The book is beautiful. Everything about it is beautiful. The cover(which gives Elsa vibes), the writing, which is emotional, and the plot.
I recommend reading it with some some Nightcore music along. It somehow made me so hooked into the story I finished at midnight!!

An exciting and dark fantasy book! The story takes place in a broken world where the gods disappeared a long time ago, however they left behind powerful magical objects, the "Artifacts". The main characters are Wisterly, a brave girl running away from a cruel life, and Mordred, a clever thief who wants to buy his freedom.

The best part of the book is them two! It is very fun to read about how different they are. Wisterly is learning how to be free, while Mordred is trying to leave his bad past behind. They slowly learn to trust each other, and they build a small group of friends who feel like a real family. The world in the book is huge and interesting, with different groups of people fighting for power and using dangerous types of magic.

My only problem with the book is that the beginning is a bit slow. The author spends a lot of time explaining the history of the world and how the magic works in the first few chapters. However, once the characters start running for their lives, the story moves very fast and becomes very exciting. I mean.. it is the first book in the series, so the world building and lore explanation is to be expected, so bear with it there!

Overall is a fantastic start to a fantasy series. Will be keeping an eye out for the sequels. Thank yoi for the arc!

Wisterly is a Hearthkeeper Acolyte who flees the scene of an accident. Mordred is a Guild-trained thief who recognizes potential in her, as well as a kindred sense of needing a safe place to land. He's on his own leash, and brings her along for a dangerous heist. It goes terribly wrong.
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I found this book to start out strong, and then began dragging pretty hard even before the halfway point.

I did like Wisterly as a character, I liked that she had traits consistent with her background, and that her abilities were unexpectedly well-suited for her new life. I liked Mordred in that he was a thoroughly good person and also very competent at his trade. I liked that neither were overly powerful or competent and had clear weaknesses where they made sense.

Many of the side characters were also thoroughly good people, which was sweet and also not super interesting. I loved the unexpected emotion from one of the baddies, but that sort of character subversion never really happened anywhere else. The hunter was a one-dimensional robot of a character, he was basically just The Terminator.

The beginning with the heist was exciting, and then my interest began to wane. Don't get me wrong, action kept occurring and things kept happening, but it felt very directionless. Similarly, the main characters still did things, and also it felt like their character arcs completely stagnated. With a quest fantasy, there needs to be a clear goal in mind. That part was over so quickly and the entire rest of the book was a lot of traveling and staying inside of rooms with no end or even direction in sight.

The magic system had potential to be really interesting, but really wasn't explored in much depth here. The cliffhanger ending does imply that it will be explored in the next book, but I won't be continuing.

This feels huge in scope but emotionally intimate at the same time, which is honestly one of my favorite fantasy combinations.

There’s a lingering sense throughout the story that the world is living in the aftermath of something sacred collapsing, and I loved how much that tension shaped the characters’ choices. Nobody feels untouched by history here.

Also? The title absolutely rules.