Siege and Storm

24.03.2021

The second book in the Shadow and Bone trilogy is a book I have really conflicted thoughts and feelings about, but we shall talk about those at the end, let's start with a short summary.

The story picks up where Shadow and Bone ended, Mal and Alina are now living on a ship and on the run after escaping the Darkling. Sadly he finds them not long after and uses his new horrible monsters called the nichevo'ya to capture them and take them prisoners on Sturmhound, a self called privateer's ship. The Darkling wishes to give Alina the second one of Morosova's amplifiers. On the ship, Alina sees Genya again after he betrayel and acts cold towards her. The second amplifier is a sea whip, and just as Mal manages to track it, Sturmhound manages to save them and puts them on one of his own ships, as he apparently has many different Grisha working for him. He then insists they pass through the Shadow Fold, with Sturmhound's ship flying in the air, where with the second aplifier Alina and the other manage to kill quite a few volcras, she sees the Darkling, then feels enormous regret for killing the volcras as they were supposedly human before being turned into monsters. The ship crashes and it is then revealed that Sturmhound is actually the second prince of Ravka, Nikolai Lantsov and he wants Alina to come back to the Little Palace, to meet his "client" so they can decide if they want to work for him. When they go back to Os Alta, Alina learns that she is considered a Saint by the people. Nikolai says she is his people's only hope and he wants her to unite the First and the Second Army as well as become their Queen. Alina agrees to go with him, though she refuses to marry him, what she truly desires is to lead the Second army. The King and the Queen are happy to see their son return and altough hesitant, the king appoints Alina as leader of the Second army. Many people are angry and do not wish to listen to her, but Alina displays her power and makes them listen. At the Little Palace, Alina goes to see Baghra only to find out she has been blinded by her son. On a party, Alina meets the Apparat, who has been spreading rumours about her being a saint, and asks her to go with him. For some uknown reason, Alina keeps seing the Darkling in different situations and she believes she's going mad or hallucinating. Her relationship with Mal is getting more and more tense, now that she has such power and is offered to rule a whole country, he feels like he's not enough for her and will never be. On one of their private talks, they confess their feeling for each other and just as they kiss, Alina sees the Darkling and flinches, effectively making Mal mad and storming out. On multiple occasions, Nikolai admits he has feelings for her but says he'll kiss her only when she's not thinking about Mal. Turns out Mal's coping mechanism is fighting Grisha in hand to hand combat, with them still using their powers. Alina sees him fight and after winning catches him kiss Zoya. She feels horrible and runs out, Mal chases after her, they have a fight and that night, Alina has a vision of kissing Mal, only to find out it was the Darkling. Nikolai's plan so far has been to become king of Ravka, thinking his brother isn't interested in ruling and will be fairly easy to take out the way. Sadly, the latter ends up being more stubborn than expected. On Nikolai's birthday, we learn that his brother has been talking to the Fjerdans and has come to an "alliance" with them, after opening the roads. Nikolai explains that is not possible, since it is already common knowledge the Fjerdans have made an alliance with the Darkling. Just as their conversation end, the Darkling, his Grisha and nichevo'ya attack the palace, they kill Nikolai's brother, while he flees to his flying ship with his parents and other important people. Alina and her Grisha run to a chapel, but the Darkling eventually finds them. Alina pleads for her friends's safety, the Darkling shows her Genya, who was attacked by the nichevo'ya and now has scars all over her face and body. Desperately wanting to save her friends, Alina gives her power over to the Darkling, but then something weird happens and their powers mix and Alina takes a bit of his power and tries to kill them both. Again, Mal butts in and pulls Alina away while her and the Darkling are both very weak and Alina manages to order the nichevo'ya to attack him. They manage to escape, but when Alina wakes up she is in some underground tunnels, taken there by the Apparat's piligrims. They seem to worship her and want to help her, but her powers are gone and she can't summon the sun.