Read a full summary of Reign of Mist by Helen Scheuerer. This page is full of spoilers, so beware! If you are looking for our opinion on Reign of Mist, check out our review. If you are wondering what happened in Reign of Mist, the second book in this series, then you are in the right place!

Author
Helen Scheuerer

Ratings
4.8 stars on Amazon
4.48 stars on Goodreads
Add Reign of Mist at Goodreads

The Oremere Chronicles
#1 Heart of Mist
#2 Reign of Mist
#3 Untitled

***** Everything below is a SPOILER *****

What happened in Reign of Mist?

Bleak is shipwrecked and washes up on the shores of Oremere. She’s running low on food and water but gives some to an injured teerah panther she comes across in a cave. She nurses it back to health and names it Rion.

Bleak explores the Oremere ruins looking for people as well as food and water. One day, a woman who looks just like Henri appears. It’s Henri’s sister Sahara.

Bleak tells Sahara her family believes she’s dead. She says she intended to kill herself by walking into the mist. She says they must get somewhere secure before they talk. She says Ines, the self-designated Queen of Oremere, has eyes everywhere.

Bleak wants Rion to go with them. Sahara balks at the idea at first. They hear a roar in the distance. Ines restrains and tortures the other panthers to later turn loose on her enemies. They end up loading the still-weak Rion in a cart to take with them.

Sahara tells Bleak this ruined fortress was the biggest on Oremere. Despite the best efforts of their enemies, many Oremians survived the attacks by going underground or fleeing to other continents. Sahara’s home is an abandoned cellar with fascinating maps on the wall depicting of the lay of the land, a large city beyond, and the castle.

Henri goes to Wildenhaven, a mountain fortress tucked in a forest, to try to gain an ally in Eydis. She has grown up so much from the awkward teenager Henri knew. Henri tells Eydis all the disturbing things she learned from King Arden. Eydis shares that they have recently discovered a cult nearby devoted to Ines.

Ines has followers on every continent, including King Arden. Eydis has had troubling visions about how Ines plans to systematically conquer them all. She says they’ll get to Wildenhaven before Valia and asks Henri to help. Eydis says they get the Valians there quickly through the Valley of Twisted Trees.

Swinton and Fiore are in Battalon with King Arden’s daughter, Princess Olena. Swinton’s supposed to test the loyalty of Prince Nazuri. Arden wants to bring the prince to their side and threatens to hurt Swinton’s secret son Dash if he doesn’t comply.

The first time the prince and princess meet, he asks her to go on a walk with him. Swinton and Fi follow at a distance as her guards. Nazuri dismisses his guards. Olena asks Swinton to stay. He surprises Olena by having sent for a broad selection of quaveer (Braille-like) books so she can have something to read. He was opposed to this marriage as much as she was despite her loveliness, especially because of their age difference. But he says he would love to have an ally in the palace.

In the city, Swinton and Fi see a flier beckoning people with a magical heritage to serve the crown. It’s the search for Ashai to lock them up in Moredon Tower. Fi wants to do something about it, but Swinton refuses. He reminds Fi their duty here is to protect the princess.

Dash and his mother are shopping in the city square. They hear an announcement as they’re leaving. Anyone with information about Henri the Valian is to come to the king with it immediately. A man in the crowd is drug away. Dash and his mother head home. Dash reads a letter from Olena.

Sahara wants Bleak to tell her story about how she got to Oremere. She calls Bleak a mist dweller, a term Bleak has heard before. Bleak remembers leaving a city here with her parents. Sahara says the gate Bleak describes is at Oremere’s capital city. She asks Bleak to tell her story. Bleak then asks for Sahara’s story and details about the ‘we’ she keeps referring to. Sahara will show her. During the journey, Sahara tells Bleak how the mist was developed to protect Oremere from the outside world but then was weaponized by Ines.

They finally arrive at headquarters, a rundown shack filled. They descend into a secret city through a ladder hidden in the fireplace grate. The underground city is filled with Oremians.

