Cast in Fury by Michelle Sagara

Kaylin Neya is a Corporal of the Hawks, one of the three branches of guardsmen who patrol Elantra, the city of the Dragon Emperor. Kaylin was born in the fiefs, the parts of the city barely controlled by the fief Lords, who usually spend more time running crime than looking out after those in the fiefs. But she and her friend Severn got out. Kaylin by being adopted by Marrin a Leonine woman who raises many of the city's foundlings and orphans. And when she became old enough, she became a city guard.

Kaylin is human, but different. When she was 12, magical sigils appeared on her skin, for no reason that she could determine. She has magical power, but she doesn't want to do magic. The best she can do is heal, which is rare, but she uses her power as a midwife, saving children and mothers from death. Recently, however, the dragons ruling the city have realized the power she holds, and put her under the tutelage of one of their own: Lord Sanabalis, Head of the Guild of Mages. Despite being able to heal, she has a hard time using her power for even the simplest of other tasks. Partly because she is unused to using her power that way, and partly because she really doesn't want to do anything but heal. To keep her power contained, however, she must wear a special bracelet that limits the power she can access.

In the past few months, Kaylin has fought off a rogue Dragon, rescued a Tha'alanni child, been to court, and been sucked into a part of the city that predates Elantra, which recognized her somehow. She also witnessed the Tha'alani, who are used in the city as mind-readers by the court and the Emperor, and hated and feared as a result, try to stop a tidal wave that could have destroyed the entire city. In doing so, she lost her fear of them, but that isn't true for the rest of the city.

In fact, the sight of so many Tha'alani before the tidal wave has made people think that the Tha'alani tried to destroy the city, and people are keeping watch over the enclave where the Tha'alani live with weapons, ready to destroy what they hate and fear.

The Emperor has realized this, and comissioned the Imperial Playwright, Richard Rennick, to write a play that will mitigate the hate and fear the Tha'alani are experiencing, and hopefully cause the humans around them to understand them better. He did so, but the Tha'alani found the play distasteful, considering it to be a lie. So now Kaylin and her Partner Severn have been seconded to the Imperial Palace and Rennick in hopes of him writing a play that will have the same effect, but which will not infuriate the people the Emperor is hoping to save.

At the same time, though, trouble hits the Halls of the Law where Kaylin serves. Her superior, a Leontine named Marcus, is charged with killing another Leontine and replaced by Mallory, a Hawk with a stick up his butt who wants to make the Hawks run smoothly. But he does so by enforcing regulations and informs Kaylin that if she doesn't follow regulations, she will be kicked out of the force. But Kaylin cares less about that than in saving Marcus. She travels to the part of the city where he lives, and talks to his first wife and Matriarch of the Pridlea where he lives. She also talks with his other wives, and discovers that one of them has a sister who Kaylin midwifed through her first birth.

But there is a problem there. Marcus's wife, Sarabe, has a difficulty in her background because of the color of her fur. She and her sister should have been killed at birth, but escaped that because their parents loved them. But when they were older, their parents died, and now they had nowhere to turn for shelter. Marcus took in Sarabe, but her sister Marai, made her own choice. Marcus eventually took Sarabe to wife, and when Marai became pregnant, she contacted the Pridlea, and Marcus gave her Kaylin's name as a midwife for her child. When the baby was born, Kaylin was there and became a sort of mother to the child by licking the birthing fluids from its eyelids. Under Leontine Law, doing so makes her a mother to the child.

But because the Baby was male, by Leontine Law, he will have to be slain. And therein lies the problem. The Leontines don't want to tell Kaylin why the color of the baby's fur makes it subject to death under Leontine Law. Sarabe has children, but hers are all female, which, apparently makes her safe somehow. Kaylin asks about Marcus's mood, hoping to prove him innocent of the murder of which he is accused, but they know nothing. She and Severn go to see Marcus and get to speak to him, but he is closemouthed about the fight that led to the murder, although he does say that he is guilty, which devastates Kaylin. She cannot believe the man she knows is guilty of cold-blooded murder. Or even murder in a fight.

They spend the day with Rennick in the Tha'alani compound, where Kaylin heals four Tha'alani who were attacked by the townsfolk out of fear and hatred, and that night, Kaylin and Severn visit Sarabe's sister, Marai. When they do, though, they are attacked by a night-black lioness and nearly killed by Leontine Mage. Since Leontines are very proud about the fact that they don't have mages, Kaylin wonders about this. The fire the mage blasted them with burns down the building, but Kaylin and Severn save each other and help Marai save her son. But it soon becomes clear that Malin was the animal who attacked them, and she is close-mouthed about why, although she maintains it was to save her son. They bring Malin to Marcus' Pridlea, where the other Leontines take her in, even her son.

The next day, Kaylin asks Lord Sanabalis to help them investigate the possible mage, and he agrees, and they travel to the Leontine part of the city, where he speaks to all the Leontine around in a strange tongue that Kaylin almost understands and finds herself disobeying his orders and climbing out of the carriage to be near him and hear this language. After a long time, he is done, and says he was telling the Leontine how they were created, and that they needed to hear it.

Caught between the two tasks: helping save the Tha'alani and saving Marcus and Marai and Marai's son, Kaylin can hardly rest, and when it turns out that the Outcaste Dragon who she fought before may have had a hand in Marcus' problems, she can't stop until she has saved the innocent and punished the guilty. But does she have enough magic in her to rewrite history and make a better situation for Marai's child, and can she save him if the Dragon Emperor decides to get involved?

I found this book fascinating, and trying to summarize it was hard, especially with all the information that was uncovered and everything that went on in the book. So much happens and so many secrets are revealed that a shocking turn of events seems to occur with every chapter.

But while we begin to understand more about the races of Elantra, Kaylin seems to become more of a mystery with each book. Her powers, such as they are seem to respond to the situations she gets herself in, and yet, once the situation is over, they mostly go away. In this volume, she speaks in fluent Elder Tongue at one point, but after the crisis is past, she needs help to speak it and understand what she is speaking. And the tattoos on her body have something to do with it... because after she spoke long in the tongue, her tattoos glowed blue and were hot to the touch. And when they stopped glowing and cooled, she was back to being unable to understand much of it.

In a way, it is interesting and frustrating to have a heroine whose past and abilities are such a mystery. Interesting, because it keeps you reading, and frustrating because the information about her and her abilities is doled out in veritable crumbs and you occasionally want something substantial to sink your teeth into.

While this book isn't about Kaylin so much, it gives far more information on the Leontines and their background as a race, and also a great deal of information about their culture. Each book in the series, except for maybe the first, has delved into one of the races that live in Elantra. With a great number of races calling Elantra home, this promises many more books to come and more things to learn about Kaylin Neya. Because each race is covered in detail, they come across as complete and interesting rather than just "races shown in the Cantina sequence". Each race feels as though they are real and have life in more than just a series of books.

It's this kind of reality that draws me to this series, the sense that Elantra is an actual city somewhere keeps me coming back and deeply enjoying what I read. I've recommended this series before, and I will continue to recommend it. It's just too good not to.