Book Review
Title: Song of Silver, Flame Like Night by Amélie Wen Zhao (Song of the Last Kingdom Book 1)
Genre: Mythology, Fantasy
Rating: 4.75 Stars
The opening to Song of Silver, Flame Like Night was gripping to say the least and after a few months of reading non-fiction to immediately sucked me in. We are introduced to Lan, who works at a Teahouse in Haak’gong after the Hin people have been conquered by the Elantian’s which led to the death of her mother. We know that when her mother died she put a mysterious scar on Lan’s wrist that only she can see and she wants to know what it means. To do this she visits a local man named Old Wei who finds her artefacts from The Last Kingdom to help her since the Old Gods and magic have been outlawed in their current time and this is where we get introduced to Zen.
Zen is a practitioner or magic user and goes to one of the last remaining schools which has been hidden from the Elantian’s. However, upon hearing Old Wei was seeking a practitioner text, he was heading to meet with him only to find him dead but he does pick up the scent of another magic user and begins tracking them down. He ends up finding Lan at the Teahouse and there is an immediate connection between them, not romantic, but recognising something in each other without realising it. Lan has caught the attention of an Elantian general and is going to be sold to him for the night, allowing Madam Meng to finally throw her out on the street because Lan doesn’t fit in with the other songgirls. However, when she is taken to him, she attempts to fight him off and summons her magic killing him. During this moment, we are thrown into Lan’s past were we recognise her mother had magic and when the Elantian’s came for her they wanted something from her she refused to give them. In that fight, her mother kills many soldiers before she is killed by an Elantian wielding metal magic which seems distinctly different from the Hin’s elemental magic.
Zen senses Lan uses her qi but so do the Elantian magicians, now the race is on for them to escape. However, they soon find their path blocked by the Winter Magician, the same one that murdered Lan’s mother and he seems to be after her now having recognised the magic. While Lan and Zen do temporarily give them the slip, the city is going into lockdown and they have to find a way out of the city. Being a port city, it is open to the sea on one side and the other three have high walls that are patrolled so Zen is going to use his magic to get them out but both are injured and running low on energy. On the wall, the pair are cornered as Zen passes out from his wounds, Lan comes face to face with the person that haunts her dreams and he seems able to see her Seal, the same way Zen can and does something to her forcing her to use her power along with Zen to get them out of the city.
Now they have a head start on the people hunting them but the only way forward for Lan is to join Zen’s school otherwise she will be killed either by other Practitioners to keep their secrets safe or by the people hunting her, leaving her with little choice. On their way to the school, Zen beings teaching her the basics of qi but Lan has never been a studious person and always looks for the easy way to do things which isn’t possible in this situation as their magic requires both determination and patience. In a meditation session, Lan ends up speaking to the spirit of her mother who tells her to follow her song to Guardian Mountain where something only she can find was left for her. While this seems to be the end goal, Lan has to deal with the magic the Elantian Magician put into her seal before it kills her as well as gaining some control over the qi she controls. So far, I was intrigued by the magic systems and how each side uses their magic, the mystery surrounding who Lan’s mother was and why she put the seal on Lan and I have a feeling there will be more reveals along the way.
The pair have escaped to the Central Plains, a place untouched by the Elantians where Zen begins teaching Lan about qi and the powers they have. He does end up explaining that she has a lot of yin energy and that means she is straying from The Way Zen was taught without doing anything but he hopes that training will bring her balance the same way it did for him. It is around here that we learn there is something inside Zen that he can tap into when needed but doesn’t like doing so because he can lose control if he isn’t careful. They are found by the Elantians which they weren’t expecting and are forced to use a gate seal in order to reach the School of White Pines but Lan has been shot with an arrow and is seriously injured. Upon arriving and waking, Lan is seen as a threat because she bears the Elantian metalwork which contains a tracking spell even though it has been blocked for now and because she can’t control her qi. A new seal is placed on her to stop the spreading of the metalwork and block the tracking spell but Zen explains that going to Guarded Mountain will be impossible if her mother’s seal is removed with the metalwork, so they need to do it before then.
This has risks because outside the sealing barrier of the school they will be vulnerable to being tracked like they were before and they might led the Elantians to the thing they want. Zen has realised that the Alloy wants something from Lan, the same thing he wanted from her mother and believes that the answers are in Guarded Mountain. I did notice that Lan doesn’t give the school her true name despite others using theirs which makes me think she might be linked to one of the important or powerful clans like Ulara. Lan begins her education but it soon becomes clear that she is miles behind because she can’t read or write as well as other students. However, she does show an aptitude for seals that is immense, even Zen comments that it can take years for students to get where Lan is with seals. With the help of another student, Tai, Lan unlocks a message her mother left for her, although they are discovered by Dilaya. Dilaya doesn’t like Lan and wants her kicked out of the school but Lan talks her way out of the situation.