They’re about to assemble a meeting. Sahara introduces Bleak and explains how each council member is in charge of managing different parts of their uprising. There are two other colonies with similar set ups they hope to combine forces with to defeat Ines someday. Ines is rumored to host the magic of other Ashai. With Bleak’s permission, Sahara tells them all she’s a mind whisperer. Bleak learns Casimir isn’t dead like mist assume. He’s been Ines’s prisoner all these years. They’re going to rescue him.

Eydis takes Henri to a system of tunnels in the Valley of Twisted Trees. Different paths lead under the sea in diverging directions, connecting to each continent (even Oremere). Eydis promises her dog Bear is a special breed that can protect them from the nymph-like creatures who confuse travelers.

Eydis eventually convinces Henri to bring the Valian warriors through these tunnels to fight alongside the her people. She send Bear to Valia with a note for 500 of her warriors to meet them in the tunnel in three days’ time.

When they return to the palace, Eydis’s brother and lover (Jarel and Nicolai) have returned from their scouting mission. Three nearby towns have fallen to Ines’s cults. Nicolai was branded in Hallowden with their mark…Ines’s face…on his chest. The local leader who orchestrated this is the evil Farlah.

Ines and her followers claim she’s immortal and can grant immortality to her followers. Eydis doubts this. Henri overhears Jarel scolding Eydis for sending Nicolai away. Eydis says it was hard to send him to her but that she’s queen first.

Swinton and Fi train with the soldiers. Fi often trains with Prince Nazuri, but he asks Swinton to parry with him one afternoon. Swinton doesn’t take it easy on him. Nazuri says they will train together from now on. Now maybe Swinton can get close to Nazuri.

Swinton receives an invitation to dine with the prince and the king. The king notices Swinton’s necklace and coin charm and asks to see it. It’s been ages since Swinton has removed it but obeys. His magic slams into him. He has a premonition in the short time before the necklace is back around his neck. It shows Heathton as a ghost town after plague sweeps through, killing all the Ashai.

Swinton immediately worries about his son Dash in the wake of his vision. He tells Fi they need to talk. Swinton tells him what he saw and that he has to get a message to the stable master. He tells Fi the truth about Dash.

Dash is happy to finally be out of the house with his mother and back in the stables with his father. Dash’s father gives him a new letter from Olena and cautions him that all of their correspondence is read and scrutinized. He soon sends Dash into town to have the blacksmith fix a broken metal piece. Dash is shocked to see the man from several days ago still strung up as his punishment. A bell soon begins to toll. The blacksmith tells Dash to hurry home. Someone in the royal household has died.

Casimir has a unique Ashai power: He can steal people’s years away to lengthen his life. But he has to be touching them to do so. Spies have witnessed him out and about with Ines on her grounds. They think he’s biding his time to launch the rebellion. Bleak worries he’s in league with Ines.

Geraad asks for Bleak’s answer. Will she partner with them? Bleak agrees to. Bleak and Rion take off with a group of warriors the next day. Bleak and Rion hang near the back of the group, and Sahara asks Bleak if she recognizes the territory. They think her family originally hailed from here when she was very young, but nothing jogs her memory.

The whole group finally make it to Ines’s castle. They don the guard uniforms they brought with them and proceed with their plan to sneak into the castle, but all doesn’t go as planned. They almost turn back. Then they see Casimir just inside the gates and improvise using Bleak’s mind-reading ability. Sahara approaches Casimir. Bleak is knocked out from behind.

Henri and Bear journey in the tunnel below the sea, hoping to meet up with Athene and the other Valians to lead them back to Havennesse. She intersects them and leads all 500 to Eydis. Back at the palace, Henri makes a speech to her assembled warriors. She tells them about King Arden’s true nature, his alliance with Ines, and how he’s releasing mist into the world. She tells them the plan: to join Eydis in her fight against these two rulers.

Henry calls her fellow leaders to drink and talk with her that evening, something she’s never done before. They admit that the mist has been advancing on Valia. Allehera tried to burn it away and was badly burned in the process.

Bleak wakes up to smelling salts in the dungeons of Freyhill, and she knows the group must’ve escaped with their prize (Casimir) and left her behind. Ines appears and calls her by her birth name: Alarise.

