The Fire Within Them by Matthew Ward

I would like to thank Orbit for an advance copy of this novel in exchange for a fair and honest review

Publisher – Orbit

Published – 13/6

Price – £10.99 paperback £5.99 Kindle ebook

For the first time in a millennia, the kingdom of Khalad is divided. The Battle of Athenoch has fanned the spark of Bashar Vallant's rebellion to a raging flame. Tyzanta, jewel of the east, has declared for his cause, and other cities have followed. Vallant, the people's hero, may soon be powerful enough to challenge Caradan Diar, Khalad's immortal king.

But such power demands great personal sacrifice.

Afflicted with omen rot after channelling the Deadwinds to save Athenoch from the koilos army, Kat searches for a means to stop the disease killing her as it did her mother. Her journey will uncover secrets long since buried - secrets concerning her past, her family and the kingdom itself.

Eventually she'll learn that the past never stays buried in Khalad - and that the truth can cut deeper than any blade.

NB this novel is the sequel to the very impressive The Darkness Before Them by Matthew Ward and there will be some spoilers below

The second novel in a trilogy often gets a bad reputation as a bridge book. Important but can’t resolve things. But sometimes they upset the applecart and give you a different type of story altogether and re-shapes the journey we are on. In Matthew Ward’s intriguing The Fire Within Them we have an inventive epic fantasy tale that like the magical tattoos that form part of the tale changes shape and yet holds together with its’s earlier instalment The Darkness before Them.

In the magical kingdom of Khalad life is ruled by the immensely powerful Eternity King who has ruled for centuries. It is surrounded by the menacing Veil a mysterious cloud that can destroy the unwary within it. All has not been well with rebellions and political intrigue battling through. Into this are two sisters. Kat a woman plunged from the noble houses turned thief has now joined one of the rebel forces trying to fight aback against oppression and are seeking the lost secrets her father was gathering. She now has a sister Tanith – once a noblewoman and secretly half-daemon. Their last confrontation left Tanith destroyed in the veil but instead she arrives in an advanced building very injured but her powers are hungry for souls to feed on and an ancient cult now seeks her aid. The two sisters soon find they are on uneasy sides of the conflict about to erupt.

I was quite impressed how this instalment of the trilogy both shifts focus on characters and offers a very different type of story. When we first met Kat, it was rogue grifters versus corrupt nobles a very classic fantasy approach but throw in magic, gods and flying ships. This time though we have opened to a bigger tale focused on kat and the woman we now know to be her sister Tanith. Kat who is the more sympathetic lead we have been following is while now part of a rebel force also dealing with a powerful illness and the loss of her tattoo power. Her story is about finding out what she wants to do next and what she is capable of. We get here her working out her relationship with the enigmatic leader of the group Vallant, her best friend the deaf yali (and again I liked how her use of sign language is used in the story) but most intriguing the re-appearance of the delightfully amoral Azra – Kat’s former woman and a woman who plays her own games and is dangerous in a fight too. We get grifts, battles and escapes that keep us on our toes.

The other thread is now focused on Tanith who is now a woman with eh ability to absorb souls to feed her magical side. We should dislike her, but Ward makes her feel flawed and actually much more sympathetic than I was expecting after our first encounter. Her side of the story starts to flesh put the more magical and religious side of Khalad. An uneasy set of tales of bound gods, cold but immortal kings and cults and governments spying on one another. Is Tanith really the one designed to help things go finally right? Her plotlines then intersect back with Kat’s and I really liked the way the two characters are forced into uneasy alliances and re-appraisals of one another. There is a constant feeling this can go either way which holds up all the way through.

While all of this is going on we are though now seeing the bigger arc of the series appear. Linking back to elements we first heard about at the start of the series and its quite unexpected how mythic and big these events are by the end. By the end of these adventure everything has changed again. Characters are once more drawn into potential warring sides and not the ones you may have expected; and Ward isn’t really making it clear where we can go from here to set things right.

Fans of The Darkness Before Them will find that it is less a case of more of the same and just an evolving and intriguing story that adds greater richness and surprises to what we may have been expecting to happen next. A classical style fantasy tale with a host of inventive ideas playing with magic, heroes, and gods. A big story to tuck yourself up with and get absorbed into. Highly recommended!