Book Review: Treasured

Title: Treasured
Author: Elayna R. Gallea
Genre: Fantasy, Romantasy,

What It’s About: Sebastian and Luna rest in a cave, and she watches over him as he sleeps fitfully. When he wakes up, they feed off of each other, and there is a deep stabbing pain in Luna’s head. Sebastian tells her that it’s the Maker’s call from Queen Marguerite that is causing it as she is calling him to come and the longer he ignores her the more painful it gets. They continue making their way to the Second Order of Isvana’s Chosen, by flying, when another wave of pain hits them, and Sebastian plummets to earth, causing Luna to scream. His legs and wings are at odd angles, and he is losing blood rapidly, so Luna feeds him and everything snaps back into place. They decide that the only way forward is to run and hopefully they will make it in the dark.

Queen Marguerite is furious that Sebastian is refusing to respond to her orders to come to her, and blames it on Luna, who she still sees as Mortal. She’s furious about the fact that Luna and Sebastian are Tethered and Bound, and believes that Luna had turned Sebastian, because he was supposed to be a weapon that kept her on her throne. She throws multiple pots at the wall, smashing them, and demands that her servants pick them up. One of them ends up getting cut deeply and bleeds out. It’s one of her favorite servants but she has a guard take her out, and doesn’t like the fact that her servants are uneven at 11, but decides against killing another one to even out her group. She also decides that she will kill Sebastian and Luna, and will make another son, but make it clear what the consequences will be of their disobedience from the outset.

Sebastian and Luna spend the day in a hollowed out tree to stay away from the sun, and at night, they start making their way to the temple. Along the way, they are attacked by a newly made vampire who is in bloodlust. Sebastian gets scratched by the vampire, which is extremely painful as it looks to be poisoned, but when the Vampire attacks Luna, she kills the woman, and freaks out that she is a murderer. They barely make it to the temple, when Sebastian passes out, and Luna spends time near him, making sure that he’s taken care of and advocating for him when Marguerite’s call keeps giving him pain. The priestesses at the Second Order give him a tonic that mutes it, and help clean up his poisoned cheek. While he is unconscious, he speaks with Isvana in his dreams, and she tells him that he needs to find the key and break the relationship with his maker, Marguerite, in order to kill her. She also tells him that things are getting dark, and there will be a fight between the light and the dark during the red moon. He wakes up, Luna feeds him, and they go sleep again, though Luna cannot fall asleep because her mind is racing.

Luna has a dream with Queen Marguerite in it, but she gets woken up from Sebastian. They spend some time together, talking, drinking each other’s blood before they go back to sleep. When they wake up again, Luna opens the door for Genevieve, the priestess, who brings them more clothes. They ask to see Marius, so Genevieve takes them to him, but tells Luna to brace herself. Both Luna and Sebastian are shocked at how frail he is, how sick he looks, and Sebastian goes to speak with Genevieve separately. She tells him that there is no chance for Marius to make it, and once individuals with the Wasting Illness fall into a coma, they never wake up from it. Sebastian asks her to discreetly find out about a key to break the Maker’s bond, and Genevieve tells him that she will ask around. Luna comes out and tells them that Marius will live, despite Genevieve gently telling her that he has no chance. Luna then takes them back to their room, and shows Genevieve the plant that has grown out of the seed that Isvana had given her. Genevieve and basically the whole order comes through Sebastian’s and Luna’s room to look at this plant. Odette is the last one who comes through—she is a witch who has been tending to someone in a village as they are sick with the Wasting Illness. Odette proclaims that Luna has found the plant that she has been seeking, and reveals that she was told about this plant by a woman in a distant village who had been dying. She had thought that it was an old wives’ tale as she wasn’t able to find the plant, but now that she has, both Odette and Luna agree that they will have to run some experiments.

Marguerite is furious that she cannot find Sebastian and Luna. She remembers her past—how she came to the castle running in bloodlust until she found Nicolas, her lover, in her room and fed from him. She was happy. Then in another flashback, she remembers how Nicolas had disappeared—he was a phenomenal tracker and was supposed to have been gone two days total, but a week has passed. Then two months later, General Oak comes to her with a letter that the humans are revolting against her, and she notices that Nicolas had signed the letter as well, to fight against her. Her last flashback was when she went down to the dungeons and pulled out Koleta, a powerful witch, to help her make sure the crown remained Marguerite’s—she got this idea after another two months of her generals being unable to find the humans who were revolting. In present day, Marguerite visits a city, where she kills all the vampire leadership who had failed her by not keeping the Dragon Queen of Ithenmyr out of her borders. She has one of the vampires run to the Dragon Queen to deliver a message, but then she kills the rest of the human army as well.