Ines knew Bleak in the past, but Bleak has no memory of it. Bleak’s family (the Thorntons) served as mediators between the two ruling families. Bleak is hit with a vision of the past in which Ines tells the ruling families there’s been a prediction that Bleak and Prince Ermias will fall in love. Ermias’s father agrees to separate them. Ines says the whole time she was involved with Ermias’s older brother Casimir to get his magic. Now Ines wants Bleak’s magic. Ines calls someone in to torture Bleak until she relents.

A firestorm is coming, and everyone at the palace and the city are busy getting ready for it. Prince Nazuri and Olena are with the king when Swinton arrives. The king shares that Olena’s mother, the queen of Ellest, has been murdered. They say Henri did it. Swinton escorts Olena back to her room. Olena asks if he believes Henri did it. He doesn’t, yet he tells her the royal announcement must be true, and this makes Olena angry.

Swinton leaves but has Olena’s room heavily guarded. One day Nazuri comes by to check on her and asks if Swinton really believes Henri did it. Everything feels like a test. Swinton needs to talk to Fi. He breathes in a lot of smoke and blisters his hand as he makes it into Fi’s apartment in the firestorm. Swinton tells Fi about his secret marriage to Eliza, how she was attacked when she was nine months pregnant, and how her mother cut the baby from her stomach when she was gone. He asked her parents to raise him because Swinton couldn’t. A message arrives that the plague has hit Heathton.

The palace cook Briggs a secret delivery from Olena to Dash: a book. After dinner, Dash races to his room to dive into the book. It takes a long time to translate the quaveer. The most interesting line: “The connection between mediator and teerah panther is the key to balancing the reign of the ruling families, and the reign of mist…”

Dash wakes feverish from a dream about desert towns and firestorms. He hears his parents talking about a letter from him and how they have to leave town. Dash tries to walk in and ask what they’re talking about. They see sores on his legs; the plague has already arrived.

Bleak is tortured day after day, but Langdon can’t find the pressure point of her magic to make her talk. Her body is weak and broken, but Ines says to keep going.

One day Bleak awakes alone with a key in her hand, and she uses it to undo her bonds. She follows the staircases up three flights out of the dungeon and into the courtyard, passing murdered guards along the way. A battle is ongoing; Sahara’s group is back to rescue Bleak.

Apparently Langdon is the one who left her the key, but he tells her that she took too long. He moves to attack her, but she tumbles into the teerah panther pit. Rion is there. She rides out of the pit on his back. They free fighters caught in a net by the gate. Other riders are on the backs of the other panthers that come out of the pit to wreak a little more havoc. Then they all leave.

Rion leads the way. The panthers move fast, but no one knows where they’re going. They end up on the outer banks of Oremere and overtake a ship. The eight rebels and the panthers board the ship and pull the anchors. Casimir says he hasn’t seen a bond like Bleak’s with the panthers in a long time.

Ines and her warriors ride up to shore as the pull away and rain arrows on them. Casimir is hit as he holds a shield up for Bleak, and they escape. Bleak is the captain and decided to steer them to Havennesse to gain allies.

The Valians gather to discuss tactics within Eydis and her people. Henri has the map Bleak stole from Swinton. Henri realizes the X’s might mark places jars of mist were released. Eydis has a vision and suspects Ines and her army will arrive soon. Her people will train with the Valians to gain similar skills.

Swinton can’t feel his connection to Dash, so he pulls his necklace off to try to conjure a vision of Dash’s future. Instead, a false memory of training with Athene the Valian when he was a teenager surfaces.

Fi wakes Swinton from where he fell asleep exhausted after his vision. He’s leaving his post to head to Havennesse. Fi has a past Swinton doesn’t know about, but he doesn’t elaborate. He asks Swinton to come with him, but he won’t. Fi tells Swinton to come find him when decides to accept himself for who he is. He wants to fight beside him again someday. He asks Swinton to give him a two hour head start before he declares him missing.

King Roswall calls a meeting and declares Battalon is allying with Ellest in a battle against the Valians. He also says there’s a renewed push for an Ashai registry after what Henri did and what Bleak did in her two attacks.

