Voice of Crow

"Voice of Crow" by Jeri Smith-Ready is the sequel to a book I read last year called "Eyes of Crow". In that book, we meet Rhia, a young woman born into a land where the spirits of animals give gifts to young people, leaving them with some supernatural ability. In Rhia's place, she is gifted with the spirit of Crow, leaving her able to hear the voices of the dead. Because there are no other crow-born in her village, she is sent to a neighboring village, guided by a young man named Marek, a wolf-born who abused the gifts of his spirit, and because of this, he cannot turn his gift of invisibility off.

While at the village of Kalindos, she is tutored by her mentor Coranna and falls in love with Marek, even though she can't see him. In the end, they make love, and he is restored to visibility. But her people are under threat by another nation whom they call the Descendents, but who call themselves Illion. Illionders don't have the gifts of the spirit, and their lands are slowly being played out, so they set out to conquer Rhia's people. Of course, they fight back, and manage to drive the Illionders off at Rhia's home village of Asermos, but not without a great deal of lives lost.

In Voice of Crow, Rhia is pregnant with Marek's child, and has entered her second level of power, able to travel into the lands of the dead. Marek, since he once had a wife and child who died in childbirth, is already at his second level of power (second and third levels of power involve the next generation. Second level occurs when you become a parent, third when you become a grandparent). They are traveling back to Kalindos when they find Illionders travelling away from the village. Not knowing what they will find, they hasten back to Kalindos to find it, too, has been attacked. Most of the council who once ruled there are dead, and so are many others, but Coranna is still alive, along with many of the second level wolf-born, who each took a child and turned invisible to keep the children safe, spiriting them off into the forest (literally) unseen.

Despite the attack, Rhia's people feel like they might just have the Descendents beaten, and Rhia and Marek finally marry, to a great deal of celebration by her people, who learn that one of Rhia's children will be the next Raven born. She is also the most powerful Crow-born in several generations.

Meanwhile, back in Asermos, a Illionder named Filip is recuperating from having half of his leg chopped off. Despite the fact that they were enemy combatants, Rhia's people saved them from dying, mostly in order to get information about Ilion. Filip is suicidal over his leg, which will make him less than human in the eyes of his people, and shame his family. But he is also convinced that he is going insane, as he can hear the voices of the birds around him as human speech. And he isn't the only Ilionder having this problem, as another young soldier named Kiril can now create a ball of light with his hands. Kiril is determined to escape, but Filip, now maimed, cannot return home to his people. He will let Kiril escape, but stay behind himself. He also tries to get one of Rhia's people to kill him and put him out of his misery, but he is saved by the healer, who later learns of his new powers. She tells him she has been chosen by the horse, but he doesn't want these powers.

After he heals enough to be mobile, along with a prosthetic leg and crutches, Rhia's father, Tereus, takes Filip into his farm in exchange for Filip doing farm chores. Filip, although still wanting to die, also hates being a burden and agrees. There, he meets Alanka, a wolf-born huntress, who expresses an interest in him. They meet to talk many times.

Meanwhile, Rhia has been prophesied to bear the next Raven-born child, set to shake up the culture of her people. She gives birth to her son, and she and Marek enjoy being parents. But then her son is stolen by Ilionders, along with four other children from her village, and Marek goes off in pursuit. But he is captured by the Ilionders, and he goes quietly to look after his son. At one point he is nearly rescued, but they recover the wrong cradle, and Marek is forced to return with the soldiers as they take the children to Ilion. The Ilionders want to take the children so that they can raise their own set of children with power to later return and take over the lands of Rhia's people once more.

Mark and Rhia's son, Nilik, is sold to an Ilionder senator named Basha Mylosa, who lost her own son and needs a new one to raise. She not only buys Nilik, but Maren as well, and spends her time tormenting him, and later, ordering him to her bed, under threat of violence to his son to get him to comply. She teaches him to read a little and despite the fact that Marek hates her, he stays merely so that he will be able to stay with his son. But he knows that as soon as Nilik grows old enough to remember, Basha will have to get rid of him so that Nilik, who she has renamed Demedor, will think of himself as only her son.

Rhia, Filip and the others have arrived in the city and track Marek to one of the city markets. Filip has accepted the magic of the Horse, and now has it to draw on. He is also deeply in love with Alanka, and she with him. Filip overhears the story of Basha Mylosa, and her mysteriously-appearing son, who she is trying to pass off as her own. They contact Marek and arrage to get into the house by having Basha comission a statue of a Fox from Arcas, a Spider-Born with a gift for carving. Marek, who accompanies her, sees the statues Arcas has already carved and is able to deduce who is in the rescue party from seeing the statues of the spirits they honor.

A few days later, Marek awakes to hear Nilik crying. Basha had proposed taking the infants stolen from Rhia's people and training them so that when they grew, they could use their powers on the side of the Ilionders against their own people. But when the measure passed, she did not think they would also take Nilik. She once again demands Marek's presence in her bed, telling him she will not let him go until he makes her pregnant. But they are interrupted by Rhia and the rest, who break into the house. Basha is killed, and they go in pursuit of the cart with the stolen children, managing to catch up and save them just in time.

Filip's old companion Kiril is among the soldiers, and has been touched by Firefly. Filip persuades him to come back to Rhia's people, and Rhia must make a journey into death to retrieve a piece of Marek's soul that Basha stole from him. But Basha is missing a piece of her own soul, and she will not give up Marek's without her own. But can Rhia retrieve it before she is too weak to return from the lands of the dead?

This was an interesting and entertaining book, although I prefer the cover model on the first book to the one depicted on this one. Additionally, the story is expanded when it treats the Descendents or Ilionders, as real people and reveals that they, too, have magic, but that the magic of the spirits cannot survive in the Ilionder cities, as they are too far removed from nature. By showing the Ilionders as real people and not just evil invaders (although many of the cultural attitudes are extremely harsh- such as Filip's mutilation being something that would bring shame on his family, and later on, he sees his father talking to another senator. His father claims to miss him, but with Filip disguised as a beggar he is about to reveal himself to his father when his father basically says that it's better that Filip died than lived on a useless cripple like the beggar in front of me (referring to Filip)). Although this does veer a bit towards the "all Ilionders are cruel and nasty" trope, there are examples of good Ilionders as well, and they are shown to have a real reason to invade Rhia's country, not just because they are cruel and nasty.

I am definitely looking forward to the third book, and even more if Jeri Smith-Ready sees fit to write them.