Format: Paperback, 544 pages
Release Date: January 28, 2020
Publisher: MIRA
Source: Publisher
Genre: Epic Fantasy
Cast in Wisdom is the Fifteenth installment in author Michelle Sagara's Chronicles of Elantra. Elantra is a world with epic fantasy proportions, but its stories are often on an urban fantasy scale. Kaylin is a ground Hawk, the equivalent of a police officer who serves the Halls of Law, which are more or less what their name implies. Kaylin’s job is to help keep the peace – even as her extracurricular activities threaten to break it. As I began reading the book, something hit me right from the start.
After 14 books, Kaylin Neva, the girl who was a mascot to the Hawks, who wanted to kill the person who is now her boss, the person who has been tossed into deep dark situations and somehow managed to keep her head high, she girl who someone has become the Chosen, as well as a familiar, has now been promoted to Corporal. Of course, Kaylin doesn't get a minute to celebrate her promotion before being summoned to investigate the man known as Candallar; a man who is an outcast Barrani like Nightshade.
Unfortunately, Kaylin and Severn need to deal with the laws of exception when it comes to Candallar. Kaylin also needs to deal with the fact that she has a dozen people, mostly Barrani, living in her house called Helen. Of course, things get interesting when Nightshade and certain members of her household disappear. The fiefs that exist at the heart of the city of Elantra are home to sentient Towers that guard the world against the incursion of Shadow. In this book, Kaylin and her partners, mostly Bellusdeo, visit each one of them to find out what possible danger they face.
Between the fiefs exists the gray world of the border zone. In it, geography changes between one passage across a border and the next. This is the first time in 14 previous books that the author has introduced each of the Towers. The border zone holds secrets and ancient histories, and people are gathering there in search of its power. Without even understanding what that power is, or why it exists, Kaylin is in a desperate race against time to find those secrets first. She doesn’t know who her enemies are. She doesn’t know how many she’ll face. But she won’t face them alone.
Meanwhile, for the first time in this series, readers do not have to rely on Kaylin figuring everything out and letting the answer slap her in the face. Literally. The story focuses on the Lannagaros, the Arkon of the Dragon Empire, who has played pivotal roles in both Kaylin's life as well as Bellusdeo's. Thankfully, Arkon also has a sense of humor when dealing with Kaylin and her hatred of magic. After Kaylin is given a mysterious book to return to someone and told not to trust the Librarian, Kaylin and her friends discover the Academia.
The Academia has been lost in the borderlands between the fiefs of Elantra for a very long time. Long before the Towers rose to protect Elantra from the Shadows which destroyed Bellusdeo's world. What's worse is that someone is attempting to wake the Academia up to gain knowledge from the lost Library. Lannagaros was a young student at the Academia in a time before the wars between the Dragons and the Barrani devastated both of their peoples and the world on which they lived.
As with several previous books, Kaylin meets a key character in the waning pages of this story who really shines and helps with some really important mysteries. As with the previous characters, however, I doubt we will see this character again. There are some very humorous things that happen in this book including Nightshade being forced into sitting in a classroom while people who were supposed to have died, prattle on. There are also some curious changes that happen in this book thanks to choices made. Now that Kaylin has been promoted, it will be curious to see what happens next.
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