After a few days of experimenting with Odette, they come across a recipe that might be good but needs four to five days of curing before they can test it. So Sebastian and Luna leave to a part of the woods where they test soul sharing, but they are not able to soul share. In the midst of experimenting to figure it out, they find out that they can share their own thoughts with one another. When they return to the castle, Genevieve comes to them and tells them that she knows how to make the key. After a bit of talking, she gives them the ingredients that they need to get, cautioning them that the moonstone will need to be in the sun, and they will have to ask someone they trust to get it. Neither Luna nor Sebastian supply the fact that Luna is a Sunwalker, only agreeing that they will take care of it. Luna says goodbye to Odette and the two of them head out.

First they go for the Sunfire Owl, that lives in the tallest peaks, but things go wrong when Luna starts to get cold. Sebastian has them stop on a cliff, and has her drink from his blood before he scoops her up and carries her to the peak. There, he finds the owl, but realizes that it has a baby, so it will be more vicious than usual. He has Luna use her wings to stay in the air, while he heads over to the owl’s nest, using his shadows to cloak himself, and take a feather from the owl. It screeches, and then manages to attack Sebastian despite his cloaking. He rushes to Luna, and then they disappear into the Void, finding themselves on a ledge not too far from the owl. Luna uses her wings to carry Sebastian to a cave, where she takes care of his wounds, and they spend the day sleeping. When nightfall comes, they travel through the void to the forest, looking for the white wolves they need in order to get blood from. Luna is initially paralyzed by what she had head through the Void—the queen is after them—but once she recovered from the shock, she tells Sebastian what she heard and the fact that the voices in the Void seemed to tell her that if Queen Marguerite kills her, she will join them. Then, Luna asks to learn how to track, and so they track until they find a wolf. Sebastian doesn’t know what to do yet to get the blood as the wolf needs to be alive, but Luna throws off her shadows and approaches the wolf, talking to it. Sebastian gets upset because he feels that she’s being reckless as the wolf can attack her. But in the end, Luna talks to the wolf and it lays down for her to be able to get some blood. When the wolf heads off, Sebastian and Luna get into an argument, before Sebastian transports them through the Void to the cavern where they will find the moonstone. They walk their way through the maze that is the cavern, while Sebastian teaches Luna how to make a weapon out of shadows. He also teaches her how to seek out objects by sensing their power, and they follow it until they make it into a cavern full of ice. Soon enough, Luna realizes that there are skeletons encased in ice, and Sebastian tells her that the cavern is known for humans and vampires getting lost and never making it out. They get the moonstone, after breaking the ice, but this causes prohiberis to fall on them, and nullify their powers. So they run, making their way back towards the opening of the cavern, when the floor collapses just underneath Luna, and she goes falling downwards. Sebastian makes a split decision to jump in after her, and he manages to grab her, bringing her around so that when they hit the floor, he’s the one that takes the impact. He wakes up a little later with Luna’s wrist in his mouth, as she’s giving him more blood to stay alive. They are now tasked with figuring out how to get out from this cavern, without their powers.

They make their way through the caverns until Luna finds a space where she can Sunwalk and imbue the moonstone with the sun. When she turns around, she sees that Sebastian isn’t doing well, and dripping with blood. He tells her that she will have to transport them both by being in the sun, and getting them to safety. She doesn’t like the idea of doing it because it means that Sebastian will be hurt, but quickly realizes that there’s no way they can do anything else because it’s the only way out. So Luna prepares herself, puts shadows up in order to protect Sebastian from getting hurt, but in the end when he steps into the shadows, he still gets burnt by the sun, but she quickly grabs him and transports them through the Void to their room, where Sebastian feels his power come back to him, and pulls out the ice from his side, quickly healing. Once he’s healed and fed from Luna, they head down to a natural heated bath beneath the Abbey, and Luna feeds from him. When they return, Genevieve is surprised to see them, but they tell her that they have all of the items they need to break the bond.

With the help of a witch, Beaufort, they break Sebastian’s bond to Queen Marguerite. During the conversation prior to the ritual, Luna and Sebastian realize that they can trust Genevieve and the Second order of Isvana’s chosen, and Sebastian is thankful that they are willing to harbor them. The ritual takes a huge toll on both Sebastian and Beaufort, and unbeknownst to them, Queen Marguerite feels the loss of the bond with Sebastian too. She had been focused on the fact that she has lost Sebastian, when General Triboulet—a man that she had once trusted to handle things for her when Nicolas had become part of the rebellion—comes in and gives her the news that the humans are dying. She tells him that she doesn’t care about them regardless of the fact that so many of them are dead from the darkness that’s taking over the realm, and tells him not to bug her again. Unfortunately, the breaking of the bond happens while Triboulet is there with her, and he touches her. As a result, she kills him in her fury. She later goes down to see Koleta, the witch, about the Ruby that she has, and Koleta laughs at her, revealing that she’s tired of being bound in a prison, and wants to leave this place, so she put things in motion in order to bring Marguerite’s demise. Marguerite kills her in her anger as well, because all that she wants is power. Koleta tells her that those who had died by her hand live in the Void, as that is the price of using the Ruby, and so they whisper things.

