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language: English
country: USA
year: 1987
form: novel
genre(s): fantasy
series: Heralds of Valdemar, #2
dates read: 16.3.26-17.3.26
Mercedes Lackey’s Arrow’s Flight is the sequel to Arrows of the Queen. it begins as Talia graduates from Herald-in-training to Herald, but despite her obvious competence, ominous rumors surround her, something she learns only a few days after she sets out on her final eighteen-month “internship” to mark her as a fully qualified Herald.
this is a more cohesive book than Arrows of the Queen, in that it mainly has one through-plot: when Talia’s internship supervisor tells her about the rumors — that she has been, consciously or unconsciously, using her magical empathy to manipulate the people around her, including the Heir to the throne of Valdemar — her self-doubt destroys her control over her abilities, revealing that it had no foundation in the first place. apparently. fortunately, halfway through the book, she and her supervisor (and latterly friend-with-benefits) get snowed in in the middle of nowhere for a full month, so she has a lot of time to learn how to (re)gain control. this occupies about 40% of the book, and then the final two chapters show Talia rebuilding her confidence in her judgment and nonmagical abilities. the end.
taken in isolation, I don’t hate this! I appreciate that Talia and Kris are genuinely just friends with benefits, though for a while each of them believes the other has Feelings. the power dynamic is a little messy, to be honest, but their relationship obviously consensual, and the administrative power Kris has over Talia is somewhat balanced by the fact that Talia’s magical abilities almost kill him on several occasions.
unfortunately, this is not a book in isolation: it’s a sequel to Arrows of the Queen. the thing about this plot where Talia never actually had control over her abilities and her emotions fuck them up is that we literally knew this already. Arrows of the Queen discusses the fact that Talia’s abilities are influenced by her emotional state. more to the point, Arrows of the Queen spends quite a while telling us about Talia developing extremely fine control over her abilities — a control which she demonstrates early in Arrow’s Flight. having her self-doubt fuck things up I could certainly believe. the “revelation” that her control was never really there in the first place, though? did we not see her doing some five-minute magical trauma untangling for her best friend on like. page 30 of this same book? hello? I simply did not buy this. so: I like the plot in principle but in practice it felt like it was retreading ground we’d already covered.
aside from this throughline plot, I was a little frustrated by the range of things that seemed like they should have been plot points but were just not picked up on. there’s a Significant Comment about finding the right person to train Talia, but after we meet someone who is obviously the right person Talia and Kris just leave town immediately. and then Kris teaches her instead. this book also “explains” the importance of arrows by having someone tell Talia — and so readers — at some length about the significance of all the different colors of Herald arrows that are used for signaling. this arrow code is used exactly once in the novel, in a scene where the arrow doesn’t really add much that couldn’t have been conveyed by having Kris stick his head through the gates and yell, “there’s a plague in this town! go get help!” I kept waiting for it to show up again and it never did. at one point two Special Messengers (sic) show up, apparently, to, like, investigate Talia. she explains her reasoning in the dramatic legal case she’s just passed judgment in, and they leave immediately. why did they come all this way??
an extremely perplexing book. I am reliably informed, however, that Arrow’s Fall has something more closely resembling a conventional fantasy novel plot — and Talia did just get a prophecy in this, though I admit I’m skeptical that everything in the prophecy can be covered in one single book. we’ll see!
moods: emotional, (EXTREMELY) horny, reflective, tense