It was a wonderful read that brought me to another world. If you're looking for a heavy romance, this isn't the book for you. The characters are complicated and have a lot of moving pieces, but I appreciated the whole process of getting to know them. Jude, in my mind, is a badass, and Cardan, in his own way, is as well.Jude is a strong character who has been through a lot and is struggling through her struggles in this novel, but she isn't the stereotypical fragile girl who needs saving. Cardan is not depicted as the stereotypical male with a passion for war and swordsmanship, but rather as a man with a keen intellect who can use it to get himself out of precarious circumstances. Both of these characters are very complex, and it was worth reading about them the whole time just to see how they dealt with the various circumstances that arose during Jude's rise to power.