Mother. Lucia´s never been my favorite character. Especially after her behavior in Frozen Tides I labeled her a dumb, spoiled child and despite her will for repentance awakened again, I can´t just forgive her. Granted, she admitted her mistakes, but since her new perspective issues from the child she wants to offer a better world to I´m afraid she´d be allied to Kyan still if it weren´t for her unnaturally big belly. It´s exceptionally difficult to overlook her actions simply because she listened to some prophecies and decided to search for her family again. It doesn´t change the fact that Lucia, the Improved One, still threatens everyone she meets to help her and thinks herself better than them just because she was born with some special powers. If only her family would show her some icy demeanor, but they love her way too much to give her what she deserves.

Sorcerer. Jonas´ story keeps getting more and more compelling. He morphed from the young, reckless rebel who had death following him everywhere to this leading person of a movement against the world. I´m not the biggest fan of his destiny intertwining with Lucia´s, since these two are on opposite sides on my like-you scale.

Son. There won´t be an objective survey of Magnus´ part in the story. He´s my favorite character and hell will freeze over before I disgrace his person with a negative statement. He´s the guarantor for sarcastic comments, overly confident attitude and silent pleas to see him. You may think we know all of him now, that he proved he is hero material for real by falling for Cleo. Yet he managed to top his own high set standard, because despite his justified hatred for his father and his similarity to him in looks and character he´s different from him in the important details. We learned that he wouldn´t be able to actually kill his father as easily as he makes himself believe. Nope, Magnus has the ability to feel, quite contrary to the rest of his family and to let those feelings make him care. Wether it´s for the good or the bad, he cares enough to feel betrayed by his excuse of a father and that makes him human.

Wife. For the first time ever I was rally annoyed with Cleo. Not because of her political decisions. I still admire her for never losing sight of her goals and her determination to follow through with her plan to reclaim her throne. Of course my irritation is fueled by her inability, her uncertainty and her refusal to openly admit her feelings. Thoughts of smacking her over the head made my fingers twitch regularly. She redeemed herself a bit in the end, but Magnus certainly doesn´t deserve her degrading their love.

As for the story at this point I´ve invested too much time, too many emotions and nerves to even think about pondering negative thoughts or complaining about plot development. Not that there´s any reason for doing so. Having been in love with the story from the beginning it´s more a question of not becoming too nervous and too desperate, because I have to wait ANOTHER WHOLE YEAR for the 6th installment.

A year!!! With this killer of a cliffhanger ending!