Swinton tries to change the subject by bringing up that Fi deserted. This news rocks everyone in the room because Fi was so well-liked and well respected among the men. The king declares he must be found and executed.

The king asks Swinton whether he can trust him, and Swinton seems to convince the king that he will always be loyal.

Dash is in the throes of pain and fever with the plague. Papa carries him to the healer, but she has left town. A stranger in the crowd calling himself the Tailor of Heathton tells Papa to meet him back home in an hour. He won’t say why he knows of them or where they live.

Dash barely hears the murmurs around him back at home. But the strange man’s voice joins his parents’. He says he must take Dash with him. Dash slips into a vision about being on a ship in a storm with Bleak and Rion, though he doesn’t know their names. He hears the stranger talk about trusting him and trusting Dash’s father. He tells Dash’s parents to remember their duty: watch Prince Jaxon. Then a strange sensation and force pull Dash and the traveler away.

Bleak guides the ship to Havennesse. They follow Casimir’s guidance and walk through knee deep snow to a village. Casimir takes them to a cave to rest and eat so he and Geraad can scout the nearby village and determine whether it’s loyal to Queen Eydis.

Sahara asks about Bleak’s relationship with Casimir. After he discovered Rion was loyal to her, he wouldn’t leave the island without her. That’s why they came back for her.

Casimir and Geraad say something seems off about the village and its current celebration. They want to make a distraction and steal supplies. Bleak suggests they steal dogsleds and see if the panthers will pull them to Wildenhaven.

Bleak and Sahara help their group steal the dogsleds while the villagers are distracted. The panthers agree to be strapped onto the sleds, and they get away with part of the supplies they were hoping for and head north per Casimir.

They come to a frozen river and stop to decide where to cross. Everyone is sluggish because of the cold. They hear dogs approaching. It’s Eydis’s dogmaster Mariette. They need to follow her if they hope to make it to the palace alive.

Henri and the other Valian leaders commiserate the lack of skills among Eydis’s soldiers. They descend to the training grounds to try to help any way possible.

Henri gets a letter from home, and Eydis can tell the letter’s contents bother her. Her mother’s burnsaren’t healing since they’re from Ashai fire. She’s asking Henri to name an heir. She always assumed she’d name Athene’s daughter Luka, yet now it doesn’t feel right. Eydis tells her to take her time. Nicolai barges in saying intruders are coming from the south.

Bleak and her group approach the wall. The guards call down to them. When Sahara answers with their names, the guards say Sahara is dead. Mariette then calls out demanding to gain entrance. They comply. At one point, Casimir lays a hand on Bleak’s elbow. She feels a surge of power and is confused. He says they used to do this when they are younger and playing together with Ermias.

Henri and Eydis are there to greet them. Henri is dumbfounded to see her sister’s alive. She’s angry, too. She attacks Sahara. The two battle it out. Bleak’s astonished Sahara is a slightly better fighter than Henri, the best warrior she’s ever seen. Sahara finally knocks Henri down and lays her sword point on Henri’s throat. Then she offers her sister her hand. Henri takes it.

Eydis sends everyone but the leaders to rest up. She asks Sahara to tell her story. Sahara walked into the mist to end her life. She wandered for a year in Oremere when she didn’t die yet couldn’t get home. Sahara came to the capital of Freyhill and saw red flowers. She joined the underground movement to defeat Ines. She tells of Bleak’s arrival and of rescuing Casimir. Someone declares he’s dead. He stands from his place by Bleak and Rion and begs to differ. Eydis’s guards surround him. Eydis tell the men to drop their swords after Sahara vouches for him.

Sahara and Henri are taken to a private room to catch up. Sahara apologizes. Henri slaps her. It’s hard for Henry to forgive the unexplained absence for ten years. Sahara explains how lonely it was for her, too. Henri finally breaks down. Sahara holds her as she cries.

Swinton awakes from a nightmare. He wrestles with all he’s done and the lies he’s told. Swinton is sure Henri knows the truth about his choices by now. He’s worried about the upcoming war and whether it’s to exterminate the Valians.

