Full disclosure, this was arguably the best fantasy book that I’ve ever read, and I will not be analyzing this objectively. I was recommended this a month ago by a friend of mine, and honestly, I had no clue what to expect. To say that I was hooked is an understatement. I spent the week at work and every free minute at home reading this so that I could finish and start discussing it. I don’t really know how to describe this other than a cross between Alex Rider/Harry Potter/Hunger Games and it’s been a long time since I was captivated by a story like this. Review below has spoilers, please stop reading If you are interested in this book and come back once you’ve finished!
Let’s set the story – Vis is a 17-year-old orphan who was a prince in one of the countries the Hierarchy of Cantenan colonized during the expansion of their empire. Vis fled his home country of Suus when his family was killed and is living in an orphanage while moonlighting as a fighter in underground bouts. The background here is that every citizen has to cede half of their “will” to a ranking member above them. An Octavus cedes half of their will to a Septimus, who cedes half of their will to a Sextus, and so on so forth up the pyramid. Vis refuses to cede any will, and his punishment when he turns 18 will be a life confined to a “sapper” – a device that imprisons people and takes all of their will from them 24-7. Vis is fighting for any extra bit of coin he can earn before fleeing the country.
Vis also works in a prison where sappers drain their unfortunate victims of their will. One night, he notices something suspicious when a man named Ulsicor Telimus is interrogating a prisoner. To summarize, Vis essentially steps in and saves Ulsicor who is very grateful. Later that night, Vis is fighting a Sextus for the first time and puts on a show – despite the organizers declaring him a cheat and banning him from future confrontations. The next day, Ulsicor, who is a high-ranking Quintus and a member of the senate, comes to adopt Vis.
Ulsicor has ulterior motives, he needs Vis to infiltrate Catenan’s Academy and find out what happened to Ulsicor’s brother Caeror 6 years prior – his death was suspiciously ruled a suicide. En route to Vis’s new home, their Transvect (airplane) is taken down by terrorists (The Anguis) and Ulsicor is quickly knocked unconscious after eliminating one of the terrorists. One member of the group approaches Vis telling him that they know who he is, and he has one month to decide whether or not he wants to join them – rather than risk being exposed and sent to death.
Once at Ulsicor’s home, Vis begins training with Ulsicor’s friend/housemate Lanistia – who is later revealed to be Caeror’s ex-girlfriend who was with him when he “died” but has no memory of the events. The training is rigorous, and despite Vis having a lifetime of royal tutelage, he’s still behind with what it takes to succeed at the Academy. Specifically, there is a big mock labyrinth that mirrors one of the tests at the Academy. Lanistia is strict with Vis, but he begins to make progress and slowly catches up with everything he’s missed since he was displaced from his home 3 years prior.
There’s a big event called “The Festival of Jovan”, and that’s where the member of the Anguis who stopped Vis during his trip to Telimus Manor wants Vis to meet her. Vis is able to breakaway for the trip when another senator, Quartus Advenius Claudius comes to see him – requesting that he spies on Ulsicor and provides the information to the Senate. Vis parlays this into joining Advenius’s daughter Aequa to the festival. Advenius tells Vis that Ulsicor is chasing ghosts, but Vis relays everything to Ulsicor who approves the trip.
Aequa and Vis arrive for the big gladiator fight, and Vis find an excuse to break free and meet the Anguis. Once he is shown to the secret meeting area, the Anguis leader – named Melior, turns out to be a former member of Vis’s father’s advisory council. Vis is angry, telling them that he will not join them and does not believe in violence towards innocent people in the name of greater good. Vis returns to his seat and the games begin.
I don’t have a good way to describe this other than it’s very similar to what’s depicted in Gladiator. Lots of carnage is suddenly stopped when Melior arrives onto the field. People are confused, but Melior begins using an unknown Will-powered weapon to start killing the people in the crowd while blocking the exits. Vis is horrified, and quickly gets Aequa out using the sewar tunnels he saw while meeting the Anguis. Vis returns to confront Melior, unable to kill him but Melior kills himself while making it look like Vis did it.
