Book Review: Metal Slinger

Title: Metal Slinger
Author: Rachel Schneider
Genre: Romantasy, Fiction, Fantasy

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What It’s About:

Brynn looks out over the horizon beyond the ship for a hint of land, as her friends, Messer and Kai, join her. It’s the first time that either she or Messer would be able to see land as they had been born in exile. Their people, the Alaha, have been exiled from the land after a war where the rulers of the remaining realms chose to exile them for bringing the war to them. Brynn, though she was raised in Alaha, looks nothing like the Alaha with coppery hair compared to the Alaha’s lighter color, and so she has always been an outsider despite the fact that Kai’s parents took her in after the death of her own parents in a shipwreck. Kai has continued to look out for her in the years since, and even now. As they come to the Market—the area over the water where they can trade with the Kenta—Brynn and Messer get called to stand in attention. She had joined the Guard at thirteen, one of only two girls to join, though it’s not common for them and has finally been granted the ranks to graduate alongside Messer. Their leader tells them that they need to go in pairs to the Market, and not leave their group, but Brynn also watches Kai, who happens to be the son of the Commander of Alaha, speak to other the other commanders of the ship. As they disembark, Brynn joins Kai, Messer and Aurora in a group, and they meander through the Market. She finds the colors of the clothing and other items to be very beautiful and vibrant, which is so different from Alaha. There is so much that she wants to buy but she only has a few coppers, and Kai tells her that he has more money, but she chooses to be careful with her spending. At some point, Kai asks her to dance and while Brynn hesitates, he tells her that none of his men will report them for breaking the Covenant of Alaha—which contains a rule that is no show of public affection. They dance, and Kai tells her that he has asked his parents to make her his match for the Matching Ceremony—where they choose who they want to essentially marry and live with.

This shakes her, so Brynn goes off on her own, and wanders through the Market, looking for a way to get onto land, as the four of them had agreed that they are planning on getting onto land in any way that they can. But as she meanders through the Market, she notices that the guy that she had passed a while back has been following her. He continues to do so, until she makes her way back to the docks in sight of the boat. She’s looking around for Kai, who sees her, and her friends, but while she is looking at the jewels at a shop, the man accuses her of stealing jewels, and then forces her hand to the wall, telling her that thieves get their hands cut off. Kai manages to come up to them and asks the man to let her go, but he refuses. He presses Brynn’s hand to the wall, and she feels immense pain, dropping to the ground. The man looks at her in shock, and suddenly there is a huge explosion. In the ensuing chaos, Brynn grabs a beautifully made dagger from the man’s side, and cuts off the tendon in his heel, before running after Kai, though the man screams after her to not leave. All the Alaha soldiers get onto the ship, but they cannot find Aurora, until she shows up suddenly walking without a care in the world, having lit the explosives, and tells them that it was to give them a chance to get away. As the ship travels back to Alaha, Brynn hides in a corner away from the rest of the guards because they all think that she’s the one at fault behind the explosion, and blame her for not being able to go back to the Market for some time. She swears to Kai that she stole nothing, did nothing, and that there was no reason for the stranger to touch her; he believes her. But one of the boys puts a rat in her hammock to scare her, only for the same boy to later have cockroaches in his hammock while he’s sleeping, courtesy of Messer, who doesn’t divulge how he got the cockroaches.

When they arrive back in Alaha, Brynn, Kai, Messer and Aurora are told to report to Commander Wren, the leader of Alaha and Kai’s father. They share the version of what has happened, and Wren asks them why Brynn was separated from the group, to which Kai tells him that he had asked her to be his Match and that she hasn’t said no, and Brynn adds that she wanted time to process. Wren has Aurora arrested for the explosions, as she was the one that set them off, and tells the three of them that they are free to go but makes it clear that the only reason he’s letting Brynn go is because she is now Matched to Kai, and Brynn realizes that she has no choice but to be Matched with Kai for the Matching ceremony. She goes back to her shiel, and climbs up onto the rooftop to draw the dagger that she had stolen, which is forbidden in Alaha. A crow comes by, and since Brynn had nursed it when it crashed through her window, she considers it a pet, though it’s also forbidden to have pets. She later tries to get the eyes and the face of the strange man correct, but she isn’t able to do so.