That night Zen informs her they are leaving for Guarded Mountain because the Master who is going to heal Lan’s arm returns the following day. However, Zen doesn’t know the way and neither does Lan until she begins to hear music. She remembers her mother’s message and follows the music only she can hear which leads them to the School of Iron Fists which was ravaged by the Elantians. There they find the spirits of the Grandmaster and Master Shen are bound to the place with the Grandmaster becoming a demon which they free. Master Shen Ai left behind a memory for them and this memory implies that Lan’s family was extremely important to practitioners as she left an ocarina in Shen Ai’s possession to be protected. In her note, Lan’s mother referred to the person who could play the ocarina as the Ruin of Gods, and when Lan blows into it, it plays. They don’t have time to think on what that means as Elantians have arrived so they have to hide themselves within the Forbidden chamber within the school and Lan hopes they haven’t been followed again.
The pair end up being captured and taken to an Elantian stronghold where the Winter Magician uses his power to torture Zen in order to get information out of Lan. She tries giving half-truths but it quickly becomes apparent that isn’t going to work and she ends up giving up the location of the School of White Pines in order to save Zen but she also unlocks the power of the ocarina. The ocarina reveals star maps to the Four Demon Gods which is what the Elantians have been searching for and Lan knows she has to get them out of there but when Zen is stabbed through the heart, he reveals he has a demon bound to him. Zen made the pact with his demon after the death of his entire family, the school bound the demon after Zen lost control and maimed Dilaya and its power would only be released if Zen’s life was in danger. In these moments, Zen destroy the stronghold and fulfils his pact for 100 souls to the demon and even though he is free of the demon now he knows others will judge him for what happened to achieve it.
Afterwards, the pair know that the downfall of their Kingdom came from doing nothing with the power they had in the pursuit of balance. This means they have to go after the Demon Gods and find them before the Elantians do but they need to deal with the tracking spell and head back to the school. There Lan is treated but Zen is taken to be interrogated since his bargain has been fulfilled, upon awakening Lan uses her power in order to gain help and stop Dilaya from taking her for interrogation as she knows what she needs to do know. She heads to find Zen only to see Ulara ready to kill him and Lan stops her in the same way she stopped Dilaya and the pair flee from the school. In these moments, Zen realises how much power Lan holds and how far she has come in the short time they have known each other, now the race is on to find the Demon Gods before the Winter Magician does and save their Kingdom once and for all.
Lan and Zen begin trying to figure out the star maps but it is giving them trouble and the feelings between them finally bubble over and I was really here for the slow burn romance between the pair. However, Zen soon learns that the Black Tortoise is really close to them and there are Elantians heading there too, so he makes the choice to go there alone and bind the Demon God to him. While Zen is successful in binding the demon, the bargain will require 10,000 souls and himself, mind, body and soul and he accepts. Lan soon learns where Zen has gone and begins tracking him down bumping into Dilaya along the way, and as the pair arrive at the lake, they find the deal has already been struck between Zen and the Demon God. Here, we see a clash of ideals as Zen wants to fight fire with fire, giving the Elantians the same treatment they gave the Hin while Lan understands that power has to be wielded for the sake of the people without and this is the wrong path to go down and won’t follow Zen on this path of destruction making them in his eyes, enemies.
As we approach the final section of the novel, I can see the conflict that is going to carry over into the second book but I have no idea what is going to happen. Now Zen has one of the Demon Gods and there are three more to find, I am hoping that Lan will bind them to her but in a different way to Zen, allowing her to use their power and survive for the sake of her people but we will have to wait and see. By the time we get around to the final battle, we have gained so much information. We now know the only Demon God missing is the Crimson Phoenix, Zen has the Black Tortoise, Lan is bound to the Silver Dragon and the Azure Tiger has been set free. We also know there is a blade called the Godslayer that was created to keep the power of the Gods in check which Lan is going to find with Dilaya and Tai, while Zen is heading to his homeland with Shan’jun who managed to survive the initial attack. Overall, Song of Silver, Flame Like Night was actually a great book that sucked me in from the very beginning and I can’t wait to start the sequel immediately.
Buy it here:
Paperback/Hardcover: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Kindle Edition: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Comments