Book Review: Troubled

Title: Troubled
Author: Elayna R. Gallea
Genre: Romance, Romantasy, Fantasy Fiction

What It’s About: The creature has been stuck in an underground grave for centuries, but then something happens that gives the grave a crack and suddenly the moonlight comes through. The creature waits another ten years as the crack becomes bigger, and then climbs its way up and out of the grave, finding itself at a grave that is surrounded by 11 others. It decides to flee and come back to save the others, as it is extremely hungry and there isn’t a way for it to help all of the others out.

Vivienne has been sworn by King Sebastian to protect the halfling prince, Marius Wisethorn, who is the Queen’s sibling. She was supposed to start the following day officially, but she started a day earlier as a soft start at the University’s opening ball. Vivienne has an eye on Marius but then loses him, though she manages to follow him outside, where she notices that he speaks with a courier who has a message for the King. Marius begins walking away, and Vivienne follows him, asking him where he is going. He had intended to escape the ball, but decides to play it off as a walk through the park when Vivienne doesn’t want to leave him alone. As they walk, Marius tries to get her to leave, but she does not, so he explains to her that he is leaving that evening on an adventure, which is what he has always wanted to do after surviving the Wasting Illness. She agrees to come with him as she is bloodsworn to protect him, and so they get into a carriage that Marius’s friend, Felix, has agreed to ride.

The three of them ride across the kingdom, back into Eleyta, spending nights camping outdoors or in run down buildings. At some point, Marius decides to look through the future as he is a Fortune elf, and sees something that is about to happen. He returns to his pane, and talks to Vivienne only he is a bit too late—and then he exits the coach to help Felix deal with the mob that has surrounded them. They’re all humans and they have taken to stealing from travelers, as times are hard. Vivienne takes a chance and comes out of the coach—luckily for her it is dark enough so that she won’t be burnt by the sun. The group of men tries to make it sound like they will do things to her, and she hides her nature until she no longer can, then she kills all of them using her vampire abilities—her strength, speed, and even the wings—thereby saving the prince and the groom. Felix ends up having to take one of the horses back to heal, so they split their way. Marius rides a horse while Vivienne runs next to him.

Eventually the two of them make it to Hoarfrost Hollow, and both of them can tell that there is something wrong with the place—both of their magic does not like it. Marius looks around, even though Vivienne wants to get out of there—the grave is truly broken and it looks like one of the Firsts has gotten out. Vivienne thinks that Marius will now go back to Castle Sanguis and let the King and Queen know what is going on, but he decides that they need to push on with the mission. They continue riding through the country, coming across homes and places where the First has been, drinking the blood of humans—draining many of them in full.

The creature has been hunting, starting first with a man upon whom the creature came across on it’s way out from its Tomb, and then continues drinking blood of other Humans, taking pleasure from it and growing stronger from it. The creature ultimately remembers its name, Therese, and she was one of the twelve Firsts who ruled the land centuries past. She reminisces of a time in which she went to celebrate with the other members of the twelve at an event, and after two months of celebration, a Vampire had returned to tell them that the humans had captured him along with several other vampires and that they were going to fight back against the vampires. The twelve decide to eradicate humankind, and go through the land killing as many humans as they please—they believe that Vampires are superior to humans after all as they had been created by Ithiar, the god of blood, directly.

During their search, Marius and Vivienne come across the First, who is in a very terrifying form—grey skin, clunks of hair missing, and appears to be very feral. They do fight against the First, but their weapons do nothing to the First, beyond giving it cuts that bleed inky black. Even putting a stake, or silver dagger through the First’s heart does not stop it. Marius passes out from the First’s swipe at his heart—which burns him and makes him lose consciousness. Vivienne gives him some of her blood, which heals him up, and they have a moment before it gets interrupted by the barely alive human. They offer to take her home, which she wants, and they walk their way to the nearest town with the woman in Marius’s arms.

Once they reach the town, they are intercepted by some of the townsfolk who immediately arrest them. They put Marius into a cell, and Vivienne into what remains of a well. Marius tries to tell them that they are not the reason behind the deaths of any villagers, before wondering if the men that had attacked them previously were the ones who had been from this village. No one wants to listen to him to reach out to the King and Queen, but one night, a girl brings him some food, and he convinces her to send a message to the King and Queen. Vivienne, on the other hand, deals with a prohiberis chain around her neck, which causes her to not have access to her magic.

