Forsworn is Book One in David Estes’ The Forsworn series.
The description says the story is about Ludo Vica, who lost an eye when his twin brother was killed by a dark sorcerer known as the Fire Eater when they were children. Their entire village was burned down. Two decades later, Ludo is ready to get his revenge when the Fire Eater escapes from prison.
Here’s how the book starts:
Queen Elwyn Vedran-Echevaria gave birth to Tomas, a stillborn during the Nightdawn. The Nightdawn was a mysterious night when it was light during the night. No one knows why and King Artemus Vedran doesn’t like talking about it.
The midwife shows King Vedran the stillborn in its cradle before revealing that the Queen has absconded with the other newborn, Edward. They were twins and Edward was healthy.
The King calls out the guard to stop the Queen but a strange woman identifying herself as Cintra con Narcissi magically appears bathed in pale light and stops them. She pours a vial of gold liquid in the stillborn’s mouth and Tomas comes back to life.
Fast forward twenty years and a woman named Bryony who looks rather impoverished is standing before King Vedran and crown prince Tomas. She seeks permission to visit a prisoner in Comman Dar, because he murdered her family and she wants to look him in the eye.
The request is denied because the prisoner, Cainan, also known as the Fire Eater, has just escaped. The reader, not the King, quickly learns that Cainin is actually Bryony’s father.
Ludo, the King’s Blade, the one I thought the story was going to be about, is sent to find, capture and kill the Fire Eater, which as we know, he desperately wants to do because of his dead brother.
Bryony, who was once a member of a secret group called the Crimson Daggers and is not limited by a stump leg, seeks out her father in the wilderness and crosses paths with Ludo and they begrudgingly work together to locate the Fire Eater. Bryony is attracted to him but she doesn’t want to admit it.
They both notice that LostWoods is expanding at an unprecedented rate although it shouldn’t be able to do this. There are even woodsmen under the King’s orders cutting it down but not as fast as it grows.
Ludo and Bryony have decent verbal exchanges between them as well as a few misadventures together including a run in with Welbernius Brown, a magical dwarf at the Blind Pig, and the great-great-something granddaughters of the Daughters of Ereniel.
Meanwhile, there are other story arcs and POVs.
Crown Prince Tomas, the once stillborn babe, has to religiously drink small doses of a special medication. At twenty-years-old he remains unforgiving of his mother, the Queen, for fleeing to raise Edward in House Echevaria.
The King never pursued her and seems much more forgiving..
For some reason Tomas is ok with the idea of his brother Edward returning one day and being an heir to the throne, but he will never forgive his mother.
The King commands Tomas to go and visit his mother and things go horribly wrong. You’ll have to read that for yourself. That’s the beginning of a whole new story arc.
Next up we have sixteen-year-old Soraya who has just been promoted by the goddess Cintra herself to be a Guardian. I wasn’t quite sure of the details here and had to look up some information to learn that the Forsworn serve the goddess Cintra in different capacities including the Sighltess, Protectors and Guardians. Their skin has gold flecks like leaves and apparently the more flecks you have, the better. Soraya’s father only became a Protector because apparently being a Guardian is more difficult to become and requires more flecks – I think.
Soraya has never left Rockland but Guardians travel abroad to investigate potential leaks of the godsblood, gold juice, into the outer world where it can have dire consequences.
What can the Guardians & Forsworn do about any leaks? Dang if I know. Apparently not much.
“But that’s like slapping bandages on skin bearing a thousand cuts.”
Godsblood in small controlled portions can enhance the body, extend life and heal. Too much, however, can turn even a butterfly into an aggressive dangerous beast.
Soraya sets off on her first mission beyond the boundaries of Rockland with an experienced Guardian named Shim who has cobra-like features. He is physically strong and capable unlike Soraya. Soraya can touch living things and read their minds.
Overall, I didn’t care for Soraya. She is way too headstrong for my taste and she doesn’t listen enough to the advice of the senior Guardian Shim, because, well, they are equals and the goddess herself said she was ready for this. Why should she listen to Shim?
Soraya and Shim go into the Lostwood, and almost immediately are attacked by an extremely powerful bear with six limbs that was drinking godsblood. When the beast is killed they discover that the heart still beats, so they take the heart with them.
I don’t want to reveal too much more but I felt the story was a lot more complicated than it needed to be. If it had just been about Ludo and Bryony, I think I would have enjoyed it more. Story arcs keep popping up. Perfidy enters later and there’s a splashed backstory with a guy named Jost burying a pool of godsblood after a host of other men bathed in it and did a complete age reversal. And then the myth of Korsiris lurks somewhere between imagination and reality. The author also includes three postludes at the end for more backstory.
I liked the book well enough and the writing is good but there were too many times I had to take a step backwards to remind myself which arc we were following and which character it was because despite their stated differences. It sometimes felt as tangled as Lostwood itself. Perhaps others didn’t feel this entanglement while reading it but I did.
And emotionally, I never bought into any of the characters, including Ludo and Bryony. I found them to be interesting characters and was happy when their names were back on the page.
I think it’s a decent first book in a series but I’m not sure I’m ready to get entangled in the second book yet, at least not right away.
3 stars.