Weeks go by, and Brynn spends time with Kai, but also trains with her guards classmates. Aurora had been freed after being suspected to work with the rebels, in hopes that she would lead the men to the rebels. At one session, the commander of the new guards has Messer face off against another guard to demonstrate to Commander Wren how the training is going. Messer defeats the opponent, and Kai is about to hand him a sword, basically naming him the second in command for him in the following year, when Messer tells Kai that he cannot accept it because he has to fight the best, and he believes Brynn is the best, as she had defeated him twice—though both times she claims it was because Messer was blindfolded. She does fight and hold him off for a while, but Messer ends up winning in the end. Kai comes by and in front of everyone, kisses her. As a result, Wren places them in the brig for the night as punishment and Brynn believes that it wasn’t worth it. The next day, Messer and Brynn meet up at breakfast, and Kai joins them after doing his extra punishment, which is cleaning the stalls of the animals that they had brought back with them. At some point, there is a Kenta ship that comes on the horizon, which pulls everyone into a tizzy to see what it’s about. As a lone figure begins to row from the ship to Alaha, the ship shoots out a flare that the man is coming in peace. Kai tells Brynn to stay away, but she gets him to agree to let her stay and watch from a higher level, and she recognizes the man as the same stranger who grabbed her hand in the Market. The man speaks to Kai and Wren, and then looks up at her, directly to where she is, which bothers Brynn. Then he gets led away, and Brynn later finds out that he’s being taken to the Brig. A few days later, she’s at training in the training ring that also is where the animals are kept, when Kai and Wren come tog et her because the guy refuses to speak to anyone else but her. She shows goes to the brig, and he is able to tell her where the ships are located, which is what Kai and the commander want to know, in case Kenta declares war on them. He does take offense to the fact that Brynn smells bad and that she was also in the brig, previously, as he smells her. He doesn’t share anything else, but Brynn comes back later on her own, climbing up to see him, and he reveals that his name is Acker. He has also been forced to take a blood oath in order to not reveal to her who she is, so she has to ask him questions in a particular way in order for him to tell her anything. He does tell her a few things that she refuses to believe at the moment, including that magic exists, but it needs connection to land, and that his Match is gods given and rare, but that she has beautiful green and gold eyes. He does ask her about Kai, and when she doesn’t exactly answer what she sees in him as a match, he asks her if she really wants to be matched with him. After she leaves him, she drops the dagger that she stole from him with the beautiful J on it, as per Messer’s suggestion.

The day of the Graduation arrives, and Brynn not only gets her uniform along with the rest of her class, but learns that Acker is still being held in the brig. There is a storm coming and Wren intends to let Acker drown in the brig, but Brynn decides otherwise. As everyone heads home to avoid the rain and the storm, she tells a soldier that she’s going for more oil lamp, before she jumps down into the water, swims to the brig, where she finds Acker sitting calmly. He asks her about the dagger, and tells her that she can call it to her because the dagger actually belongs to her, and her name is Jovie; she had been stolen from her parents by the Alaha. Brynn calls the dagger to her, but is unable to open the door to the brig to get Acker out of it, and they both think that he will drown, as is intended by Wren. She finally manages to wrench the door open with the dagger, and together they swim to a part of the Alaha territory where they can grab a ladder and climb it. She takes Acker to her home, hiding him out in the shiel, and making sure he gets fed by bringing him food. Once the storm passes and they find that the prisoner is missing, they search the territory for hi, but Brynn has him hide up on her roof, barely getting him out before Kai shows up with two guards to search her shiel and he touches her, kissing her, before leaving. She had hidden the bloodied shirt that Acker had left behind, but barely Kai is gone when Acker comes back. The Matching Ceremony is coming up, and Faline, Kai’s mother, comes back with her dress, which Kai had paid for the previous night. Brynn asks Faline to buy Kai a gift for the ceremony because she hasn’t been paid, so Faline leaves, and Brynn decides to leave with Acker, avoiding the Matching Ceremony. They manage to make it to the dock before Kai shows up with soldiers in tow, and Acker fights them all off, even after being stabbed. Brynn begs Acker to let Kai live, and he does, knocking him out only, but leaving him alive.