Therese comes to Swinton’s room to collect his breakfast tray. He fights his attraction to her. She drops the tray and cuts her hand on a ceramic shard. Swinton cleans the wound and nearly kisses her. He tells himself he won’t act on whatever has awoken within him.

Swinton goes to Olena’s room. She’s not allowing anyone entrance. He commands the guards to break the doors down. Prince Nazuri walks up behind them and seconds the command. Swinton and Nazuri find Olena out on the balcony. She calls the prince by a nickname, Zuri, and asks him to take her on a walk in the garden. Their relationship seems to have progressed.

Swinton goes to visit his horse Xander and is approached by a boy with a message from Fi. He’s confiscated a note that written by Queen Vera for Prince Jax before her death. It says the king is poisoning her food. By the time she discovered it, she was already too sick. The king’s planning something big and horrible and must be stopped before he destroys the kingdom. She asks Jax to take the letter to someone he trusts. If he trusts no one, then she suggests his sister Olena.

Fi’s accompanying note says he knows Swinton will know what to do with this information and that the boy is still alive. Since Dash is alive, there’s still something to lose. Swinton burns the queen’s note.

Dash has been flashing in and out of consciousness and pain. He wakes up somewhere dry and arid, with the Tailor asleep in the corner. He senses Dash is awake and stirs. They’re in the Janhallow Desert. He and the captain brought Dash here. He’s an Ashai who can travel from place to place in a moment’s time.

Dash wonders if he should share that he’s an Ashai, too, but pain sweeps over him and nearly knocks him unconscious again. He hears Fi arrive and ask if Tailor can get them both there. He can since they stopped here first. Tailor asks about the letter. Fi says a trusted source is delivering it. It may stop a war or start another one.

Dash slips into a vision. He sees Olena attempting to write a letter to him in quaveer. She accidentally knocks an ink bottle over, spoiling the letter. Nazuri walks in then to comfort her. Their relationship seems good, much different than Dash imagined. Dash somehow accidentally knocks the glass ink bottle onto the floor. Olena and Nazuri hear it. Nazuri asks if she was writing to the stable boy. Dash is shocked the prince knows about him. He comes out of the vision and awakes somewhere icy cold.

A war council meeting is called in Wildenhaven. They can’t find any advantage or any way their numbers can match up to Ines’s. They ask Casimir if he plans on taking back the Oremian throne if they find a way to win. The old way was with one person from each royal family, but Ermias and his whole family is dead. Casimir says it depends.

Bleak goes outside with the panthers. Casimir joins her and mentions a weapon he has to use against Ines, but it took one person from each of the three ruling families to operate. He asks what she can remember from her youth. It isn’t much. He asks her to push her memories into him.

When she sees Casimir with Ines in one memory, they both come to. Casimir admits he was in love with Ines until he realized her evil plans and started working against her. He tells how Ines slowly gained power with her ability to host multiple Ashai powers.

Ines eventually sowed seeds of discord between the ruling families. Only Bleak’s parents saw it. They couldn’t convince the others. Ines and her priestesses overthrew the palace in one night, the night Bleak’s family fled.

Ines eventually found and captured Casimir. She tortured his mind by day and then spent the night with him each night.

Bleak and Casimir are summoned to a meeting with the leaders. Eydis wants to throw a ball before they go off to war to remind people about the good times they’re fighting for. Bleak peeks in. Luka spots her and pulls her into the party.

In the middle of the celebration, the battle horn sounds. Someone has arrived. Eydis, Henri, and Sahara go out to investigate. They bring in a stranger holding a young boy…and Fiore. They’re asking Casimir to help the boy. Bleak realizes she knows the boy. She saw him at the palace on Heathton. He has the plague.

Henri is furious they brought someone with the plague near her kindred. Then she recognizes the man with Fi…the Tailor of Heathon whose advice helped her escape King Arden. Casimir says he’s not a healer. They know what he’s done before. It ages the person he heals, using their stronger, wiser mind and body to fight their ailment. Casimir doesn’t want to but finally relents.

