A Touch of Stone and Snow (Gathering of Dragons, #2)

by Milla Vane

Milla Vane returns to a world of kings, magic, and passion in her exhilarating A Gathering of Dragons series, as a great alliance forms to stand against an evil warlord intent on their destruction.

Danger lurks in the western realms. The Destroyer’s imminent return has sent the realms into turmoil as desperate citizens seek refuge—but there’s no safety to be found when demons and wraiths crawl out from the shadows. Even Koth, a northern island kingdom left untouched by the Destroyer a generation past, is besieged by terrors spawned from corrupt magics.

When Lizzan leads the Kothan army against these terrors, only to see her soldiers massacred and to emerge as the only survivor, she is called a coward and a deserter. Shunned from her home, Lizzan now wanders in solitude as a mercenary for hire, until she encounters a group of warriors seeking new alliances with the northern kingdoms—a group that includes Aerax, the bastard prince of Koth, and the man who sent her into exile.

Though they were childhood friends, Aerax cannot allow himself to be close to the only woman who might thwart his treacherous plan to save their island realm. But when a goddess's demand binds them together, Lizzan and Aerax must find a way to overcome their painful pasts. Or there will be no future for the western realms...

• ISBN10: 059319716X
• ISBN13: 9780593197165
• Publish Date: 21 July 2020
• Publish Status: Active
• Out of Print: 4 September 2024
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Penguin Putnam Inc
• Imprint: Berkley Publishing Corporation,U.S.
• Format: Paperback (US Mass Market)
• Pages: 400
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780593197165

Reviews

[Ashley]

Stopped reading at 32%.

Ugh what happened here? I loved the first book so much! It was so addicting. This book was just boring. :(

I think the problem was the noticeable decrease in romance. The first book, in my opinion, was mostly a romance book that just so happened to also be fantasy. The fantasy elements weren't the main part of the story; the romance was. But this book felt like the other way around. And I do love fantasy books — that's the main genre I read. But I didn't read this series for the fantasy. I started the first book for the romance — and it absolutely delivered. This book didn't. :( At least not in the first 32%.

Ultimately I was just bored and uninterested. And by 32% the two characters that make up the romantic plot had only barely spoken once. (They had a long history before the book started, but during the on-page story they'd only basically spoken once.)

[llamareads]

Content warnings: extreme fantasy violence, alcoholism, physical effects of going sober cold turkey (magically induced), sexual assault and rape (including that of a child, off-page)

I was absolutely blown away by the first book in the series and its angry, hurting characters, and expected more of the same from this book. Instead, I got an achingly sweet second-chance romance with kindhearted characters surrounded by a whole lot of awfulness, and it’s certainly one of the best books I’ll read this year. It takes a talented author to take what on its surface is a content-warning-filled barbarian fantasy romance – something inherently depressive and gory – and turn it into a hopeful, uplifting story.

“For that was who Lizzan was. Who she would always be. The brightest, most beautiful jewel that Koth had ever produced, with the softest heart and the bravest soul. Aerax had not deserved the happiness of a single moment she’d spent with him, let alone the years she’d given, along with the joy of every kiss and every touch. And he did not deserve to see her again.
Yet as a prince, even a feral one, he often got what he didn’t deserve.”

Lizzan is just everything. Soft-hearted and caring as they come, her parents tried to push her to become a healer, but she always knew she wanted to be a soldier to have the ability to protect the ones she loves. Exiled from Koth after a disastrous attack, Lizzan’s become a mercenary whose only concern is earning enough to drink herself back into a stupor. Running from her problems turns even more literal when she finds out that her childhood friend and love, Aerax, is looking for her. Aerax is the bastard son of the king of Koth, despised and shunned until an illness killed the king’s legitimate offspring. Aerax knows – and accepts – that Lizzan hates him for letting her be exiled without saying a word, but he still wants her to be safe and happy, and the best way to accomplish that is forming a strong alliance and surrounding her with competent warriors that she can befriend. Years ago, the Destroyer ravaged the world before departing across the ocean as mysteriously as he came. Now, warned that he’s returning, the broken kingdoms must try to come together to mount a defense. Painfully aware of her family’s fate since she was banished, Lizzan’s only thought is to die gloriously in battle and redeem her name for them, so she asks the goddess Vela for a quest – which turns out to be protecting Aerax. Aerax, of course, is not on board with the plan, especially the dying part. If Lizzan has a soft heart for everyone, Aerax is a compete softy for her. The way they negotiate their past and present relationship is heart-wrenching and ultimately empowering, and I’m not sure I’ve ever rooted more for a couple than I did for them.

“But . . . for a little while, can we be as we were before? Before my exile, before you went to the palace, before the red fever—when we were the finest of friends.”
“I would always be that for you,” he told her. “Not only for a little while.”
“But a little while is all we have.”

There’s so much more going on than the achingly sweet love story. Intricately plotted, with seemingly minor details holding the keys to major plot points, the pacing is excellent. It’s a story of redemption – for Lizzan and Aerax, and also . The world is richly imagined, a continent full of disparate cultures and ideologies coexisting and clashing, with a cast of wonderful characters. Caeb, Aerax’s saber tooth tiger-like companion, steals the show in practically every scene he’s in. There’s some crossover from the previous book in terms of side characters, as well, and it was lovely to see how those characters have grown in the two years since the last book.

