A NOTE ON THE SPOILERS
A while ago I got a comment tantrum from a semiliterate rando because apparently some people are too stupid to understand a SPOILER WARNING, so I thought I’d elaborate on my exact definition of a spoiler. I AM GOING TO SUMMARIZE THE ENTIRE BOOK, INCLUDING THE ENDING. Think of me as a very niche Wikipedia. If you have a problem with that, you are welcome to stop reading at any time. I don’t make money from this content. I don’t care how many people read it.
This is your legacy, Fedup: an extra line on an obscure book blog that probably doesn’t even have ten followers. It’s not exactly a Nobel prize, but it’s still quite a nifty little achievement. Your parents must be so proud. Please seek help.
Mirrored Heavens
Rebecca Roanhorse
You’re off the edge of the map, mate. Here there be spoilers for this book, as well as for others in the Between Earth and Sky series. Other reviews in this series can be found here.
On earth, in heaven, and within,
Three wars to lose, three wars to win.
Cut the path. Mark the days. Turn the tides.
Three tasks before the season dies:
Turn rotten fruit to flower,
Slay the god-bride still unloved,
Press the son to fell the sire.
Victory then to the Carrion King who in winning loses everything.
Some prophecies are really just not worth the paper they’re printed on. (Or, as case may be, the air in which they were sung.) I’m putting that out there now because Roanhorse definitely made some choices in the twilight of this series, which might not be obvious to everyone who was hoping for Serapio’s journey to end with a bang – and it does, to be sure, but I had to sit with it for a bit before I could get past the storm of emotions. Grief, for one; rage, denial, cautious hope; and, at the end, a kind of wild joy. “Disappointment” is too strong a word for some aspects of the conclusion, though it had its moments of anticlimax. All for a purpose, of course. Roanhorse is generally a purposeful writer.
Things have, of course, gotten worse since the end of Fevered Star, when Naranpa left Tova in Serapio’s destructive hands. In the time since her departure, Serapio has become known as the Carrion King; the eclipse has not lifted; the Sky Made matrons have been scheming; the Cuecolan sorcerer Balam has managed to ally with Hokaia, having orchestrated the slaughter of the priests in order to break the Treaty that formerly bound the Meridian, and is now plotting to conquer Tova; and everybody hates Golden Eagle, which betrayed Tova to ensure its own supremacy. The final straw comes when the rest of the clans learn that Golden Eagle was involved in the slaughter of the Sky Made students at the war college in Hokaia. With the matrons baying at his door for justice, Serapio executes every Golden Eagle adult, starting with Suuakeh, the mother of matron Nuuma, and drives the rest of the clan from their homes. This doesn’t actually eradicate the clan, as Nuuma and her daughters and a handful of favored elites are currently in Hokaia, but, well, it’s something. After the slaughter, Serapio is visited by the witch Zataya, who delivers a prophecy from the Coyote god, promising him both victory and loss in three easy steps.
With time running out and his options dwindling, Serapio sets about fulfilling the prophecy to the letter. He begins by recruiting Okoa to his side after a failed assassination attempt, which was to have been carried out with a dagger specially crafted from the Sun Priest’s mask (“Turn rotten fruit to flower”). He then plans his own marriage to Isel Winged Serpent, daughter of the matron Peyana, but tricks Okoa into killing the girl at the altar (“Slay the god-bride still unloved”); and then, with that done, he sends for his father, Marcal, and reluctantly kills him (“Press the son to fell the sire”). Unfortunately, no easy solution pops out at him even after all this death, and nothing seems to change. When his measures prove ineffective against the coming armies, Serapio miserably concludes that the prophecy wants him to sacrifice Xiala, though he knows he will never be able to accept this. Meanwhile, Xiala herself is supposed to be working for Balam, but she ends up leading a fiery revolt when Teek is conquered by Balam’s colleague, Lord Tuun, an arrogant micromanaging sorcerer who dreams of setting herself up as an empress. Tuun finally flees with her army in tatters, but not before murdering one of Xiala’s dearest friends before her eyes. Enraged and grieving, Xiala comes into her full powers as an avatar of the Mother, the sea goddess worshipped by the Teek, and summons a kraken to destroy the remains of Tuun’s army.
