King Inea gets thrown in the castle dungeon by his own councilmen. They’ve told him he’s going to save the country by sacrificing himself to the queen as personal payment: I still couldn’t comprehend it. No. That wasn’t right. I could comprehend. I just didn’t want to. It was too shocking. Yes, we were at war with our neighboring country. We always were. What I couldn’t grasp was the idea that selling out our country to the queen was in our best interests. Not even that! Selling me!
Yeah, councilmen are so full of it but my boy Inea was pretty soft and believed them, didn’t even fight them. I think about being 17 and having to run a country. Not so easy, I guess, so I cut him some slack. Anyways, there’s a guy in the dungeon with keys and access to the whole place but all Inea manages is to get pouty and whiny.
Me to Inea: C’mon, suck it up. Take the keys and suck it up!
Me to dungeon dude: Leave Inea he’s not sucking it up. But the guy knew Inea’s daddy, the dead king, and respected him for reasons we have to wait for and helps Inea out of a jam.
They part and Inea is left to fend for himself and during the 5 months he finds another brave soul willing to take a bullet for him, really it’s take a knife or sword in this story but same diff. Caday and Inea become friends and Caday pledges himself to protect Inea, which is a bitch of a job because the people think King Inea has deserted them. Ansyn, dungeon dude, is a musician, a musician with ninja skills. He travels all the towns singing political songs about King Inea not leaving his people and dissing the queen at the same time. The queen’s pissed, sends out assassins to kill both Inea and Ansyn, then they both meet up again. Ansyn also pledges himself to Inea and a woman healer, Amalee, a friend of Ansyn, fixes Inea up because he gets stabbed. A lot. He really does in the whole book. Hard times. Everyone in the land’s out to get him because a bounty’s placed on his head by the bitchy queen so they’re a stabby bunch. Inea has to get people rallying around him and Ansyn, Amalee and Caday are the start. One other villager suddenly shows up and also pledges allegiance to Inea, shady bitch: Dae gave me a chilling smile. “You truly are gullible. Just as they said you would be.”
“But that poison is going to be fire in your body until you die screaming and begging for it to be over. Isn’t that nice?”
When Ansyn dispatched Dae with his nasty ninja musician skills I was like~
There’s a bit of wandering and hiding and rallying people to support King Inea in getting his rightful throne. Ansyn also leaves and comes back and leaves and comes back again. Ansyn can’t really leave Inea for long because of his connection with Inea’s dead father.
Inea is a Negative Nigel for the a little while, I wanted to shake him and tell him to grow a pair. You do get his vulnerability when you hear about the slack councilmen and about his father’s death but when Ansyn told Inea: “And… you’re welcome. Now stop freaking thanking me or I’ll stuff something in your mouth to get you to shut up.” I agreed with him, Inea would carry on about how undeserving he was that Ansyn came back, which is okay the first 12 times and then it’s, okay! we get it! Ansyn and Inea butt heads. Ansyn butts heads with Caday. Inea and Kadeon butt heads. There’s a bit of hostility in the book from one to another, dark times and all, who can you trust? It’s tense and people are trying to kill them, but they form a tight bond and that moved them toward cohesion and love.
On one of Ansyn’s expeditions he runs into Kaedon and Kaedon is good with his mouth~huh? huh? By now there’s freaking assassins 
everywhere. Ansyn’s one and so’s Kaedon, the difference being Ansyn has always been on the king’s side and Kaedon was working for the queen. It seems to be all cool though, Kaedon says he shares the queen hate as much as the others because it’s really Inea’s kingdom and she taxes the people harshly and treats them like her personal ant colony. There’s some division first off in the loose camp they form~ Caday is loyal to Inea and I was a big fan of Caday from the start and thought he would be with Inea but it’s probably better he isn’t. Ansyn and Kaedon form a closeness first but things change in the progression of the story and the 3 of them come together in a menage. Oh and I almost forgot Amalee, she is one sassy healer wench who’ll throw a pot at people *cough cough Ansyn* because she’s loyal to Inea first and because she likes to tell it like it is. She’d slap them around if they got all dramatic too.
King’s Lament got better as parts of the story drew together and they built an army of believers and supporters. While it’s true Inea could be grinding in the beginning because he’s 17 and has a lot of growing up to do, which he does, he became stronger and a true believer in himself, and honey, that’s the best kind of believer there is!
King’s Lament got better as parts of the story drew together and they built an army of believers and supporters. While it’s true Inea could be grinding in the beginning because he’s 17 and has a lot of growing up to do, which he does, he became stronger and a true believer in himself, and honey, that’s the best kind of believer there is!
The following snap is because I’m truly devoted to Ben Barnes. You’re welcome.
“She won’t live long. And she won’t conquer anyone else. This is my kingdom. My lands! My throne! I will take it back.” I clapped so hard when Inea said that, but I gotta tell you that the queen is the Terminator in battle and all with skillz that killz.
The language King’s Lament is written in is more of a modern one with 2 POV throughout~ Inea and Ansyn. It’s simple to read and I see it as a young adult 16+ to adult fantasy. The sex isn’t uber graphic, IMHO, mebe I’m desensitized but most teenagers know about or see sex somewhere else. Sorry parentals, your kids are already up to speed. There’s romancing between the 3 main characters, when they stop butting heads, so people have to be AOK with threeway lovin. Yes, honies, there’s a coming together of heads in more ways than one: Hadn’t Inea said something a lot like that? That he didn’t want to have to choose just one? Did that mean… all of us? It wasn’t something I’d really heard of before.
It does mean all of them, why choose one when you don’t have to?: Curled protectively between them, I sighed heavily before I leaned and kissed Ansyn’s cheek first then Kaedon’s. “I love you. Both of you,” I said. Comfortable, I closed my eyes and let myself drift off.
This book is an uncomplicated and fun but longish book. It doesn’t take itself mega seriously with laughs and bitchy moments, hello, suggesting a proposal to snap the other one in the menage and redecorating the king’s rooms. There’s fantasy and a dark ages feel to it, only with assassins, with some battles and fighting and town travelling. Ansyn can sure wield a knife, and Kaedon too, and the supporters get a workout at the end. Roles between characters shift, new characters become important, and a lot of emotion spills over on the page~these guys get more than misty eyes, and they can bicker, but they love hard, too.
I’d recommend King’s Lament for gay fantasy romance readers from mid teens on who want something sweeping but uncomplicated and fun.
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