Acker and Brynn, who begins to go by the name Jovie, travel in the little fishing boat across the seas to Kenta. Jovie takes care of his wound, but it’s not something that is able to heal on its own, and Acker tells her that it will heal once they are on land. All she can do is stitch it together while she tells Acker about her life in Alaha, which he is glad is full of good memories. He tells her a bit about her parents—her mother is alive, but accused and killed Osiris, who was one of the rules, and who admitted to kidnapping Jovie. Her mother has since shut herself off from the rest of the realm, but he doesn’t know where Jovie’s father is. He tells her that he had promised her mother to search for her, which is why he had the dagger belonging to Jovie—her mother had given it to him as a way to make him promise her that he will not stop searching for her. He had indeed given up, thinking that Jovie is dead, when the dagger felt her in the Market, which is why he had followed her. He tells her that the only way that he could make sure that it was her was to have her touch land and see if she got a reaction, but he had been pretty sure it was her because it was like looking at an older version of the girl her remembers. Jovie asks him about his Match, and he doesn’t tell her much about it, beyond saying that she’s amazing. They continue to travel together, taking turns, but there is one point where Acker freaks out when Jovie’s crow shows up. He wants to kill it, but Jovie refuses to let him do so, and he reveals that it’s an Eyun, a mythological creature that can eat men whole. Jovie doesn’t believe him until a few moments later when they catch a fish and the eyun takes it, and eats it whole. She tells it to not eat Acker, and that she will share their catches with it, but decides to name it Blue. The bird follows them even through a storm. They had drifted off course, and there is no way that the boat would have survived the storm, but then they see the giant squid underneath the ship, and it holds up the boat from the hellacious waves. Jovie has dreams and images of a past life, including that of Acker as a younger boy, which confirms that they did know each other as young children.

When they finally get close enough to see land, Acker isn’t happy, because they are in Roison. He wants them to turn back, but Jovie says no. He’s afraid that since she is going through the awakening, and it’s already bad, it will get worse. But he decides that it’s best to go on land per Jovie’s request, because they are low on supplies and everyone is sick of fish. Jovie is in immense pain as soon as they’re close, even before they’re on land, and Acker has to force her to chew Saigon root, a hallucinogenic of some sort that also dulls pain. She has nightmares of a bear chasing her, and when she tells Acker about it—as he has realized that she had begun to remember her past—he laughs and tells her that it was Hallis, the best friend that he followed into the army, who told her a story about a bear to scare her. Acker has been moving them with the bird scouting and providing information on how many soldiers are following them—those that had defected and that are traitors. Eventually, they catch up to Acker and Jovie, including Vad, a mind reader. Vad and Acker have a history, and Acker considers him a traitor as he had left Kenta’s military to join the rebels living in Roison. Vad reveals that Jovie is dying, and she is surprised that he knows so much about her, but then she feels him in her mind. Vad wants a few seconds in Acker’s mind to learn some things from him, in exchange to give him the location of a healer that could help Jovie. Acker agrees, giving a blood oath, and once Vad is done, he takes Jovie to the healer. She remembers bits and pieces of it as the healer pushes her through the awakening and also heals her from dying. Jovie wakes up feeling better, and also finds it strange that the woman acts the way that she does to her—kneeling. She learns that she is a light wielder, which the woman tells her will bring about change. Acker discards it because he believes healers are religious zealots.