Back in Hokaia, Balam seems poised for victory: he has been secretly practicing dreamwalking, with which he has been trying to hunt and kill Naranpa, and his physical armies outnumber the Tovan forces on land, sea, and sky, which would seem to give him the edge in any confrontation. He is assisted in his plans by his cousin Tiniz, also known as Powageh, a shadow sorcerer and an ex-Watcher who fled Tova after the Night of Knives and later became Serapio’s most trusted tutor. Powageh is mostly on Balam’s side and serves him faithfully, though xe becomes worried and uncomfortable as it becomes increasingly plain that Balam’s constant dreamwalking has loosened all the screws in his head. Horrific nightmares blend with daily life until Balam begins to lose all sense of reality, haunted by the ghost of Saaya, his former lover and Serapio’s mother. Lost in his dreamscapes, he almost fails to notice an assassination attempt by a vengeful Iktan, who holds him responsible for the massacre at the war college. He tries to save his own life by telling Iktan that Naranpa is alive, but this utterly backfires when Iktan kills him anyway, or tries. Though badly wounded by Balam’s sorcery, Iktan goes on to wreak bloody vengeance against Nuuma Golden Eagle, who knew of Naranpa’s survival but purposely withheld this information, then makes xir way north in search of Naranpa. After Iktan’s departure, Balam manages to recover from his injuries, but he is left with a permanently damaged voice. On the bright side, Nuuma’s murder galvanizes the surviving Golden Eagles like nothing else, and her eldest daughter Terzha takes command, swearing vengeance against Iktan.
The sorcerous shit hits the fan when an angry Tuun invades Balam’s private room after somehow surviving the kraken and flatly refuses to participate in the naval portion of Balam’s invasion plan. Balam turns this to his advantage by sedating and then sacrificing Tuun, using her blood – as well as the blood of every jailed thief in Hokaia – to open a shadowgate that transports his entire land army to Tova in the blink of an eye. Unbeknownst to all, Xiala tags along, having stalked Tuun all the way to Hokaia, and arrives just in time to learn of Tuun’s final fate. Knowing that Serapio will be completely blindsided by the shadowgate, she joins the crowd just long enough to travel to Tova, where by chance she bumps into Okoa. Despite a near-fatal encounter with Terzha, Xiala escapes on crowback while Okoa kills both Terzha and her eagle, though he ends up stranded on the ground not far from the Cuecolan camp. After delivering her warning, Xiala enjoys a brief but blissful reunion with Serapio, in which they pledge their love and finally do the deed. War is still on their doorstep, but things are a bit different now: with the power of the Mother running through her veins, Xiala promises to sink Balam’s fleet before it reaches the shore.
With Xiala firmly back by his side and his prospects slightly less terrible than they were the day before, Serapio gives her the sun dagger, telling her to use it against him if he becomes a danger to her, then leads an attack against the Cuecolan camp. Here he runs into Okoa, who has been trying to find ways to stymie the Cuecolan army, and puts him in charge of the battle. The minute his back is turned, Okoa is murdered by Chela, new Shield to the Crow matron. As Okoa lies dying, Chela tells him that his death was ordered by the matron, also known as Okoa’s sister Esa. Elsewhere in the camp, Balam becomes so obsessed with the meaning of an obscure word repeatedly uttered by one of his ghostly hallucinations that he sacrifices Powageh and uses xir blood to open a second shadowgate to take him straight to the Watchers’ abandoned tower. Serapio arrives at his tent just slightly too late and finds only Powageh, who uses xir own blood to allow Serapio to follow Balam. With xir dying breaths, Powageh reveals that Balam is Serapio’s father.
As armies and gods converge in Tova, Naranpa learns the rudiments of dreamwalking from Kupshu, a crotchety former Spearmaiden who lives in a small village just outside the Graveyard of the Gods. She learns enough to enter Balam’s dreams, having realized that he’s out to get her, but has to cut her tutelage short when she learns that Iktan is gravely injured and in need of help. She finds xir hiding in another town in the north and heals xir with the power of the sun god, then brings xir back to Kupshu’s village, where she persuades Kupshu to help her confront Balam. Iktan also agrees to help, on the condition that they marry immediately. After a joyful wedding (FINALLY!!!), Iktan and Kupshu escort Naranpa to the Graveyard of the Gods and keep watch over her physical body while she travels to the dreamworld. Her original intention is to put an end to Balam and his stalking, but her god has other plans, and she instead sets fire to the entire city of Tova, more or less against her will. Though this takes place in her dreams, the wall between dreams and reality happens to be particularly weak at the moment, and the city does in fact burn in real life.