“To all of Koth, I am a villain. And no villain was ever redeemed, except in death.”
“I know of many villains who were redeemed and lived.”

Returning to the island of Koth, Lizzan and Aerax’s homeland, is the focus of most of the plot. Koth is founded on the promise that anyone can, through hard work and talent, better themselves, like their founder who wrapped the island in protections so strong that it even protected the kingdom from the Destroyer. But that promise only holds true for its citizens, not illegitimate children like Aerax, and the cost of that protection is higher than any except the king and his heir know. I was not expecting to find a brutally honest takedown of the puritanical American Dream in a barbarian romance, but it was amazing, and the way it tied into Lizzan’s “villains can only be redeemed by their deaths” mentality was pure perfection.

Overall, I was absolutely blown away by this book and the way it sets up the next book and its couple. This will definitely be on my top-10 list of books for this year, and I cannot wait to see what happens next!

I received an advance review copy of this book from NetGalley. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

[EBookObsessed]

A Gathering of Dragons is an epic adventure which gets more addictive with each story.

A Touch of Stone and Snow features Lizzan who  wanted nothing more than to be a soldier. Even when she was a girl and her family wanted her to be a healer, Lizzan knew she wanted nothing more than to protect people, and with the help of a feral prince, she trained and trained until she was accepted into the royal army.  That's what makes the fact that Lizzan was shunned as a coward by her kingdom and her name striken from the Book all the harder.  Lizzan would never abandon her people or her fellow soldiers.   She has no idea why she was the only survivor and no one believes that there were wraiths on an island protected by the blessing of a god.     If it is not bad enough to be shunned by her own people, the battle left her with scars upon her face which resemble the curse that the moon goddess Vela gives to her Chosen who request a quest and fail.  Now every village she travels to shoos her away fearing Vela's wrath.

Tired of fighting everyone's contempt simply for existing, Lizzan decides that she will go to the Vela's temple and request an actual quest.  Problem is that Lizzan was quite drunk when she went into the temple and while she knows that the goddess herself spoke with her, she can't remember if she was given an actual quest or was it just a task but Lizzan does know that when her quest...task?...quest? is fulfilled, her reward will be to die in glorious battle, like in all the great tales, and her family name will be cleared.   She only needs to protect the first person she sees after leaving the temple.  Unfortunately, that person turns out to be the man who ripped out her heart. Then it must be a quest since all quests subject the questor to suffer pain beyond enduring.

Aerax is the bastard prince of Koth.  As a bastard, for years he wasn't even given a name, let along one written in the Book.   He spent most of his life shunned,  The only person who ever said his name was Lizzan.  She treated him not only as a person but as a friend and eventually as something more.  It was just after they were promised to each other, that a plague ripped through Koth, killing most of the royal family and suddenly Aerax's royal blood, bastard or not, was needed and he was taken away to the castle.  Now he has joined with the Parsantheans to help join the western realms in an alliance against the Destroyer.   He allowed Lizzan to get away from him but now that they have stumbled across each other's paths, he is determined never to let her go.  There is just something he must do first.  Something that might just make him a monster in Lizzan's eyes.  He can only hope that once it is done, she will understand that he had to be the one.

Aerax and Lizzan have always been drawn to each other and while she tries to keep him at arms length, they were never very good at staying apart.  And now that they are together again Lizzan is really kind of hoping that her quest really was more of a task because suddenly dying in a great battle and leaving Aerax to suffer alone feels like even more of a punishment than enduring shame.

This was such a great story.  Aerax and Lizzan have such a strong connection.  They loved each other for years, flaws and all and even when they are mad at each other, they can't stay away from each other or even stay mad.  There is just too much history between them.

Lizzan had been drinking a lot to forget all her pain and the goddess demands that she stop if Lizzan is going to take on her quest (task?) and the goddess decides she will purify all the water Lizzan drinks.  Lizzan agrees that she needs to stop  drinking but keeps forgetting and Vela spends the rest of the story turning Lizzan's ale into water.

I also loved Caeb who was a long-toothed snow cat, like a saber-toothed tiger, who Aerax and Lizzan came across as an orphaned cub and the hand-raised him.  He is a very intelligent creature and he is very protective of both of them.   After spending most of his life ignored and shunned by everyone, there are few people that Aerax even cares about except Lizzan and Caeb.  He doesn't get upset by snide comments because no one else matters to him so their opinions don't bother him.  It is funny how both Aerax and Lizzan try to get the other to hang out with the Parsantheans because they both want the other to open up and make more friends.

I did a quick re-read on A Heart of Blood and Ash and while it isn't necessary, we do pick up with some of the Parsantheans who were part of that first story.   There is also references of Blackmoor, who was the feature of the novella in the Night Shift anthology, The Beast of Blackmoor.  Again it isn't necessary to re-read it but I did remember that I enjoyed it and got more out of it this time since I understood the world building better and caught a couple of references in this story that I have forgotten about.

I thought this was going to be a trilogy, and reference to the next story is up on Goodreads, but I am hoping there are even more stories to come because several happenings piqued my interest and I can't imagine we are going to get to all those in the next story and face the coming Destroyer.   I am hoping there is a lot more to come because I am definitely invested in this group and seeing what becomes of them all.

Received an ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

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