Vis is a hero, deemed Catenicus for saving thousands of people and taking down Melior. He returns to Telimus Manor with some new respect but also a lot more urgency. Training resumes and Vis gets ready for his time at the Academy. There are 5 classes at the Academy- 7, 6, 5, 4, 3. You start in class 7 and work your way up, the classes get more exclusive with dozens of kids in Class 7 and only six in Class 3. Vis is assigned to Class 3 and makes friends with Calidus Ericius – an underachieving but brilliant son of Catenan’s censor. Calidus is attacked by Eidhin Breac, a burly class 6 boy, before Vis defies social standing and knocks Eidhin out. This results in discipline and a warning from Principalis Veridius – the man Ulsicor blames for Caeror’s death. Veridius emphasizes to Vis that he was not responsible for Caeror’s death, and he needs to be careful at the Academy – warning that another altercation could lead to expulsion and receiving afterhours work shoveling shit at the stable.
While doing his shoveling duties, he is joined by a Class 3 girl, Emissa, who stood up for him during his altercation with Eidhin. Emissa is the “It Girl” at the school, and she liked Vis enough to help him shovel horse shit after a day of training. They become friends, and Vis also keeps pushing Calidus when he realizes he used to be a Class 3 student. Both give Vis lots of advice on how to progress through the Academy, and he graduates class 7 on the first day.
Class 6 is more of an issue for him, the Praeceptor Dultatis does not like him, and he’s paired with Eidhin for the Labyrinth and other training exercises. Funny enough, Vis and Eihden are the first team to ever beat the Labyrinth on their first try but are disqualified due to speaking another language (the only common language they both shared was Eihden’s native tongue). Vis is furious but knows he can’t provoke Dultatis any further or risk expulsion. The next month or so go by slowly, Vis clearly qualifies to move past Class 6 but cannot move up without instructor approval.
Vis also begins Ulsicor’s mission, sneaking out one night after stable cleaning to go visit one of the off- limits ruins. Vis is horrified to find several bodies pierced with Obsidian spears and hears voices while surrounded by the supernatural occurrences. Veridius races over to investigate who triggered the alarm, but Vis is already gone – wounded but covers that up with an “accident” the next morning while walking down the stairs to breakfast. Eihden knows what Vis is up to but agrees to keep the secret if Vis can teach him the Common language. The friendship between the two starts here.
The time comes for the Festival of Ancestors, where Vis will rendezvous with Ulsicor, Ulsicor’s parents, Lanistia, and Ulsicor’s wife Relucia. Ulsicor is disappointed with Vis only reaching class 6 and what Vis tells him about the ruins does not placate him. They work on a plan to drop Vis off at the second ruin site on the way home from the festival, and Ulsicor stresses that if Vis doesn’t make any progress he’ll be sent to a sapper. The big surprise here is that Relucia turns out to the be Anguis member who took down Vis’s transect. She is married to Ulsicor as a cover, and once again tells Vis that he will do what she wants, or she will expose him.
Ulsicor makes Vis a grappling hook device and he sneaks off to visit the second ruin site. This plan involved jumping off the Transvect and swimming to shore. He’ll have one day to inspect the ruins, then grapple onto the last Transvect back to the Academy without anyone noticing. When he gets to the ruins, they’re different than the last ones. This one has bodies as well, and when he progresses through, he sees a “person” who is “guarding” the Labyrinth hidden within. This Labyrinth is much more challenging than the ones at Ulsicor’s home and at the Academy. The “person” is immediately killed during a demonstration, and a new “person” takes their place. While escaping, Vis sees a wounded Alupi (big wolf) pup injured and struggling in a stream. He helps the animal and spends the night with it before it heads off on its own. Vis barely makes it back to the Transvect but is safe and arrives unnoticed back to the Academy.
