The Bone Shard Daughter

Unique magic system and fantastic characters
I've meant to read this book for a while now and am so glad I finally picked it up, I immediately wanted to read the second part.
The world building is done nicely, as the MC learn more, so do we but not in a scholarly or boring way. And as the story continues, we see the characters grow and learn - and find out more about the mysteries. My favourite part was the magic system: everyone gives up a piece of bone shard and the connected life delivers energy for whatever monstrosity the emperor designed, so we have magic, suffering and obviously a rebellion. There is also some sort of “familiar”/ spirit animal that has to be further developed in the next book, pretty please?
The plot had me guessing all the time (in a good way) and new elements kept changing my theories. I was definitely surprised by the ending as it felt a little too closed but then another POV opened the door to the next book wide open.
In this case, I read the German translation and it was a smooth read without linguistic hitches (thumbs up to the translator), I'd guess the English original is also a smooth and easily understood style.