The Lost Sisters

“Locke had been as good as his word. He had shown me how to make Faerie love me. He had shown me how to be a shaper of a story. He had done more than that, even; he had shown me how to achieve something like immortality.” This was a fantastic interlude! Seeing the events of The Cruel Prince from Taryn’s point of view was really interesting and sheds some light on her reasoning and character arc. I also love that it’s structurally formatted in the second person, but the focus is still on the first person perspective. We get a great deal of insight into Taryn’s character that we don’t in The Cruel Prince, mostly in the framing of fairytales. The fairytale parallels really shine through in this short story, and it shows that Taryn is the idealistic one. She’s the one who wants a fairytale, who longs for romance and love. She knows that it’s not a reality, but she desires it all the same. Getting to see the origins of Taryn and Locke’s relationship was very good, and it makes much more sense now. Locke is still an awful person, and I think Taryn is blinded by her love, but we at least get to see why that’s the case. Also, the story with the bard whose heart Locke makes Taryn break is just tragic. Although this was incredibly short, it was very insightful and fun to read! I’m very glad I read this before going straight into The Wicked King.