Scars of Stone by Joanna Maciejewska

Blurb:

Discovering the truth about magic is one thing. Doing something about it will require bloodletting, backstabbing, and a bunch of lies.

The battle with a demonic foe had opened Kamira's and Veelk's eyes: they were unprepared for their task. If they want a chance of freeing Veranesh from his crystal prison, they need the help of a brilliant inventor imprisoned by Gildya, a man also desired by the refugee queen, Cahala, who will stop at nothing to slake her thirst for magic.

Time is also of the essence as Archmage Yoreus maneuvers for power. Once he claims the title of the first archmage for himself, he will tie up all loose ends, and that entails burying Kamira, Veelk, and a long line of secrets he’d prefer to be forgotten.

Kamira and Veelk have a rule, “no heroics, survival first.” When dealing with demons, avoiding heroics is easy. But survival? Not so much.

Join Kamira and Veelk in their adventures as they face Devanshari warriors, high mages, and demons!

This is book 2 of Pacts Arcane and Otherwise. If you’re new to the series, check out book 1, By the Pact, instead!

Review:

My journey into the fantastically elaborate world of Pacts Arcane and Otherwise continues with Scars of Stone—the second book of the series. If you aren’t familiar with the series, consider starting with my review of the first book.

This book directly continues with the complex threads of events that follow from Kamira accidentally discovering an ancient powerful demon trapped in the ruins from the old world. This encounter leads her to discover hidden secrets about the order of mages that have been carefully buried over the centuries. This is a tale that blends magic, action, politics and conniving, and the intricate backdrop with multiple competing factions of practitioners of magic and empires of humans and demons is the perfect setting for that. 

In the first book, we see that despite the risk of possibly leading the world into yet another cataclysm, our cunning protagonist Kamira agrees to form a pact with Veranesh—the very same demon whom the world holds responsible for the last devastating cataclysm. The premise, without additional context, may sound familiar to numerous other works in the genre, but the author’s take is quite original.

At the point this book begins, thanks to the pact with Veranesh, Kamira finally has all the power she always wanted to take down the corrupt order of mages. However, she can not yet effectively wield the full power at her disposal. And that is where, another exiled prisoner with a controversial past—Alluvendran comes into the play.

‘Wearing long sleeves till the end of my days seem a small price for saving my own life, and maybe the world too.’

Multiple chains of events that may have seemed unrelated in the first book come together in this one, sometimes in rather surprising ways. This book was also surprising in what it didn’t cover. I had expected to get more insights into the politics in Devanshari kingdom, from where Kamira hails, and the legions of demons who are preparing to siege Kaighal—but we don’t get to see those. I had also expected some progress on prince Allyv’s quest to heal his people of the magical ailment, but again, to my surprise, we see very little of the Devanshari prince in this book. As I am writing this review, I am already 50% into the third book, so I know most of these are about to be addressed though.

We do get deeper into the politics and power structure in the ranks of the archmages, which I loved.

Some of the uninteresting characters get sidelined, for which I am grateful. In particular, Ryell’s flip-flopping was getting tiresome. Another particularly obnoxious character gets popped off very early in the book, and rather unceremoniously—which was hilarious. 

‘no matter how his body reacted to her, her personality spoiled any possible carnal pleasures.’

From the first book I had expected Veelk to be a formidable warrior, but to see him mowing down the entire security personnel of a prison put things in a whole new perspective. The friendship between Kamira and Veelk complements the action-packed story really well, and I loved the dynamics between them.

“A man? Just one man?” 

“That might not be enough.” 

“It should suffice.”

Alluvendran, or Koshmarnyk as he is now called, rising to prominence was expected, but his arc also turned out to be quite different from what I had anticipated.

‘he could think of many uses for the equipment collected within its walls. Wasting time chasing a madwoman’s dream was not one of them.’

Kamira remains unambiguously the most interesting character—calculating, ruthless and powerful. Though Irtan comes close, which was once again something I didn’t expect from the way the high mages were portrayed in the first book. His sly maneuvering of Youreus into the dangerous position at the helm of the council was so much fun.

‘After all, being indebted to a demon was a minor problem in comparison to being dead.’

As before, the author’s presentation style is methodical and to the point. No ink is wasted on superfluous detail, and every sentence serves to move the plot forward. In some ways reading the book was as satisfying as watching an assembler rapidly fit together parts of a complex machinery with meticulous precision. Everything in the story is there for a reason, and it certainly looks like all tangents will get tied up nicely. Eventually. This book ends in a crazy cliffhanger though that likely would have made me smash my kindle if the next one was months away. 

So all in all, if you love fast-paced fantasy with deep roots, this book is for you. This series has everything I love to see in fantasy, almost nothing I don’t. Now off to the next one I go. 

‘Revenge is rarely what we expect it to be’