live together in Loc. The humans betrayed the dragons, banishing them to the hellish world Vere Celene beyond the Veil, where they survive at the edge of extinction. This at least, is the story as dragons tell it -- humans tell a different story. In Dragonfall, the first book of L.R. Lam's Dragon Scales duology, Everen, the last male dragon, traveled through the Veil from Vere Celene to Loc, where he bonded with thief Arcady, who had unwittingly called him to themselves. Everen's mission is to make Arcady fall in love with him, then kill them and steal their magic, bringing dragonkind home to Loc. Arcady is not an easy mark, and the end of Dragonfall saw Everen evicted from Loc, his bond with Arcady seemingly broken, in an act of not entirely unintentional mutual partial betrayal. Everen's mission having failed, he is treated as a criminal by his mother and sister back on Vere Celene. Dragonfall ended with the revelation that the Lochian high priest Magnes is in fact a dragon, Ammil, who broke Vere Celene and Loc long ago and has survived secretly on Loc.

As Emberclaw (the second book of the dualogy begins, Everen is living in disgrace in Vere Celene, doing his best to help dragonkind survive. Arcady, trying to vindicate her reviled ancestor Barrow Eremia, manages to enter the University of Vatra under a false identity, where she hopes to learn more about Barrow. Emberclaw thus feels familiar -- it's a "magic school" book, like Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, and Hierarchy. Indeed, the main event of Emberclaw is a student competition, the Trials of Magic, in which Arcady competes. Sorin, the junior priest, secret assassin and tool of Magnes, is also a student at the University and also competes in the Trials.

It's a good story and the end was satisfying. I have to admit, though, that I didn't enjoy it as much as Dragonfall. When Dragonfall began, it was obvious what we readers were being led to expect. It was obvious enough that I suspected L.R. Lam's twisty mind was setting me up for something more convoluted. Indeed, it was so. Dragonfall is a story in which nothing that appears obvious can be trusted. Emberclaw is less so. Although the story is gorgeously told, it was essentially the story I thought from the start it would be: the good guys were good guys and the bad guys were bad guys, and they weren't hard to tell apart.

I liked Emberclaw, but felt it didn't quite bear out the promise of Dragonfall.

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