Sebastian recovers from the loss of the bond, and is then able to go with Luna to Marius’s room, where Oddette administers the tonic. Luna wants to stay and so he tells her to sleep while holding on to Luna in the same room as Marius. Luna wakes up from a dream with Isvana—the Goddess had come to visit her again with more ominous words and plans. Marius wakes up and Luna rushes to his side, making sure to introduce Sebastian to him. Sebastian gives them some privacy by stepping outside and calling for Oddette, who promptly comes to check on Marius. Once Luna and Oddette had checked him over, they decide to go make more of the Tonic, and Oddette has a space set up for them that they can use to work without the smell, which she knows bothers Sebastian. Luna and Sebastian work through the day, preparing even more of the leaves than Oddette expected.

A few days later, Marius is running around like a normal 10 year old child, and he convinces Sebastian to take them outside into the courtyard, which makes Luna agree to it as long as he wears layers. While in the courtyard, they have a snowball fight, bringing joy to Luna’s face as she believes that Marius deserves to have a normal childhood. Someone suddenly shows up, and Sebastian is immediately protective of both, while Luna shoves Marius behind her to protect him. It turns out to be Phyrra, Sebastian’s Spymaster, who comes to drop him a note, before turning back around to leave, telling Sebastian that a spymaster always has work to do. She fascinates Marius though, and he asks a ton of questions of Sebastian about the type of work it takes and what she does.

The message that Phyrra brought was about the astrologists—Sebastian had sent messages to her requesting them because he needs to know when the red moon will be happening. In the note, Phyrra tells him that two of the astrologists are loyal to Marguerite, but the third one’s loyalty is unknown. So Sebastian and Luna set out to find the third one, and he takes Luna to the Black Sea. She realizes that it’s close to home for Sebastian, so she asks him to take her around the town and show her around. He does, but he is also taken back by his memories of growing up there—including one where he told his mother that he would be back, and though she said that he wouldn’t, he laughed her off, but indeed never returned to see her. They return to the area around the Black Sea, where they are attacked by a wolf. Luna gets protective of Sebastian, and tries to fight the wolf, but Sebastian tells her that the wolf is who they are looking for. And the wolf turns into a female, who Sebastian speaks to that he needs her help. She agrees to help them, and has them follow her to her cabin. There, she takes out a crystal ball, and does her thing—before giving them a vision and telling them a prophecy, including that the moon they are looking for is going to be in 14 days time. The whole thing spooks Sebastian enough that he is halfway out the door with Luna, when the lady speaks normally again, asking if they got what they wanted. He’s surprised that she doesn’t remember, but says nothing besides telling her that payment will be sent. She responds that killing Marguerite will be payment enough for her as Marguerite had killed her mate and her pack.

When they return, Luna sits down with Marius and tells him the truth: that their family is dead and they are the only ones left. She has him walk her through what he remembers before he woke up, and he tells her that he had heard something about fires and killing, and that he too was supposed to have been killed but that someone changed their mind. He already knows that their father is dead so it’s not much news for Luna to share, but she is adamant that he shouldn’t have lived that, and also that he shouldn’t feel guilt for it. Sebastian talks to Genevieve and asks for a training area, so once Luna tucks Marius to bed, the two of them go down there, and work on both Soul Sharing and training. Sebastian tells her that they only have 14 days to prepare for the fight, and Marguerite will not be patient and wait for Luna to figure it out—she will attack. He shuts off the part of him that hates hurting Luna because he knows that she needs to learn how to fight back on her own. They spend the 14 days practicing, and Phyrra shows up with information about the Queen’s plan, so Sebastian has her help train Luna. He thinks that Luna has a chance based on the fact that she did surprise Phyrra, who is a warrior in her own right. The day before the fateful night, they speak with Marius and ask for his help, as both Luna and Sebastian feel that his energy sparks theirs. He agrees to help, with the plan being that Phyrra would take him away before the fight happens.

Marguerite reminisces of the time that she got the news that they found Nicolas, and makes her way to a town on the Black Sea, where she finds Nicolas and another woman—Jean-Martin, a vampire that stood watch over the two inside the temple, said that they were found together in each other’s arms. Marguerite had made Nicolas watch as she turned the woman, named Claudette, into her first Favorite and toyed with her. She later spent 5 months torturing Nicolas for what he had done.