The day that they are to be given a trial—which is not really a trial at all as the town is looking for any reason to kill them—Marius and Vivienne notice the black shadows. King Sebastian and Queen Luna show up along with Phyla, who is the spymaster for the king and queen. They help Marius and Vivienne out, and leave Phyrra to deal with the rest of the situation. Marius begs the king to spare Vivienne, when he tells her that she had failed her blood vow, though she had accepted her fate and is glad that Marius would be safe. The Queen speaks to the King, and only then does he agree to spare Vivienne, but instead he throws her into the dungeons below the castle. They also yell at Marius for leaving the way that he did, and how Luna had been heartbroken, thinking that he’s dead.

The next two weeks, Marius recovers from his illness—a cough that he had gotten, that didn’t seem to go away, while Vivienne wastes away underneath the castle, freezing, and getting hungrier from the lack of blood and not feeding for some time. Eventually, Marius explains to Luna why he left, and asks her to not stop him; that his home is always with her, but that he wants to see the world. She agrees to let him go on his adventure—and in fact, she has a place for him to go, having researched information about the Firsts. With Sebastian, she explains and it turns out that a witch had placed the Twelve into the tombs, with very powerful magic, but with magic there is a cost—and that is that the Firsts cannot be killed unless they have this particular water, and this obsidian dagger. They know the location of the water, so they will take Marius there, as they are not able to go by themselves—they aren’t able to step foot inside. Marius agrees, on the condition that he takes someone with him. He then gets Vivienne out of prison, removing the prohiberis collar, and getting her blood to drink that came from a stag.

Four days later, the two of them get dropped off by Sebastian and Luna near the House of Forgotten Shadows, and they make their way to it, through magic shields, while talking. They get to the House, and explore, but at some point, it gets so full of dark shadow mist or fog that they have to navigate with Vivienne’s sight and just touch. They realize that the sun is starting to come up and they manage to find an overhang just in time. They spend the time talking, as it passes, and they share a kiss in the darkness—initiated by none other than Vivienne herself. They then get interrupted by a sound, a screech, which continues to get closer and closer to them, until a monster finally finds them. They fight the monster, and it’s not really an easy fight as the monster doesn’t go down, but they manage to get it down. By this point, it’s dark enough, that they can continue, and so they make their way forward, until they come across a pool—midnight black water surrounded by bones, and other such things. Vivienne starts heading a song that has her running towards the pool—ignoring Marius’s calls and requests for her to stop. He tries to stop her by holding her back physically, just as she’s about to touch the water, but she is able to push him off. He finally resorts to using a prohiberis laced potion to knock her out. Marius then grabs the water in two different vials, picks her up, and walks her out of the House of Forgotten Shadows.

They are almost towards the meeting point that Sebastian had mentioned that they need to get to in order for Sebastian’s friend to pick them up, when Vivienne wakes up and accuses Marius of hurting her. He explains what happened and that he had to do what he had to do in order to save her from death. Vivienne forgives him, and just before they’re able to talk any further, a Dragon shows up, which has Vivienne putting Marius behind her for safety. He steps around her and tells her that he recognizes the dragon, who turns out to be none other than Xander, the bonded mate of the High Lady of Life, and who is a Dragon Shifter. Xander talks to them for a few minutes, before he tells them to get on and shifts back into a dragon. This has Vivienne freaking out because fire is dangerous to vampires, and she has a fear of heights, but she gets on, and Marius settles behind her. He coaches her through it, reminding her to breathe, as the Dragon takes off and flies. Vivien realizes during their flight that she is in love with Marius, and she needs to tell him at some point-maybe after Death Mountain.