While Naranpa destroys the city outside, Serapio gets to the tower in time to interrupt a violent confrontation between Balam and Xiala, but is felled almost at once by his god’s vicious desire to kill Naranpa. Though Balam is armored against Xiala’s Song, she learns to wield her power in a different way, killing him instantly. Just before Serapio’s will can be completely overwhelmed, she stabs him with the sun dagger, driving the Crow from his body. Finally free of his god, Serapio becomes a flock of crows who flee Tova for good. This is not, of course, the end: despite her grief, Xiala marches down to the shore and Sings Balam’s fleet straight to the bottom of the sea, exactly as promised. In the Sky Made world, matrons Peyana Winged Serpent and Ieyoue Water Strider are dead, having died in what are now called the Stillness Fires. Esa Carrion Crow was overthrown by Chela, who became matron in her stead and imprisoned her, though she is later said to have committed suicide when her body washes up in the river. Xiala returns to Teek and becomes its queen, implementing a number of progressive policies that bring Teek back into the main world while also displeasing her more conservative countrywomen, while Iktan brings a comatose Naranpa back to the tower to be entombed in the library.
Six years later, Iktan – now ambassador of Tova – visits Teek and arrives in a bustling port city completely devoid of Teek’s former women-only isolationist policy. Among other things, Xiala has opened Teek to trade with countries outside the Meridian, revealing a world far larger than Iktan had ever dreamed. This isn’t to say that Teek has become more vulnerable: its new queen is good friends with the kraken, which guards its shores and as far as I know is undefeatable. In the palace, Iktan greets Xiala as an old friend and tells her of a rumor that Serapio is living in the mountains to the north. Xiala initially balks, but Iktan offers to stay on Teek and protect her son, a little boy named Akona (“black-winged”). To sweeten the deal, Iktan tells Akona that xe is very hard to kill, and promises to teach him xir skills. Xir motives are not entirely altruistic: xe suspects that Serapio still has working knowledge of shadow sorcery, and hopes that he will be able to help retrieve Naranpa’s mind from the grasp of her god. With that settled, Xiala makes her way to the mountains and finds Serapio alive and well in an abandoned monastery, where he has a garden and sells intricate wooden carvings in the neighboring village. There is an initial shyness, but he invites her to dinner, and she tells him of their son, who is made in Serapio’s image and has an affinity for crows. Despite the distance and the years, they quickly renew their bond, with the shared understanding that now everything begins.
First of all: great book. I have some questions. Why wasn’t Iktan allowed to narrate more chapters, for example. Why is this the first book in the series where Iktan is allowed to narrate. I need more of Iktan’s outrageous psychotic narcissism, because somehow xe never becomes unlikable and I don’t even know how that works. Xe remains my favorite Meridian character of all time, though Xiala is now a very close second. I am pleased with the resolutions for the main characters: I ship Naranpa and Iktan and I REAAAAAAALLY ship Xiala and Serapio, and I have no complaints about their relationship arrangements, though I would have liked some resolution to Naranpa’s fate. Still, I suppose I got it, albeit indirectly; I share Iktan’s faith in Serapio, and I like to believe that Roanhorse would not have left us there if Serapio were not capable of helping in some way. I like to believe that there is a future in which Nara wakes up and lives in peace with Iktan for the rest of their lives. Barring that, I like to believe that there is a future in which Roanhorse comes back and gives us some more concrete answers in the form of another book or two or twelve. Sign me up for every one of those books. I will read them all.
That being said, this wasn’t quite the wrap-up I was hoping for, because it raises new questions and then refuses to answer them. I would have liked an explanation for the majority of the Teek losing their Song. The Teek themselves state that the Mother has turned away from them, but why? Is it because of all the baby boys who were drowned upon birth? If that was displeasing to her, why didn’t she make this clear sooner? Why is Xiala alone allowed to keep her Song, other than Main Character Energy? Serapio and Naranpa were both physically invested with the powers of their gods before they became avatars; when and how did Xiala receive the powers of the Mother, and why was she chosen? Was she just randomly born with this power? Will the rest of the Teek ever get their Song back, or is it now limited to those of Xiala’s bloodline? (There is a hint that Akona might have the ability to Sing, but it isn’t confirmed.) I really wanted an answer to this, because the loss of the Song was such a heartbreaking blow to every Teek woman who is not Xiala. Music is a building block of the entire Teek culture and I waited all book for an explanation, and I never got one, and I don’t know why.
