Ooh I’ve been waiting for this…
***Spoilers for The Rain Wilds Chronicles through chapter 8 of City of Dragons. Mentions of the events of The Farseer Trilogy, The Liveship Traders Trilogy, and The Tawny Man Trilogy are fair game, too.***
I never rarely nail a prediction (see: Chade, still kickin’). But the predictions and wish list I left off with at the end of Dragon Haven, in relation to where we pick things up in City of Dragons, were pretty spot on.
Let’s check in:
The fallout: Hest. ✅
He hasn’t discovered the full story yet, but we do get a visit with the rage monster.
More ties to the broader RotE: Malta and Reyn. Selden. Amber/the Fool. Tintaglia. What is Wintrow doing? Let’s get some old friends back in the mix. ✅
No Wintrow or Amber/the Fool yet, but we do get significant time with Malta and Reyn 😍 , Selden 😬, and Tintaglia as we open the story.
Chalced? ✅
We got our first POV from Chalced proper. And boy, that Duke is a real dickhead!
Re: Kelsingra, I asked: will we discover remnants of Fitz’s time there? ✅
Yuppers! Just as I was seriously starting to doubt that this was even the same place, Alise finds Verity’s city model and evidence that “Fitz wuz here.”
All in all, a very satisfying start to the back half of our penultimate RotE series.
Backing up for a moment: Dragon Keeper and Dragon Haven had an increasingly insular feel, which I enjoyed. Hobb introduces us to characters scattered across the world, then brings them together in the pressure cooker of the river journey.
One thing I’ve remarked on numerous times is the incredible way Robin mirrors the emotional state of the characters with that of us readers. Honestly, it’s almost as if she possesses the Skill herself, influencing our experience through her mind alone.
And it works beautifully here. We feel the claustrophobia of the search for Kelsingra, and once the city is finally found, the bubble bursts and the story expands back out into the wider world.
If you were worried the bleakness was exclusive to Team River Expedition, fear not – things in the outside world are likewise completely fucked up. Wheee!
Let’s touch down on my favorite “not on the Tarman anymore, Toto” storylines.
Tintaglia & Icefyre
We start with a bang: a visit to Tintaglia and Icefyre. Surely they’re off enjoying newlywed bliss? Nope. They can’t stand each other and are already bickering like they’ve been married fifty years.
“There is much you do not seem to recall. I think you were encased too long. It damaged your mind and left you ignorant of many things.
She felt a spark of anger toward him. Icefyre often said such things to her.”
Maybe you were a dragon ice cube too long, Icefyre. Did you ever think of that? Ass.
But dragonsplaining isn’t even their biggest issue. They get attacked by a buttload of Chalcedeans.
The dragons prevail, but it’s dicey for a moment. We get some pretty gnarly descriptions of them melting walls of humans with their poison and gobbling down bodies. They wisely let a few survivors escape to spread the word back in Chalced: Mess with a dragon, prepare to be annihilated.
The Duke of Chalced
We did it. We made it to Chalced. We get a peek inside the Duke’s court and the vibes are rough.
The Duke appears to have attended Chade’s School of Aging Gracefully, meaning he is not accepting his impending death at all.
We learn a bit more about his desperation – he has no surviving sons – and his leadership style, which seems to consist primarily of holding the families of his court hostage – with the occasional appendage removed to keep everyone honest.
“How had it come to this? He had always had sons, and to spare. Too many sons, but some had been too ambitious for his liking. Some he had sent to war, and some he had sent to the torture chamber for insolence. A few he had poisoned discreetly. If he had known that a disease would sweep away not only his chosen heir but his last three sons, he might have kept a few in reserve. But he had not. And now he was down to one useless daughter…”
We’ve been suffering the consequences of his dragon-part machinations all series, so it’s nice to finally have him enter the story proper. Welcome, villain!
Selden
I asked for Selden. And, well… I got him.
Unfortunately, we find him kidnapped, locked in a tent, and being severely abused.
Yikes on main!
Tintaglia – please stop arguing with Icefyre and go rescue your boy! I’ve got a meet-cute in Kelsingra I’m waiting for.
Hest
If Selden’s situation was hard to stomach, I had a positively riotous time watching Hest get the crap kicked out of him in his own study.
It was delicious watching him react to the realization that Alise and Sedric are missing. He makes some incorrect assumptions about their schemes, but it’s fun to see him spiral none the less.
And then the bully becomes the bullied. A Chalced mercenary shows up to collect on Sedric’s promise of dragon parts. He slashes Hest’s hand and face, throws knives, threatens his parents – an all-around menace. It was violent and terrifying.
It seems he has now set Hest Rain Wilds-bound in search of answers. This should be interesting!
(Ok, new desire: Carson/Hest show down. Hest kills Carson. Relpda eats Hest (obviously). Sedric and Selden heal together. Boom!)
Malta & Reyn
If I opened with the worst couple – Tintaglia and Icefyre – I’ll close this section with the best: Malta and Reyn.
I squealed when Reyn finally made his first on-page appearance. This was my Beatles-on-Ed-Sullivan moment. And boy, he remains as swoonworthy as ever.
