Skullsworn

Brian Staveley wrote one of my favourite epic fantasy trilogies of recent years, so I was excited to read this. It's a standalone novel set several years before the Chronicles Of The Unhewn Throne, focussing on one of the secondary characters from that work. When we meet her here, Pyrre Lakatur is approaching her final trial before becoming a fully fledged priestess of Ananshael, the god of death. She has a kill list to follow, and two older priests observing her at every moment. It's a relatively short book, but Staveley fits in an awful lot - the rituals and customs of the assassin priests, an occupied city reaching tinderbox levels of frustration and rebellion, a long suppressed religion with a nasty line in sacrifices, an enigmatic tribe living in the swampy delta nearby and mysterious old gods. There is a good sense of place throughout - you can almost hear the insects and feel the sweat of the delta. Pyrre is a very different character from the version we see in the later books, full of doubt and uncertainty. Unlike the Unhewn Throne, this is a first person narrative that stays in one person's head throughout. You don't need to have read those other books to enjoy this. It's a true standalone - there is a shared background, but no knowledge of the earlier (later, depending on your sense of time) books is necessary to get this story. In fact, it's probably a good entry point to decide if you like Staveley's writing before embarking on the thousands of pages in the trilogy. Well worth reading.