This is a fairly substantial old-world fantasy story.  Aelis was the daughter of a noble house and a trained Magister of the Lyceum – which pretty much means she was a trained necromancer.  Having worked hard to pass as many certifications as possible, she finally became one of the few female necromancers; expecting to get a plum posting.  Life rarely gives you what you want.  So she found herself on the backend of nowhere in a small town where most of the population didn’t understand her or even know the terms of her contract with them; such as providing decent housing…

But, with a sigh, and regret for what she left behind, she tried her best to be useful to the villagers even if it meant pulling weeds or birthing a goat.  But she was there to protect and defend; even if the Orc wars were a bit of history, there were still animal attacks, possible banditry, and occasional accidents.  But it wasn’t until a traveling troupe arrived hoping to trade artifacts and stories for gold that she encountered something she would never have imagined.  After a bar brawl that seemed to involve most of the town losing their collective minds, Aelis discovered the source was cursed gold pieces.  It seemed that the troupe had found a cache of gold in some ruins in orc country and used it to buy supplies in town.  The effect was to make the person lose their reason and covet the gold beyond what was normal.  Aelis had to go around and buy back all the gold from her own resources.  This went well until one man refused to give up the coin, attacked his own brother and then ran off into the woods.  As Magister and Warden, it was her responsibility to pursue a criminal and give justice; so there was nothing for it but to track the man and bring him back.  This brings her into contact with a local ‘hermit’ who is reputed to be the best tracker.  He’s also other things but it takes Aelis quite a bit of time to divine what his ‘differences’ mean.

Learning what the gold is, why it was lying around waiting to be picked up, and what its use was intended to be takes up a goodly portion of the story.  And Aelis not only learns more about her companion, Tun, the tracker, but she learns more about who and what she can be.  She also learns that the gold is the tip of the iceberg.  The author weaves a clever plot that literally takes both Aelis and the gentle reader one step at a time to an unforeseen conclusion.

Aelis was a really good character, well-fleshed out and sympathetic.  She’s a competent professional and unafraid of what she is sure she can control.  But not so incautious as to refuse help.  The author, as is typical of this time in the publishing world, introduces a gay love interest for Aelis in the form of a half-elf woman in the traveling troupe.  I didn’t really mind it and it even worked well within the story.  Had her love interest been a man, he probably would have insisted on accompanying her which, inevitably, weakens the female lead. We get a little back story of the Orc wars but not over-whelmingly; just enough to explain the current events.  And the logical sequence of events that brings Aelis to the realization that a true horror and potential catastrophe has to be averted and she’s the only to do so, is done very smoothly. I liked the plot and I like that the author brought us to the cliffhanger for the next novel in an unsurprising and reasonable way.  I look forward to the next installment. ~~ Catherine Book

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