Nearly 300 years after the founding of the island nation of Recluse Cerryl a (probably) grey mage enters the scene. An orphan of a probable white mage he must find a place for himself in the world. The stalemate between the blacks of recluse, and the whites of Fairhaven has stood since the island was founded but is showing signs of beginning to fail.Cerryl finds his way into the white order at Fairhaven as a student mage and begins to navigate both the complex internal politics but also the changing world politics. This is the kind of story the author does best. A young man trying to figure things out on his own. Trying to find who can be trusted and who to avoid. The other fun part of this book was seeing the propaganda taught in the white order about the history of Candar. Having already seen what really happened it was interesting to see how things were twisted to make the blacks the evil and the whites the good. In reality they are both good and evil depending on the current balance of power. Overall this story was much better than the last one. The characterizations never broke and the story was true to form. The book does end with the balance of power still in question. The whites have made a strong play for control of most of Candar, and from what I can tell the next few books take place around the same time periods so we'll see how a balance is again reached.
The story of order and chaos continues. In the previous series those of order excelled in a rectors such as woodwork, smithing, and engineering. There's a focus on infrastructure throughout the series, specifically around roads. This book adds sewage to the list. You wouldn't think that fantasy books would focus on such "unfantastical" things but they do. The main character usually is a male of Boy Scout like qualities Cerryl, follows the mold.The ending was a bit of compared to the previous books. If you read it, what did you think?