Praeceptor Taedia, the teacher for class 5, forces Dultatis hand to get Vis up a level. Dultatis agrees to advance Vis if he can beat fellow student Ianix in a dual. Vis happily accepts, having trained dueling his whole life back on Suus. However, Eihden and Calidus quickly tell him that Ianix was the school dueling champion. They quickly get to work training with Vis, teaching him how to use the equipment and getting practice in. Even Emissa joins! By the time of the dual, Vis is ready to go. With the whole school and faculty watching, Vis starts piecing Ianix up. Unfortunately, Dultatis and Ianix are cheating, his armor doesn’t register any hits. Taedia and Vis try to prove it, but it’s clearly rigged, and they have no choice but to continue the fight. Vis grows frustrated, and ultimately, he just physically knocks over Ianix and beats him with his helmet. Vis advances to class 5 and has more respect and fear from his classmates.
Vis quickly moves through Class 5, and grows closer with Calidus, Eihden, and Emissa. Once he’s in class 4, he focuses on making friends there – particularly with Aequa who still doesn’t understand how he saved her at the Festival of Jovan. His free time is spent training the Labyrinth, studying, and teaching Eihden how to speak English. Everything is going well as Vis works to get his way towards Class 3.
There’s another festival (I forgot what it’s called and couldn’t easily find it when looking it up) where Class 4 is allowed to attend. Vis has another purpose for going, he needs to meet with Relucia again. She informs him that he will be going to the home of Indol Quiscil to train over the trimester break with other Class 3 students. The real purpose is to spy on Indol’s father Dimidius Quiscil who is a powerful leader within the military branch of the government. Once again Relucia leaves Vis with no choice.
As he leaves, he tries spying on her and finds here speaking with an unnamed man about their next plot. At that point, he is chased by two goons who try to beat him up. At that point Class 4’s Praeceptor Scitus steps in and informs Vis that it was set up by Aequa in an attempt to prove Vis has been excelling due to his use of will. Spoiler alert: Vis doesn’t cede will, he’s just the fucking man. Scitus informs Aequa that she will be ranked bottom of Class 4 and Vis will be next in line for a promotion.
When he returns, Vis is invited to join the rest of the Class 3’s on the holiday to train for the Iudicium (the final test all Class 3 and 4 students take at the end of the school cycle). Vis knew about this from his discussions with Ulsicor, but he did now know that this training would be taking place in his home country of Suus. Really fun part of the book, he explores his home country, and we get a ton of backstory. The people there still recognize him, but no one blows his cover. He listens into the military meeting, learning that they are planning another attack and believes that they are the ones who organized the attack at the Festival of Jovan. Bonus points here when he saves Emissa from drowning, securing her love and support.
They make their way back to the Academy with a month to go until the Iudicium. Vis knows that no one from Class 3 is going to fall back, so he baits a student named Belli into a game of “Foundation” (I pretend this is their version of chess). Like with the duel, Vis is already extremely skilled and hustles this girl into playing him. The stakes, agreed upon by the Praceceptors, are that the winner advances to Class 3. Vis wins decisively and is now on to Class 3. Bonus here was that Belli was blackmailing Calidus over info he gave her about the census, which is why he voluntarily moved back down to Class 7. Vis gets Belli to turn over the blackmail, then goes back on his promise to give her the spot back. It’s a cold world that our boy Vis knows all too well. He trains hard every day, slowly rising towards the top of the class which will put him in position to win Domitor (Valedictorian). If he wins that, he will have control over his destiny and doesn’t need Ulsicor’s support.
The time comes for Vis to choose a team of underclassmen for the Iudicium, he obviously goes with Calidus – who agrees to help him despite his knowledge of the danger, and Eihden. After speaking with Principalis Veridius, Eihden drops out and will not say his reasoning. Aequa is his replacement, Vis is gambling that her character will prevail over her motive to sabotage him. They begin training, and becoming a great unit that has a chance to win the whole thing.
The event starts, I’ll describe it as a Hunger Games type event that prohibits killing of other students. Vis and team have their plan but are ambushed and knocked out by Belli and her team who very much hate him. Belli gives him a kick to the face, and Aequa joins their team signaling they’ve been double crossed. Vis and Calidus wait around trying to get free as night approaches, when Aequa come back and frees them. She never betrayed them, she just improvised in order to save them. Shoutout Aequa, I was ready to hate this bitch, but she finally came around. Aequa explains that Veridius promised all Class 4 students that if they were the ones to retrieve the idol, they would be Domitor. This explains why Eihden dropped out, he’s fiercely loyal and wouldn’t put himself in a spot to betray Vis. Same applies to Aequa, who owes Vis enough not to double cross him. Calidus obviously doesn’t care about being Domitor, so the prize didn’t move him either way.