The day arrives, and Luna, Sebastian, Phyrra and Marius leave the Second Order to a location not too far from Castle Sanguis. Luna, Marius and Sebastian touch, filling up Luna’s and Sebastian’s magic, before Sebastian tells them that it is enough, and Phyrra runs off with Marius on her back. The two of them enter the castle, where Queen Marguerite is having a ball, and challenge her to a fight for the throne. Marguerite tells everyone to leave, and after taunting Luna for a bit, she tells them that she wants to have the battle in Hoarfrost Hollow, which causes Sebastian to tense up. He tells Luna through their bond that Hoarfrost Hollow is the location of the Tombs of the first vampires after they nearly killed all the Humans in Eleyta. The Queen arrives, and the fight begins, with Sebastian being at the front as they agreed. But the queen has other ideas and goes after Luna, cutting her down at one point, and Luna falls to the ground while Sebastian tries to catch up to her. The Queen is not happy with Sebastian’s display of love and sadness for Luna, which she considers a weakness. Sebastian asks her what made her this way, and she reveals that she had once loved a human, Nicolas, but doesn’t say anything more as she whips Sebastian against the stone with her shadows. The Queen then advances on Luna, who had barely woken up from a dream where Isvana had told her to get up. Luna gets the queen to talk and tell her about what she did to Nicolas, while she tries to figure out a way to get to Sebastian or to fight back. Sebastian does wake up and tells Luna that she’s doing a great job, but before either one of them could muster enough energy to fight back, the Queen stabs Luna with a long dagger.

This terrifies Sebastian, so he uses the connection from the tether, feeding it with his magic, but also using it to create a strong ball of shadows, which he then throws at the Queen’s ruby, while she is chanting around it and about to put it into Luna’s blood. The Ruby shatters, and the Queen is furious, but this is enough for Luna to get the dagger out of her and use the magic that Sebastian feeds to her through the Tether to create a stake out of light, that she promptly puts into the queen, before taking it out. The Queen dies, disintegrating into ash, and there is a crack of power across the land. They are cleaned up and their clothes are righted, as if nothing happened, and then flowers quickly grow in Hoarfrost Hollow, which is strange. Sebastian tells Luna that they will have an eternity to figure it out, before they make their way to the throne room at Castle Sanguis, where they announce that the Queen is dead. One of the vampires comes to them, and Luna is unhappy with her because this was the female vampire that had given them up to the People of the Night. Still, the woman pledges herself to them, and a whole line of Vampires line up to do the same. Once they are done, Sebastian takes Luna to their bed, where they sleep for three days.

At the third day, they get notified that something is going on with the Queen’s Favorites, so they go to see them, and it turns out that the humans that had previously been the Favorites are now back in control of their own bodies—when they killed the Queen, they ended her control over them. As a result, Luna decides on a plan of action, making three lists—one for short term, medium term, and long term planning. One of those is to bring Marius and Phyrra home to Castle Sanguis, as well as get lodging for the humans that is better.

A few weeks later, they have been doing the best they could to clean up after Queen Marguerite, including straightening out the financials so that the villages of humans can be taken care of as they were all at the edge of financial ruin. Luna and Sebastian visit Marius, who is getting tutored, and Luna reminds him that he can do whatever he wants once he matures but that he has to study until that time. On their way out, they get stopped by a guard who tells them that there is a Dragon on the roof, so Luna and Sebastian shadow there, where they are introduced to the High Lady of Life from Ithenmyr, and her dragon. She has come to ask for their aid against the darkness, to restore the balance. Luna turns to Sebastian and tells the High Lady that they knew she was going to come.

Many years later, Sebastian and Luna get ready to go to a ball. They are making out when they are interrupted by Marius, who has now Matured. The three of them going to the ball, is the agreement that Marius and Luna had reached because he wants more freedom but she doesn’t want to let him out of sight. They use the void to travel to the ball, and then Marius splits with them, while Sebastian and Luna go mingle. A small elf runs up to them, followed by her father who is holding another child. In the end, the High Lady of Life and another lady come up on stage and announce that they are all opening a university for magical students, that will also allow women to join their ranks.

My Thoughts: I think that Luna’s and Sebastian’s story ended well. It was a nice ending, though a lot of the story felt thin and didn’t have depth. Maybe it’s because I do enjoy reading a different type of Romantasy book where the feelings are intense between the two characters, but this one kind of fell flat for me in general. I did love their relationship, and the two characters, but I think it was written for an audience that is a bit younger or more innocent than what I’ve grown accustomed to—one that wants implied sex scenes. It did feel fast paced, but there was almost no development in character or in their relationship, so it feels like the characters did not grow or change. Either way, a nice ending to the series with a good happy outcome.