THE TRIALS OF EMPIRE

In the conclusion to a trilogy that began with The Justice of Kings (2022) and The Tyranny of Faith (2023), Justice Sir Konrad Vonvalt and his clerk, Helena Sedanka, prepare for a final confrontation with the zealot Bartholomew Claver.

Declared traitors to the Sovan Empire, Sir Konrad and Helena (our narrator) are both on the run and in search of an army to destroy Claver, who is bent on Imperial rule; the demonic entity who grants him dark magicks has more ambitious designs on the entire mortal plane. Somehow, Helena is the key to halting these wider plans, which marks her out for special attention from demonic and angelic beings. Meanwhile, Sir Konrad, whom Helena had previously revered (and loved) as a paragon of the law, does more and more legally and ethically dubious things to save his Empire from Claver, Claver’s fanatic followers, and his demonic allies/puppeteers, including deposing the Emperor and taking up forbidden magicks. How many principles will these two have to compromise to defeat this overwhelming evil? It's interesting to see how this trilogy, while consistently maintaining a grimdark tone, has slowly shifted subgenres over the three volumes. The first book was primarily a fantasy mystery, the second a political fantasy, and the third more of an epic fantasy featuring an ultimate battle between the forces of good and evil. Overall, the series is an intriguing chronicle of one woman’s struggle to develop agency, despite the overpowering influence of her mentor’s strong personality, vast political and religious currents, and, ultimately, gods and demons from other planes of existence. We know that Helena survives these (mis)adventures, since she narrates the entire saga as an old woman looking back; the unrelenting onslaught of terrible things that happen to her before the thankfully cathartic climax may either grind the reader down or cause the reader to disengage from her plight(s), aware that despite her many, many brushes with death and multiple turning points where she believes she chose poorly, she will ultimately prevail.

Surprisingly hopeful at the last, but despite careful worldbuilding and tense plotting, the book barely escapes being a slog.