“We are what we choose to be, girl,’ she said. ‘Let others determine your worth, and you’ve already lost, because no one wants people worth more than themselves.”

The setting and world building in this book remind me strongly of The Runelords / The Wheel of Time / Brandon Sanderson’s works, which is already a solid win so far as I’m concerned.

Basically, we have a world where ‘demons’ form out of thin air (more or less) at night, free to terrorize anyone left outside without a circle of wards around them. It’s literally ‘what if the monsters in the night were real’. From there, we have a world that finally fought back against the demons, managed to drive them off, and had a golden age… only to forget. And fall once again–making this world feel post apocalyptic, humanity on the brink of losing for good. But even then, people will fight to survive.

People make the world go, and Mothers make people, so they lead the dance.

Into that world, we follow the story of a young boy as he loses his mother–and so much more–a young girl who loses her innocence–although that’s just the story the boy is telling–and apprentices as a healer and wise woman, and another young boy who is training to become a sort of traveling entertainer.

It’s quite the dynamic and interesting to see how each experiences this dark and twisted world. Especially as the book skips through time, passing over years between each section. They only meet one another in the latter third or so and it’s quite exciting to see how they get there.

Rojer nodded, but his eye grew wet. Leesha squeezed his hand.

“Herb Gatherers see death often,” she told him. “No one, no one, ever goes to the Creator with all their business complete. We all get a different length of time, but it needs to be enough, regardless.”

I’m so curious to see where this goes next.