They make it to Death Mountain, and Xander realizes that he will not be able to join them on Death Mountain as it has magic against shifters, while Marius and Vivienne are able to step through it. Xander decides to take off for the time, and tells them that he will be back by nightfall to pick them up. They start making their way through Death Mountain, and at one point Vivienne flies Marius across a gap in the walkway. Then they get stuck again, and Marius looks at the map that Phyrra provided, only to touch something. This results in a massive landslide and rockfall inside Death Mountain. Vivienne throws herself on top of him and covers him up with her wings and her body, and when the landslide stops, she is barely alive. Marius gives her some of his blood, and this helps her heal herself. They pause for a moment because Vivienne doesn’t know why Marius would give her his blood, but they are interrupted by roars; clearly some kind of creature is after them. They run up the rest of the way, until they see the Obsidian Blade, and Vivienne tells him to go while she will fight off the bear-spider hybrid creature. Marius touches the platform on which the blade rests, and finds himself talking to the four Gods. They offer him a way out to not have to be involved in this adventure or to take the responsibility of killing the First on him, and while that sounds like an appealing offer at first, Marius decides not to go with it. The Gods agree that he is the one they have been waiting for in order to give him the Obsidian Blade, and they warn him that anyone else who wields it but him, will be killed by the blade. They also tell him that the blade will help him get out of Death Mountain.

Marius returns to the same floor as Vivienne, where he had been previously, and he realizes that the situation had frozen time, so he comes back to himself at the same time he had left, and he grabs Vivienne, before jumping down into a hole that opens up underneath them. He hold her close but also careful to not use the blade against her. Then they land at the entrance, and make their way out of the Death Mountain, to find Xander waiting for them. He takes them straight to Queen Luna and King Sebastian.

Marius talks to them, and they make a plan as the First is on her way. Sebastian uses his shadows to hide them, and together along with some vampire soldiers, they make their way to a clearing, where they surround the First. Marius prepares himself and the obsidian blade with the water, and then feels that the First has started staring at him, which he finds impossible. Sebastian drops the shadow around him and Luna, and the First reveals her name as Therese to them after a bit of talking. She is certain that they will die and believes that she will bring back the age of the Vampires as they used to be. Marius tells her that she won’t and that he will kill her. Then Sebastian drops the rest of the shadows, showing that the First is surrounded by their army. Unbeknownst to them, she has also created her own little army of vampires. The battle ensues, and the five vampires that Therese had created kill so many of their vampire soldiers so quickly. Sebastian and Luna manage to hold their own by fighting together, while Vivienne fights alongside with a soldier she once met during her assignment. Unfortunately, he quickly gets killed by one of Therese’s vampires, and Vivienne is fighting on her own while keeping track of Marius, who is doing well fighting on his own as well. Unfortunately, she goes down, though she manages to hurt one of the vampires really hard, and she knows she is going to die. Marius sees her go down, and barely manages to put Vivienne out of mind while focusing on Therese. He ends up killing Therese by following the instinct that comes from the dagger, and when she does die, the vampires that she created dissipate with her as well.

Marius looks for Vivienne, but Luna tells him that she is with Sebastian—he goes to her, and though she is believed to be dead, he hears a heartbeat and asks that they do what they can to save her. Vivienne is in the darkness, and she gets sporadic flashes of light that she leans towards—some of which are Marius; she’s glad to see that he’s alive and well enough. She passes out but eventually comes too—this time in a room in Castle Sanguis, where Marius asks her to be Bound to him. She’s surprised but he tells her that he loves her, and she tells him that she loves him back, before agreeing to be Bound. Sebastian decides to do the ceremony, not trusting the priests after what had happened to him and Luna, and they fulfill the sharing of blood through the chalice, thereby becoming Bound. A few weeks later, he walks the silver planes and realizes that there is peace everywhere. Vivienne is surprised that he has enough energy to keep going, and he looks inward, where he realizes that he has a large well of power than he used to—something that happened as a result of being Bound to her.

In the Epilogue, Marius and Vivienne have spent a good seven years traveling the world together, and he proposed during a trip, to which Vivienne has said yes. She’s absolutely nervous to have the wedding, especially as she realizes that this makes her a Princess of Eleyta, but the ceremony goes off without a hitch, and she is happy to be able to call Marius her husband.

My Thoughts: Overall, I really liked Marius’s story, and how he has a penchant for danger; however, I really wish that he didn’t get married to a Vampire—so that there is an opportunity for Eleyta to have a Prince who may have offspring, just like some of the other realms. I really had hoped that when Vivienne died, either she would get visited by the Gods or Marius would speak to them in grief, and they would return her as a human so that they could find out that they were actually fated mates. So the lack of this element disappointed me a bit, especially seeing as Luna had already become a vampire so it would be nice to have a bit more diversity. But still, I enjoyed Marius’s and Vivienne’s perspectives, as well as the story to its end. Fun, and fast read—great for a train ride or a short flight that kept me engaged for the duration of the book.