I am also still unclear on the point of Okoa’s character, because as far as I can tell he doesn’t have one. His story never goes anywhere; he struggles and is briefly uplifted and struggles again and changes his allegiances a few times and then he gets tortured and then Serapio breaks him out, and then he struggles some more, and then he dies. I probably wouldn’t have noticed this if he were a more interesting character, but his chapters have been dull from start to finish, which is shocking when his story includes giant flying crows. He’s not endearing or funny or loyal, and his relationship with Esa is a study in whiplash, though I don’t know if I necessarily agree when he laments the ease with which others manipulate him. I would say he’s more confused than anything else, which is understandable given his circumstances but never really improves. None of his storylines come to anything. There isn’t even any resolution to the murder of his mother, which is the driving force of his story in the first book; Iktan is never held accountable for it, and the cousin who allowed it to happen dies before Okoa can process his confession. Even at the end, when he decides that he wants to perform some grand gesture to prove his worthiness as a servant of Serapio, it’s not convincing. Had he survived, I am certain his confusion would have persisted. Some people are just destined to be permanently confused and unhappy, and Okoa happens to be one of them.
And that is, in the end, my biggest obstacle with this book: it’s a wild ride and a lot happens, but – outside of the romantic relationships – I can’t say any of the storylines have a satisfying conclusion, because they all fizzle out in an almost deliberately disappointing way. Okoa is unceremoniously murdered in the middle of a nighttime camp raid. Naranpa tries to save her city and drive off her stalker but ends up in a coma, seemingly without cure. Serapio misses the big showdown with Balam while he’s writhing around on the floor, and then he doesn’t even get to defeat his god because Xiala does it for him. The fact that Balam sired him means about as much as his forced fulfillment of the Coyote prophecy, which – you guessed it – has no effect on the resolution of the plot. In a way this is fine because the prophecy really bothered me, because Serapio was going around with this little checklist like he was at the grocery store shopping for a miracle and it was never clear for whose benefit he was doing this, let alone who might have been grading his performance. “It wants Xiala,” he says at one point, but it’s not clear to me if he thinks the prophecy itself – a nonsensical bundle of words and portents – wants Xiala dead, or if he actually thinks some god above is watching him putter around with their holy finger on the miracle button. The point seems to be that prophecies are pointless and destiny is made by people who, say, have a sun dagger up their sleeve, and I would agree. Still, it’s irritating that so much time and effort went into this prophecy that ultimately has no meaning. Every death in service to the prophecy is pointless. The uncharitable part of my mind thinks that the Coyote did this on purpose, just to be annoying and chaotic, and I would like to kick it for that.
As the conclusion to the trilogy, this book is fine. It’s riddled with more typos than I remembered from my first read and it left a few ends flapping in the breeze, but it mostly wraps the story up more or less neatly and none of my favorites die, and I am grateful enough for that. Unfortunately, the magic system is shakier than I would have liked it to be, and there are aspects of it – the details of Tuun’s bloody sacrifice, for instance – that make it seem like Roanhorse was going for shock value rather than genuine worldbuilding. I do not mourn Tuun, and her sacrifice means nothing to me. But I don’t believe for a second that there was any real purpose in emptying her body of organs and leaving her heart in her hands, while she herself was left propped up next to the shadowgate built with her blood. The human body is not a bag of blood to be turned upside down and emptied when all the organs are gone. I’m fine with the procedure as described and I don’t know what that says about me, but at least have some reason for it other than cheap horror. The same goes for Iktan’s Golden Eagle breakfast slaughter, which is so satisfyingly gory that I almost didn’t realize it is also deeply unrealistic to expect a mortally wounded assassin to just completely massacre a roomful of people who presumably could have run for help, no matter how skillful the assassin. Maybe xe just killed them all quickly and mutilated them after the fact, but something about Iktan makes me think that would’ve been too merciful an end in xir eyes.
Overall, I would say Fevered Star is the best book in the trilogy by virtue of sheer emotion and momentum. While I enjoyed Mirrored Heavens both times I read it – it is a solid 4.75 stars for me – it does feel more muddled and less driven than its predecessor, even slightly less human, as reason is sacrificed for spectacle. But on the other hand, I love the world and the vibe of the series, and I really love the characters, though I am a little sad that I never got to see Xiala and Iktan shaming their respective avatars into peace. I love what Xiala has done with Teek; I love that the scope of this universe is not confined to the Meridian. I have to admit that, having gotten a hint of other countries and other cultures in this world, I am low-key hoping for another story in which Iktan goes on violent adventures around the world. Even with everything I’ve written, Between Earth and Sky remains one of the best series I’ve ever read, and I have no hesitation in saying that I will read it again and again.