When Jovie is better and healed, they leave for the border with Kenta, as the healer’s husband and son had found horses. Jovie rides with Acker, and cannot stop thinking about their bodies together, but then she has images of herself through Acker’s eyes, and where he is focusing. She finds that weird, and wonders if she also has some kind of power similar to Vad. They camp for the night near the Dead Forest—where once you enter, you will never leave and no one has been seen since. She had stepped away from the fire to use the restroom and Acker followed her, when they see a panther come up to the camp. It turns out to be none other than the healer’s son, and he reveals that there is a huge bounty on Acker’s head, which he plans to take. Suddenly, Blue turns into Messer, who takes on the healer. The two turn into cats and disappear into the forest. Jovie decides that she’s not going to run away and wants to help Messer, so they enter the forest, only to be attacked by winged bat-like monsters. She gets pissed off at it all, and uses her magic to light up the whole forest, killing the creatures and disintegrating the darkness of the whole forest, which borders the land with Kenta. They find Messer, and take him out of the forest, leaving the healer’s son behind. When they’re across the border in Kenta, they are met by soldiers from Acker’s army, and those soldiers take Messer away, while Jovie passes out. When she comes to, she is in a tent, and meets Beau, Acker’s sister, who had been left to watch over her. Jovie learns from Beau that Messer had been tied and is going to be treated as a prisoner to be sent to Alaha, so she marches through the camp until she finds Hallis, who takes her to Acker’s tent, and demands that Acker frees Messer. He’s furious because she does it in front of the whole command, but he does take her to Messer. He has Beau and Hallis with them, and he asks Messer a bunch of questions, while Beau reads his aura, and tells Acker that he can be trusted. Messer reveals that Kai had given him his powers, which surprises Jovie, and that he had seen enough of the eyun in books that his father has. When Beau tells Acker that Messer isn’t lying, Acker is okay with letting him go, but he stabs a V shape into Messer’s breast, telling him that he is now a part of a small elite of soldiers who have this—Acker and Hallis included00 and who are wanted by others. So if he gets caught or defects, when the Rioson rebels see it, they will kill him. Messer also agrees to take on the task of returning the body of the healer’s son, per the request of the father, who had met with Acker in the field just outside of Rioson. They leave him to it, letting him know that he is on his own, and Acker takes Jovie on his horse, while Beau and Hallis ride together, though they bicker a lot.

At some point, throughout their riding, the four of them get stuck in the rain, so Jovie is sleeping next to Beau, while Acker and Hallis are talking by the campfire, when Jovie sees through Acker’s eyes again and hears everything that he has said with Hallis. Acker realizes it, and demands to know how long it has been happening, to which Jovie tells him that she has been seeing through his eyes every so often. He isn’t mad at her, and tells her that she’s not Vad, because she cannot do it to anyone else. They continue riding to a town, where all of the lights are off, and they find a place to stay the night. Beau gets drunk, and Jovie falls asleep, but then she goes into Hallis’s and Acker’s room. Acker is able to see her figure, when she touches him, and she tells him that Beau is drinking. That’s bad because it means that Beau is overwhelmed. At some point, Jovie realizes that she is Acker’s match—seeing her real eye color in a mirror or reflection, makes her realize that it matches Acker’s description of his match’s eyes. They have an argument, because once again Acker hasn’t told her anything, though he promised to stop keeping things from her, and this time she rides with Hallis, who tells her that she should let it go. Eventually, she goes back to riding with Acker, as they continue on their journey to the capital, avoiding cities and towns. When they arrive in the city, people are there to welcome Acker back, but they are not happy to see Jovie. Lights start turning off in protest against the light wielder, and people start yelling at her. Acker makes them ride hard for the castle grounds, but a farmer manages to throw a tomato at Jovie, but before she is able to do anything, Beau used her metal whip to catch the guy, and later tells Jovie that he was dealt with when Beau visits her to drop off clothing. They also run into Maile’s commander, who demands that Jovie comes home with him. Jovie tries to convince him that she is safe with Acker and that she will call for the knife in three days, giving him her dagger. Both Acker and Jovie tell him that they’re Matched, but tt’s not enough for him, until Acker makes an extreme blood oath—combining both of their bloods—and admitting that he will not harm her because she is his match.

