Month one of my Wars of Light and Shadow (re)read went well and I’m looking forward to rereading book two, The Ships of Merior.

While this intro to The Ships of Merior is spoiler free, being that it is the second book in a series, and I do include a small wrap up of where book one ended, it may contain information you don’t want to know yet if you haven’t read book one. You can find the intro to book one here. I’ve also got a page where I’m linking all of the posts related to the (re)read – intros and discussion posts.

At the end of The Curse of the Mistwraith, the battle was over, ending with heart break. Lysaer has gone off to stoke his hate and lust for vengeance, and Arithon is heading off to both pursue a dream and try to avoid further bloodshed. In book two, we pick up five years after the conclusion of book one.

The half-brothers Arithon and Lysaer have defeated the Mistwraith and dispersed the fogs that smothered Athera’s skies. But their victory comes at a high price: the Mistwraith has set them at odds under a powerful curse of vengeance.

Lysaer, bred to rule with majestic charisma, and wielding the power of light, raises a kingdom from ashes, and an army to found a new order. He has sworn to bring down his half-brother, the man now called Master of Shadow. Arithon is mage-trained: his heart’s passion is music, not war. Driven on the run, he must use every wile at his command as he seeks to defy the forces that inexorably propel him towards an armed confrontation.

I’ve only ever had the paperbacks available to me, as the UK editions that I had access to didn’t come in hardback until Arc 4, so I have the two book volume: The Ships of Merior and Warhost of Vastmark. If you have the hardcover edition, your volume will therefore cover two months of this (re)read.