They work to steal a tracking tablet from some of the “protectors” but quickly realize these people are not their friends. They are Sexti who are capable of uprooting and throwing trees, Vis barely escapes as they send Calidus off to scout. Vis starts out solo to go find out what’s in that second set or ruins he visited after the Festival of Ancestors. Once he arrives, he is able to tackle the Labyrinth and make it through to the other side. He finds Belli’s mutilated body, signaling that Veridius or someone else had her sneak here to try and find what Vis is looking for. After exploring, the letters “WAIT” and “RU-“ appear on his arm just in time for him to make a break for the exit. He fights off the undead to the best of his ability but is overwhelmed. Who saves him? The Alupi wolf pup (named Diago after Vis’s birthname on Suus), now full grown, that he had saved a few months earlier. I was fist-pumping as I immediately pictured Ghost fighting along side Jon Snow in Game of Thrones. They both escape and he works to rendezvous with Aequa.
Aequa and Vis find a mass grave filled with members of the “Protection Squad” – signaling that the Protectors they encountered are imposters. Vis also finds members of another Indicium team in the grave as well, and his focus shifts to trying to save everyone – Emissa and Indol were still competing. Vis uses the tracking stone to find Indol and convinces him that he is telling the truth. While Indol’s team splits up and heads back to safety, Vis locates Emissa’s team and goes to help. He finds her three teammates dead, and she is hiding still trying to retrieve the idol and win the competition. Vis confronts the Sextus who’s guarding the idol. After losing the unfair fight, Emissa (who’s using will by the way) comes out and kills the Sextus – saving Vis in the process. She demands Vis gives her the idol, and vis is taken aback a bit stating, “I would have just given it to you.” Emissa notices Vis’s injury from fighting the undead at the Labyrinth and starts sobbing, at that moment she throws a knife into Vis’s stomach as he falls to the ravine below. I’m not sure how, but he gets the idol back in the process.
Diago pulls Vis to safety, and they head to find Calidus. They find one of the Sexti torturing him, and Diago flies in to eliminate the threat. Vis explains what he can to Calidus and begins bringing the near-death boy back home. Along the way, Calidus dies and Vis shows up back at the academy wielding his dead friend along with the idol. Vis is livid, now he knows that pretty much everyone is his enemy, but he now has more leverage.
When he comes to in the infirmary, Veridius is there trying to explain and get Vis to come join him in the Religion department of the government. He even tries to excuse what Emissa did, but Vis cuts him off before he has a chance. Vis now has one of his arms (the injured one) amputated and informs everyone that he plans to use his Domitor prestige to go work in the Census department with Calidus’s father. The book ends with a flashback to what happened in the Labyrinth. Vis is “out of body” transported to a new world, where he meets Caeror Telimus. They write the warnings on his arm so that the Vis in the current world he would know to escape, I’m not sure if that’s where the damage to his arm came from. The book ends there, but wow is there a lot to talk about.
Alright I guess I could have used chat GPT to write that, but it was fun going through and trying to remember each part of the book. I think I retained a lot! If you made it this far, God bless let’s get into my opinions and takeaways from this.
First and foremost, Vis is just the absolute man. He’s the way Harry Potter would be if he wasn’t such a pussy (yes, I know Harry was 11 when he first started, and Vis is 17). You want him to be the smartest? Done. You want him to be the toughest? Done. You want him to be the coolest? Done. The plot armor of this book is that Vis can do everything, and instead of shying away from that, they lean into it. He’s an incredibly likable character, that I think will resonate with pretty much everyone who reads this – unless you have slaves, you probably don’t like the slaves revolting. The dueling, Foundation, and Indicium passages read like pure thriller, and I was openly rooting for his victory to everyone at work who would listen to me.