Acker presents Jovie to the court and his father, and when he asks everyone to kneel, her own legs give out underneath her, which she believes is from nervousness. But before Acker can speak with his father, the king has Jovie escorted to her rooms by a maidservant who is terrified of her, which is why Beau shows up with clothes. Jovie realizes that Beau is exhausted and tells her that they will not be going to dinner together. She spends time in the castle, learning the nooks and crannies, as Beau shows her around, including introducing her to her own mother, Greta, who is a librarian. Jovie asks her a few questions about some books, and Greta has them hidden in her own study area, which Jovie borrows to learn more about Match bonds, blood oaths, and later on the history of the realms. She finds it strange that Acker’s father had fire as the main element of magic in the beginning of history, and then she recognizes Acker’s mother—she was her neighbor in Alaha. Jovie learns about all different types of bonds, and is horrified by the blood oath that Acker had given with her, which Beau tells her she was wondering when Jovie would learn about it. Acker spends the night at her rooms, or she spends the night at his rooms. At some point, Beau tells Jovie that she will break many hearts, and Jovie asks her if she’s also an oracle, but Beau tells her that her mother is.

Acker takes Jovie to meet his friends, Olivia, and Wells, for dinner, where the couple reveals that they are matched, but no one knows besides Acker, Hallis and now her. Olivia tells Jovie that they used to be friends as kids, and she had told Acker that Jovie was her match. Jovie doesn’t remember her, but she does take Olivia’s side in the discussion, when Olivia and Wells tell them about the Match Bond, and how it worked out for them. Wells tells them that he ended up passing out, because the Bond will do whatever it can to bring them together and near each other, and the only way for it to stop is to accept it. Usually one partner accepts it before the other, and it is painfully obvious in the house that Acker had accepted it, but Jovie is still struggling with it. Then, Jovie is in the bath, when she appears as an apparition that only Acker can see during his meeting with the advisers. He has her sit on him, and makes her come, subtly with his wine glass, but then his father walks in, after disappearing to who knows where. His father asks him to stay but Hallis shows up to say that something is wrong with Jovie, and so Acker goes to her room, only to find Beau with Jovie’s slack body. Jovie realizes that she will remain in this form as long as Acker is near by, so she sits with her body and Acker sends Beau to Jovie’s rooms. When she goes to see Acker after taking another bath and dressing, she admits to him taht she loves him, and accepts the bond. They end up having sex for the first time, and it’s Jovie’s first time as she’s never been with anyone else. They are connected through the bond, and Acker shows up in his spectral form while Jovie is in Greta’s hidden room, and they have sex there before he disappears. Greta comes down and tells her that there isn’t anything that she can hide from her as she is an oracle and can see the future. Greta tells her before Jovie leaves that the King used to be someone else. Jovie leaves to her room, and decides to do the split between the spectral part of herself, and leaving her body in her room. She ends up sparring with Acker, who admits that he can’t do anything to hurt Jovie because of the oath. So instead, Hallis spars with her, and she ends up using her magic against him in battle.

Jovie ends up pulling her dagger from across the kingdom, actually finding her mom sitting in the room with the dagger. It shocks her, of course, because she hasn’t seen her mom in years. Then she uses her spectral form and goes to see Acker, but overhears him speak to his father, the King, who tells him that he can keep Jovie as a consort but not as a queen, and all that the Royal family of Strou asks is that he give them one heir. The King tells his son that he’s not king, and therefore, he doesn’t get to be with his Match. He also tells Acker that if he does another blood oath, Acker will be leashed with the Mangi stones. Then they get ready to go to a ball in honor of Jovie’s return, and Jovie is heading out with Hallis, when Acker shows up and tells them both that he doesn’t care, he’s going to be with Jovie. HIs father is furious, and the Strou princess is upset enough that she ends up leaving when she realizes that her seat was taken by Jovie. Her parents leave soon after. Acker celebrates Jovie’s return, and Jovie in turn puts a toast to him.

