Summary:
Road-weary soldier Lindel thought all he needed to do to return home was finish his current escort mission. Then he discovers one of his charges murdered with a wailing newborn in her limp arms and his ally Aemun holding the accused murderer at knifepoint.
His new mission? Take the murderer, Tylle, to face judgment and execution. But then Lin is ambushed by monsters and gravely wounded. While unconscious, Tylle magically stitches Lin’s wounds closed. An act forbidden by the Binding Tenets, laws that Lin’s military faction aggressively enforces. Lin wakes to find himself marked by Tylle’s magic, making him appear as an oathbreaker.
Unfortunately, that’s not Lin’s biggest problem. Tylle claims she can remove the markings if Lin helps her kill Aemun. What Lin doesn’t know is that Tylle is part of a secret coterie working against the military faction Lin belongs to and is the sister of Lin’s murdered charge.
Unless Aemun is alive to vouch for him, Lin will face a death sentence by his own people. But if Tylle is telling the truth, Lin might not need Aemun. No one would need to know Lin was ever marked. All he has to do is help find and kill his former ally. On the other hand, with Aemun’s support, Lin could find forgiveness for breaking the Tenets. Lin would betray his savior, Tylle, but he never asked her to save him.
Review:
Bloodwoven is one of those simple story arcs told in a simple fashion with a simple concept but still manages to convey a complex tale. The story is a literal journey, both physical and spiritual as Lin strives to complete a task he’s trained his entire life for but at the cost of his own beliefs. It’s a tale as old as time, one that I found incredibly interesting.
Let’s start with the basics, shall we? The cast is limited on the whole. Sure we get a bunch of named characters who play a part in story, but if we’re being honest, the cast is small, consisting of Lin, Tylle, Aemun, and Pael, with Gwen and the newborn there but really not all that big of players (despite the babe being the McGuffin). Bloodwoven is told exclusively through Lin’s POV and the story, especially the source of internal conflict (religious beliefs), needs him to be a strong character. Luckily, he is. More on that later. But Tylle, a priestess who challenges Lin’s beliefs, is an incredible foil, not only is she devout in her beliefs opposite of Lin’s, but she is an adept warrior of magic. Aemun is a right prick, but there are moments where you wonder if he’s just misguided due to the rigors of the belief system in which he and Lin were raised, which shows great characterization. Pael is both easy to understand and difficult to know where he stands, both in the same chapter. He’s also old and grumpy, can’t go wrong with that!
This world is based on the trope that the world is a tapestry and the threads can be manipulated by Weavers (the three leaders of Ferricum) and Binders. Binders, what Lin and Aemun are, can use the tapestry’s threads for many different forms of magic, the most common used are Wefts (attack based) and Stitches (a forbidden healing or enhancing form). In the simplest terms, Wefts are like using the Force, ie throwing objects, stopping objects, forming objects, etc. Over the course of the story, Lin uses Wefts to create a number of different magical spells, many new to Binders (because of his growth as a character). There are also some hardcore Binders called Noosemen who do some nasty magic, and they wear Jason masks and look like Anakin Skywalker (yes, another Star Wars reference) under the Vader helm.
Binders are held by the Binding Tenets (ah yes, the title of the trilogy) and one of said Tenets is to not use Stitches as that breaks rules. Any Binder who breaks the Tenets are called untethered, and when untethered, the person kinda becomes a monster, in that it drives them mad. During an intense encounter with some untethered, Lin is critically injured and Tylle, while technically untethered herself, heals Lin using Stitches (quite against his will) and the rest of the story plays out as Lin reconciles his beliefs with the new power growing within him.
Bloodwoven is a tale of Lin’s conflicts, both external and internal, and as such, this is a very intimate story. The journey to escort Aemun and Tylle to Ferricum to pass judgement on a crime is fraught with danger at every turn. And is action-packed to the brink, nearly bursting with magical fight scenes. Wefts are thrown left and right, untethered and former allies alike being cut to pieces. Lin and Tylle are constantly in danger and what little respite they get, doesn’t last long. It’s a pulsing book, that’s for damn sure.
But what balances all that action is the internal strife Lin goes through from the moment he’s Stitched by Tylle to the climax. A lot of expectations are placed on his shoulders as a character and I’m happy to report, Mr. Terral sticks the landing. It’s a tricky thing to have a character constantly at odds with their new present reality when their foundations are shattered. If you lean too far into self-doubt, the character might crumble and I find that less interesting to read. Lin has a heavy dose of ‘woe’s me’ but it never bored me, as he always seemed to tackle that thinking with a bit of optimism. And as mentioned, his interactions with Tylle were quite realistic, hostile at points, resigned at others. I found their relationship entirely engrossing. Tylle’s beliefs are neat, especially all the little changes in spellings (Wievers as opposed to Weavers) and the types of magic (Uethe – a blood woven spell akin to an oath) she introduces to Lin. There were plenty of lore drops, that as a reader, I found great, but also intrigued in how Lin was going to handle them. I also really liked Tylle’s explanations of the various gods and how they differed to the the Ferricum’s teachings. All of it was very cool. Lin’s relationship with Aemun, on the other hand, was very antagonistic, but it still made sense in the scheme of the story. I guess I can just say Lin is a great protagonist and his interactions with the main cast was all authentic and never forced.
If you haven’t gleaned it, Bloodwoven is a hyper-drive of a story. There are no frills, hardly any down time. From the moment of the inciting incident (the baby’s birth), we are thrust headlong in a frantic journey, the action hardly ever stopping. Even so, it doesn’t feel like we are rushing headlong toward the end. The prose is solid, never deviating from the necessary. It’s not a terribly long read, only some 370ish pages, just long enough to tell a complete story of one man’s spirit.
I thoroughly enjoyed Bloodwoven and Lin’s path. I’m quite interested in where Mr. Terral takes us next. Bloodwoven will be available on May 9th, make sure to add this to your never-ending TBR lists!