The Crown by Deborah Chester

Lea, sister to the Emperor of Light, Caelan, has been kidnapped by the former soldier Lord Shadrael. He has been tainted by the Dark and is sworn to the Dark, missing his soul, having sold it all for vengeance on her brother. But despite his many sins up to this point, Lea has fallen in love with him, seeing the good man beneath the cold, cruel facade caused by his lack of soul.

The Dark has given Shadrael magic, but he has used nearly all of it in getting Lea across the continent to the people he has decided to sell her to, the Vindicants. They want Lea for their own reasons, mainly to use her health, beauty and magic to save their dying High Priest and use him to lead an army against Caelan and the deities and faiths of the Light.

But with his magic failing, his own men are starting to turn on Shadrael. Lea pleads with him not to abandon her to the Vindicants, but Shadrael is desperate to get his soul back. But the Vindicants take her and don't fulfill their promises, so they force him into another task for them: take a message to his brother, Lord Vordachai, ruler of Ulinia, and have him lead Caelan into a trap that will eliminate him and his troops.

But now that Shadrael and Lea have been separated, he realizes just how bad a mistake he's really made, and tries to go after her. But his body, broken from its long association with Dark Magic, betrays him, and he must heal before he can set out in search of her once more. But when his own brother betrays him to the Emperor in a scheme to sweeten the trap to make Vordachai seem loyal, Shadrael will have to escape and strike out on his own if he wants to free Lea and have any chance of regaining his soul.

Lea, meanwhile, is being tormented by the Vindicants, forced to give her breath and vitality to their wounded priest. Stripped of her gli-emeralds, she must survive until Shadrael comes back to free her. But in surviving the torments and tortures of the Vindicants, will she lose the purity that makes her a soul of the Light, like her brother?

It comes down to a battle between the forces of dark and light, and between the Ulinians and Vindicants and the Legions of the Emperor. Forced to fight on the side of the Vindicants, can Shadrael survive the battle and win the love and hand of the beautiful Lea? Or will the army of the Dead led by the Vindicants somehow be able to overcome the Emperor and his Legions?

Though it's been a long time since I read the first of this two-part series, The Pearls, the first few pages of this novel brought it all back to me. Shadrael, who started as a villain in the first novel, has become an understandable, tormented man who thinks he is doing the best for his country, even if the choices he's had to make now sicken him.

He does come to regret his choices, and much of this novel is devoted to his redemption from the forces of the Dark. But he doesn't do it in response to Lea and her tears, he must come to this determination on his own, by seeing how false the Vindicants are, and how much they have lied to him. He also comes to realize how much he has also fallen in love with Lea, attracted to her stoicism and bravery in the face of how much her life has changed, to the point that you actually start to root for him about halfway through the book.

I really enjoyed this book, even when I was reading about the not-nice things both main characters were undergoing during the course of the book, and while the ending wasn't much of a surprise, it was still very nice to read. This book may not be perfect, but it's a good read and enjoyble. I'd recommend it to my friends and patrons at the Library.