Brynn tells Kai that the prisoner doesn’t know that she knows who she is, and that she has saved him from being drowned. It frustrates Kai because that was the whole point, but Brynn convinces Kai that she will leave with Acker, as it will give them the best chance to kill his father. Kai is the leader of the Rebellion, but his own father doesn’t know this, and ultimately, he agrees to this mission, telling Brynn that his parents will Match him with someone else. She understands, and he agrees to her plan, but tells her that he will show up in her shiel and she has to open up her mind to make it seem like his magic works on her, and make it more believable for Acker to fall for the act.

Acker dances with Jovie, and Jovie keeps glancing at the King, whose mood sours the more that everyone else’s gets jovial. He pulls her to his seat, and tells her that he will celebrate his wife, but Jovie tells him that he’s drunk, and takes away the next drink that he grabs, from him. He proposes to her, and Jovie tells him that she loves him a lot and forever. Suddenly, one of the nobles stands up and yells poison, while Beau and Kenta soldiers show up to save them. Except Beau doesn’t, she chains Acker against the chair, and Jovie slips a mangi stone necklace on him. Then Messer turns out to be one of the Kenta soldiers, and mows everyone down. Jovie tries to tell Acker the truth about his father—that he’s the one who had been seeking power, as his power is different than the records show him, which Acker refuses to believe. She offers him to take his father’s place and they won’t kill the council, but Acker doesn’t answer, so Messer offers to kill the king. Jovie shakes her head, and makes her way to the King. Acker asks her to spare him, as she owes him a life debt for Kai, so Jovie stabs the King in the part where his magic is kept with her dagger, which is made of heartstone that is the only type of dagger that can destroy the Heir’s magic, and the King is one of the Heirs, over three hundred years old. That makes Acker also an Heir, but so is Wren and Kai, and Jovie and her mom. Maile soldiers had come into the room, and then the Kenta soldiers had run into them, so the maile soldiers fight them off, while also killing the men. Messer joins them, and Jovie tells Beau to give her the whip, get Messer and get out. Once they’re gone, Jovie lets go of the whip around Acker, and runs. He chases her to the kitchen, and grabs her by the throat. Messer shows up in Panther form, but Jovie has him stand down. Acker kisses her and then slaps her, which causes the oath to act against him and hurt him as well. Hallis shows up in the chaos and sees Acker in pain, but doesn’t do anything, as Acker yells at Jovie to leave, and together with Messer they walk out of the castle while her heart cleaves in two.

My Thoughts:

Holy smokes! I did not expect that plot twist in the last two chapters! The book took my breath away and I think it’s one of my favorites from my reading this year, alongside with the Crimson Moth Duology. I absolutely loved the character building, and the background that we find out as we go along about the world and Jovie’s past. And we go on believing that she’s been kidnapped, so Acker is saving her, but then suddenly, you find out that there is so much more that we don’t know, and that Brynn/Jovie might actually be an unreliable narrator or at least an untrustworthy narrator. I have so many questions about everything spiraling in my brain, and it took me a good few days to find my footing again as I was shaken by the revelations.

To be honest, I was getting annoyed with Acker for not being honest with Jovie—he kept her actual identity from her because the blood oath required by Wren, which is fine, but then he didn’t tell her that she was dying, and that they are Matched. It made me question what else he hasn’t told her, and by extent, the readers. It seems like he’s on the path to being more honest, when we find out that Jovie was the one keeping more secrets that we weren’t aware of. And so the ending basically lead me into heartbreak and betrayal. It was so unexpected, because it seems to be out of character for Jovie, but I do wonder if there is more to the story than we are getting—maybe the kidnapping was planned to get Jovie out from under Acker’s father’s thumb and give her a chance to grow up away from the chaos. Also we learn that Acker’s mother is alive, and that she has been Jovie’s neighbor for years in Alaha. So why? What happened? How? I have so many questions, and I hope that many of them get answered in the second (and reportedly final) book. Can’t wait for it to be released next week!

If you’d like to read either or, you can buy them here: Metal Slinger and Light Wielder