Queen Song

There will definitely be some spoilers if you haven't read Red Queen. If you have read Red Queen, while you don't need to read Queen Song, it certainly makes the background of the villain more interesting and more diabolical. She was planning for a long time. She's seriously evil. She has no saving grace, just a desire for power. If she ever has a redemptive moment in a future story, I will be shocked.

Queen Song is the first of two companion stories written for the Red Queen series. Victoria Aveyard flushes out Cal's mother, the first wife of the King. Coriane is a kind girl, not made for life at court. We learn that Cal is a lot like his mother. She loves machines, building things, figuring out how they work. She finds her talents wasting away, except for when her father needs something repaired. Coriane and Julian's father is terrible. At best he ignores Coriane, at worst, he trades on her position, to the downfall the of the whole house. He uses her skills, but then scolds her for her dirty hands. Coriane is never allowed to be happy, even once she becomes queen. I also think Coriane would have like Mare.

With everything that happened, I'm left wondering what King Tiberias IV actually died from. Did Robert actually die of a broken heart? If he did, it's so sad. I wonder if he had been around, if Coriane might have lived, or at least might have figured out what was going on. Plus, her guard was definitely helping Elara, right? Basically, this story made me even more suspicious of anything that happens around Elara.

My only problem with the story is that I found the ending a bit abrupt. I knew what was going to happen, but I feel like there could have been a longer descent into madness. A confession of something between Coriane and Sara? I just felt like stuff happened right at the end, then the story was over.

Queen Song was a good story. While the focus was Coriane, I feel like we learned a lot about Elara too. She's in it for the long game. Since I picked up Cruel Crown, I'll be able to read Steel Scar soon and maybe learn what the Reds were doing while this was happening to the Silver Royals.