We Lie with Death (The Reborn Empire Book 2) By Devin Madson

A Grimdark Fantasy SPFBO4 Break-out Series!

Now on to this amazing book. In We Lie with Death, we find the all the players in action, their loyalties divided, and the situations of each have dramatically changed. This presents a whole new set of friction as loyalty and betrayal play a huge part in how the story arc will proceed.

I am a huge fan of the chapter POV for each character and love the icons which signal the POV change in this series. Even though you want to scream at the book to continue with the current characters as you turn the page. It’s so well written though, that your frustration is forgotten in one paragraph and you are riveted once more in a blink.

Rah e’Torin’s arc remains the anchor and joins sections of the story. His remarkable stubbornness about the core of the Levanti and what they are, are highly divisive among his people.

Empress Miko Ts’ai’s story of determination plays out as she flees from detection while she still seeks to unite her people against all invaders. Not knowing who to trust, she is quite accidentally joined with Rah e’Torin, and it changes them both irrevocably.

Cassandra Marius and the passenger within her body are now the subjects of the witch doctor she thought would free her of her burden of soul sharing forever. Torvash, her witch doctor, is a mystery even to those closest to him. Labeled for the first time as a Deathwalker, we find many gifts both within elderly Kocho, and the mute assistant, Lady Saki. There are others who work with the ancient God-man, and Cassandra learns from him that there have been others like herself. His scribe Kocho is a wealth of information and there is a great twist here involving the deposed, but surviving, Empress Hana Otako. Two more stubborn women thrown together are hard to find. It makes for great dialogue and even with all the death, there are moments of levity as they spar.

Dishiva e’Jaroven is a captain of the second swords of the Levanti, who finds herself elevated to Commander at the side of Gideon e’Torin who has proclaimed himself emperor of Kisia. Gideon’s vision of a mingling of the Kisians and the Levanti is compelling, but not enough to sway the most stalwart Levanti from their code of honor as Swords of the Levanti.

“We are the Swords that hunt so your hands may be clean. We are the Swords that kill so your soul may be light. We are the Swords that die so you may live.”