The storytelling and world building were incredible, this is a 650-page book that I read in three days and have been telling everyone about. I thought I would have no idea how to keep these characters straight, but it all flowed perfectly. Three of my favorite book series growing up were: Harry Potter, Alex Rider, and The Hunger Games. This took a bit from all three and made an incredibly unique story. It was really fast paced, but not in an overwhelming sense. The author really did not waste any pages, and that’s always a joy to read.
I have some questions about the story, but this is book one of a trilogy with book two coming out later this year so I’m sure these will all be answered in time. Let’s start with Ulsicor. Is he a good guy? I don’t think so. Even though he helps Vis escape poverty, he doesn’t really hide his motives. Obviously, him and Vis share some of the same goals, but when push comes to shove, I absolutely believe Vis would be sacrificed. The stuff with Relucia is weird too. I find it unlikely that someone as intelligent and connected as Ulsicor would marry an enemy – but as seen with Vis and Emissa, love can be blinding! The irony here is that Ulsicor warned Vis ad nauseum about Emissa and the dangers of love. Lanistia is the best, I know that she’ll be Vis’s ally by the end of this.
Speaking of Emissa, what the hell man? The queen bee had all the warning signs for our boy Vis. Smart, attractive, and most importantly she was interested in Vis. You could argue she showed up the stables and later started drowning as a way to get Vis to trust here. But it didn’t read like that. If anything, this was “she is so obviously going to betray him that she has to be safe.”. I was so bought into their love, I hate to admit, and was very betrayed when she tried to take Vis out. A few things here, Veridius was telling Vis that the “betrayal” didn’t go the way Vis thought it did, I’m curious to find out what he meant by that. Also, she was using will, another huge question. My guess here is that she is apart of the Anguis and Relucia’ s plan – she recognized Vis’s injury as something more and thought mercy killing him was the best option. That would explain the crying and trepidation before she threw the knife at him. I refuse to let their love story die; I’m hoping it resolved itself in the next book.
Calidus, man. What a tragic story that was incredibly well written. He proved to be the perfect ally for Vis and gave him everything to help accomplish his goals. I hope Vis is able to form a relationship with Calidus’s father – there’s no doubt that is a part of his plan in going to work at the Census. Contrast that with Eidhin, a completely different character who ends as Vis’s best remaining friend. We thought he was a bully, a kid who later revealed had fought the Cantenan Army and was sentenced to the sapper as a result before his father reached an agreement. This kid could do everything Vis could but speak the Common tongue, I have no doubt as the story progresses Vis will lean on him for support. At the moment, it looks like Vis can only trust three allies from the Academy: Eidhin, Aequa, and maybe Indol – guy hates his dad and Vis saved his life. If he becomes an enemy that’s not good.
Principalis Veridius was another weird case. He undoubtedly is hiding something, whatever is in those ruins will hold the key to the future power shift. He toes the line between friend and foe the whole time with Vis. I think that he has his own plan for the future, I’m not sure that they align with any of the other power struggles. I’m glad Vis didn’t join him at Religion, he’s going to be going up against all three branches of the Hierarchy and anyone who is a part of one of them is an enemy.
And the ending? I have no idea what to make of it, but I’ll give my guess here. I think that during the Cataclysm, there was another world/dimension opened up. I think the world Vis and gang live in, is the “new” world created by the Hierarchy and the other world is the “right” one. It’s obvious that Veridius is using the Iudicium to have students try the Labyrinth at the ruins to get to that other world. Caeror is alive, and Vis knows that. The next step here is trying to figure out what it is, and how to get back. I think he’ll keep using Ulsicor until he gets that information. I expect a time jump in the next book, Vis will need some more power and possibly wield will in order to defeat the Hierarchy. We’ll see if he takes that step.
All in all, this was just an incredible story. I cannot wait until the next book comes out and will make sure it’s read immediately upon release. I’ve tried telling everyone who would listen to go read this, and I really want this made into a movie. I have no screenwriting experience but will do it for free if that means that Amazon won’t make it into series. This has the potential to be a blockbuster franchise like Harry Potter or Dune and we need to ensure that happens. If you made it to the end, thanks for reading I really enjoyed writing this out. I think we’ll do a double book blog next week in lieu of a movie blog. Score for this is 5.0/5.0 but I would give higher if I could!