Where Alise and Leftrin’s mushiness can sometimes give me the ick, there is no amount of saccharine that could turn me off of Malta and Reyn. Reyn is just such a man– loving, respectful, protective. It makes sense why their absolutely absurd “courtship” in Liveship Traders worked so well. They are the real deal.
I was kicking my feet like a school girl the entire time we were with them. I loved their sexy banter about their first veil-kiss:
“…’You leaned in close to me and I thought you would tell me a secret. But then you kissed me. I felt your lips through the lace of the veil. And the tip of your tongue, I thought. It was . . .’ She paused and was surprised to realize she was blushing.
‘Very erotic,’ Reyn finished quietly for her.”
But my favorite moment comes when Reyn defends their unborn child, as midwives pressure Malta to prepare for the possibility that the baby is born heavily Rain Wilds-touched.
“Tell her? Tell her that I care nothing for custom or decorum! Tell her that I will be by your bedside for every moment, and that the instant our child is born, he will be safe in my arms. Should Sa take his life from us, then I will mourn. But if anyone else threatens him, in any way, I will kill them. That is what you can tell her. No. That is what I will tell the meddling old hag!”
…
“Did you doubt that I would protect our child?” he asked her quietly.
Listen. I would never interfere with the truest love that ever existed (and my heart already belongs to a ding dong up north), but damn. Malta is one lucky Elderling Queen
Getting some new “old” energy infused into the story was fun, but let’s check in with the ol’ Kelsingra crew:
MUSINGS!
Carson & Sedric
Nothing too new here.
I remain happy for them while not being particularly invested in the pairing.
And I’m not trying to go full Chade on Carson – he does seem like a good egg – but he has his moments:
“They’re just boys. They like each other, but it’s about physical discovery, not each other. Not like us.”
Ok, Dad. Is it scary up there on your high horse?
Honestly, all of our “elderly couples” are pretty self-righteous about their relationships for a group of people who paired off and hooked up on a dragon-boat cruise.
Alise & Kelsingra
I was proud of Alise for choosing her passion over a man. We love an autonomous, secure couple.
Leftrin takes the Tarman south for supplies while Alise stays behind to document everything she can about Kelsingra before the treasure hunters learn of its existence and descend on the city.
Also? I was ready for a break from all the schmoopie, schmoopie, schmoopie, schmoopie.
Rapskal & Thymara
The Rapskal-Thymara-Tats love triangle is now in full swing, with both boys openly competing for her affection.
I’m torn. I love both Rapskal and Tats, but I also want Thymara to be valued as more than just a romantic prize. (Ok, honestly I’m mostly interested in the romance, but I’m trying to sound less shallow.)
We got a lot of Thymara and Tats while Rapskal was off saving the day, but here we get some time with Rapskal and Thymara as he flies her to Kelsingra on Heeby’s back.
Once there, Rapskal wants to give Thymara a glimpse into the Elderling world via memory stone. He insists this world – and these memories – are meant for them, and aren’t dangerous in the way they would be for regular humans.
Naturally, he immediately shows her the memory-stone equivalent of Elderling porn, which gets her very hot and bothered and nearly leads to Rapskal sealing the deal.
I do love Tats and Rapskal, but they are some pushy, horny little burgeoning Elderlings. Take it easy, boys!
Things fall apart when Rapskal casually mentions Jerd, and that everyone thinks Thymara is scared of sex. Smooth, Rapskal.
Although I haven’t been as invested in their storyline as the Leftrin-Alise-Hest-Sedric-Carson knot, I’m becoming increasingly interested in where they land, and how the creation of a new Elderling society ultimately shakes out.
“He longed for cleanliness and tidiness: it was hard to find peace in the middle of disorder. He had always felt this way.”
Have I mentioned before that Sedric is my spirit animal?
Fitz out here taking strays from Malta:
“Oh, Traders will always think themselves better than the Tattooed or the Three Ships folk in Bingtown, far better than any brutish Chalcedean or barbarian Six Duchies man.“
Malta, I love you, but…
A few fun Easter eggs:
- In Chalced: “Once the fortress had stood upon this peak, and within its walls a circle of black standing stones under the open sky had been a place of great magic.”
- Thymara, on hearing wolves in the distance: “Wolves were creatures of legend for them.”
- As Alise explores the statues in the theater: “Gilded, too, was her crown of feathers and rooster heads…”
I don’t have much purpose for including these in my reactions, but I get excited when one pops up, so why not?
The Skill River
I, noted intuitive, am picking up on clues that the “Skill River” from way back in Assassin’s Quest is coming back into play.
First, we have Sintara, on the verge of remembering something she wants- something secret. Then Rapskal, similarly recollecting something special to help the dragons.
The more I try to remember anything about the Skill River (or Kelsingra in general), the more confused I get. So I’m just going to leave it there and be excited to discover things along with everyone else.
Alrighty! Given that, despite my best intentions, I am currently blogging at a George R. R. Martin Winds of Winter pace, my plan is to finish out City of Dragons with my next post so I can finish out RotE sometime this decade. See you then!
wizardwordship 