Knife Sworn by Mazarkis Williams, Tower and Knife Trilogy #2After spending most of his life in captivity, Sarmin now sits upon the Throne of Cerana. But his reign is an uneasy one. And the emperor’s own heart is torn between two very different women: Mesema, a Windreader princess, and Grada, a lowborn untouchable with whom Sarmin shares a unique bond. In times past, a royal assassin known as the Emperor’s Knife served to defend the throne from menace, but the last Knife has perished and his successor has yet to be named. Sarmin must choose his own loyal death-dealer . . . but upon whom can be he bestow the burden of the Knife-Sworn?
Last year when I got introduced to the line up of books from Jo Fletcher many titles had caught my attention and one of them was The Emperor's Knife by Mazarkis Williams. I am always a sucker when it comes down to an epic fantasy story that features magic, sword fighting, political intrigues and of course assassins. The story and the world that Mazarkis Williams started to build had some very cool idea's and the influences, middle eastern, Arabian thousand and one nights really made it stand out from the rest. Furthermore he left his story of The Emperor's Knife on one major cliffhanger!
The story of Knife Sworn picks up directly after the events of The Emperor's Knife. The first thing that felt to note here was that the tone of the story is slightly different than to what you were introduced to in the first book of the Tower and Knife Trilogy. In the first book we were introduced to the only surviving brother of the Emperor, Sarmin and to many other perspectives, but in the end Sarmin took to the Emperor's seat and became the new ruling voice, it is thus by these events that the book focuses on the all the courtly dealings that now accompanies Sarmin's new task. That of ruling the Cerani empire. This type of change does remind of the one that Jay Posey introduced in his series, first writing a action packed an brutal start but then delving deeper and deeper into the world and story itself and though for some readers this might come as a shock if you just sit back and take it all in it does definitely inspire a feeling of grandness to the story. And this is also why I am pleased that Mazarkis Williams went into this direction, because besides the building Sarmin's character further, he doesn't at all skip out on the action, it might be present in a less pronounced way but it is still there and just a word up front, an emperor needs a knife...
Ok so for the story. Sarmin has taken up on the throne of the Cerani empire, after finally being freed from his years of imprisonment. In the first book he was given a wife, Mesema and she has given Sarmin a young boy and heir to the throne. However to make things complicated, the mother of Sarmin, Nessaket has also given birth to a young boy, this raises the question as to who should be emperor. This coincidence raises some deadly stakes for Sarmin and his new family... However the job of an Emperor isn't only to mingle into family affairs, the predecessors of Sarmin had started many fights in order to expand the Cerani empire and this is one job that also falls onto Sarmin's lap, he has to deal both with the birth of his own son and that of his mother as well as waging war and everything that is accompanied by this. Added to this are his own personal "problems" he is receiving flashbacks and is hearing voices in his head besides his own...
The main focus of the story is on Sarmin and his dealings as new emperor but Mazarkis Williams also shows different sides of the story by several secondary characters: Grada, Nessaket and Rushes. Grada was also a character who was introduced in the first book and she had and still has a strong bond with Sarmin, in Knife Sworn their relation continues in a most precarious kind of way, on one hand Sarmin is strongly drawn to Mesema but on the other one he can't seem to forget Grada. Nessaket is one perspective that dots the i's when it comes down to playing dirty. Though we had already seen some of her character in the first book she now takes on a much more pronounced role and you see her planning and scheming about for the faith of her own born son. I can't really say that Nessaket is the evil person in the story but her character is one that has a high maternal instinct when it comes down to letting her son survive and with Mazarkis Williams laying such an emphasis on showing just what her character thinks and how she acts really helped to flesh her fully and t definitely mark her out as being dangerous.
One aspect that I was very pleased about was the whole development given to Sarmin's character. If you have read the first book you know that he was imprisoned for many years and that he due to specific circumstances rose up to claim the Emperors throne. However this shift from being imprisoned to being the strongest or better phrased powerful persons in the world isn't one that you can do in the blink of an eye and this is exactly what Mazarkis Williams shows in Knife Sworn. You can clearly see that the years of Sarmin's imprisonment has changed his point of view on several levels and he really wants to see the better in every person he meets but unfortunately this simply is impossible and this strains him. He even appoints a new Emperor's Knife in the hope that he never has to use it during the time of his reign he would rather try to solve everything by talking and discussing instead of drawing blood. But blood had to be drawn by his predecessors to make the Cerani empire what it is... Will Sarmin has to resort to this as well? Great character development and this promises a lot for the third and final book in the Tower and Knife Trilogy.
The last thing I want to mention about Knife Sworn, and which also was notable in The Emperor's Knife was the writing style of Mazarkis Williams. It's one that comes over as rock solid and very confident. With this he writes directly to the point, keeping the pacing and action in the book pretty tight. However this doesn't in anyway mean that there is a comprise being made between pacing and building the world of the Tower and Knife trilogy. It is precisely by this type of writing that Mazarkis Williams embodies so much more surrounding his world, he paints some very detailed surrounding in his story that if the setting weren't that grim and bleak would definitely invite you to spend your Thousand and one night adventure in!
The ending of Knife Sworn does allow you to guess just what Mazarkis WIlliams might want to show in the third book of the Tower and Knife Trilogy, Tower Broken, but I also had an assumption about how Knife Sworn would go but was wrong on that front. What Mazarkis Williams has shown is that you will be in for a surprise!
Knife Sworn is just a book that the Tower and Knife Trilogy needs. With The Emperor's Knife Mazarkis Williams gave a solid introduction into his world and just what kind of story he wanted to see, with the sequel, Knife Sworn, Mazarkis Williams goes into a quite a different direction but one that works in many ways to take his story further. It's not one that focuses heavily on the sword and sorcery aspect but one that cleverly builds on the court politics and intrigues that accompany the rise of the new emperor Sarmin. I for one was very pleased to have seen such a developments for many of the characters and in particular Sarmin. This taken all together can mean only one thing. Tower Broken will be one epic conclusion!
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