Dash ages from ten to seventeen or eighteen. Casimir says the rest is up to him. Henri now thinks the boy looks familiar. They leave him with Tailor.

Fi apologizes to Bleak about Bren. She’s angry that Henri hasn’t told her he was taken to Moredon Tower. Bleak’s leaving immediately to go rescue him. Fi says he must be dead because no one survives there. Bleak’s going anyway. Henri says the Valians will join her to try to repay her for bringing Sahara home.

Henri asks Sahara whether she wants her birthright (to rule the Valians) back. She doesn’t. But she asks Henri to wait to name an heir.

Eydis is furious they’re leaving Havennesse to rescue Bren when they promised to fight alongside her. Henri says she plans on doing both. Eydis asks what her plan is. Fi steps forward saying he has one.

Athene privately questions Henri about Sahara’s intentions. She thinks Sahara might be trying to manipulate her. This makes Henri furious. She demands that Athene leave.

Swinton serves as Olena’s guard as Nazuri leads her to the beach for the Festival of Lamaka.

Back in his room, Swinton takes the coin from around his neck to see what vision his magic gives him. He wants news of his son. Instead he sees King Arden standing over the lifeless body of his daughter Olena. Since he doesn’t see anything about Dash, he assumes he’s dead.

Therese brings Swinton a letter from King Arden. It tells him Fi plans to breach Moredon Tower. He commands Swinton to stop him for the sake of Dash.

Dash wakes up healed in his new body. He’s confused about how he looks, sounds, and feels now. Tailor takes him to Casimir to ask a few questions. He has a vision of war and tells Tailor and Casimir about it.

Bleak, Sahara, Henri, and the Valians sail away on icy waters to rescue Bren. Rion isn’t with her. Bleak feels like something is missing without him by her side. Bleak and Tilly make up after their fight back in Valia when Tilly asked about Bleak’s scars. She realizes Tilly isn’t to blame for her relationship with Bren since Bleak never showed any feelings for him.

Bleak  finds Henri and Sahara strategizing with Fi. Bleak thinks Fi’s plan sounds crazy, just like Henri does, when she hears the details. Fi allows Bleak to travel in his mind to see the prison to give them an advantage before they enter.

Henri and the Valians pose as prostitutes and infiltrate the guard quarters when they come ashore. They each kill the man who selected them when they’re alone.

Bleak and Fi sneak off toward the prison. Fi knows the guards out front. He knocks one out and lets Bleak read the other one’s mind to find Bren before he knocks him out, too. They fight their way to the dungeon, and Fi distracts and then fights the guards while Bleak finds Bren’s cell.

Langdon (her torturer from Oremere) appears while she’s trying to unlock Bren’s shackles. Fi, Sahara, and other Valians appear and capture Langdon. They carry Bren away. Bleak wants to release the other Ashai held here. She and Sahara break open each cell as they pass, urging the prisoners to climb upward. They run toward Henri and the others as they’re leaving the guard house in tattered, bloody clothes. There’s movement at the shore. It’s Swinton, and he tells them they can’t leave.

Swinton and Fi duel, all the while discussing Dash. They stop fighting before either is hurt badly when Swinton learns the full truth about his son. Bleak and the Valians are departing with Bren. Fi wants Swinton to go with them. Swinton says he can’t leave Olena behind. He’s had terrible vision about her, and he can’t let his son’s one true friend die. Fi stays back with him.

Swinton sails back to Battalon with Fi in the brig as as prisoner. They know people are suspicious. They bail overboard at night and swim to the Bay of Gifts together. They run deep into the slums. Fi is faltering from his wounds from battles at the prison and against Swinton.

They end up at an apothecary’s house. Ethelda knows Fi well and begins to tend his wounds. She fancies herself his grandmother, although she’s strictly not. Swinton rests while Ethelda demands Fi tell her the full story as payment. Ethelda cut’s Swinton’s hair to help disguise him a bit. She gives them each a pack of supplies. She says she thinks she’s met the young Ashai girl years ago, the mind whisperer from Fi’s story. The girl was looking for a cure for her magic.

Swinton sails back to Battalon with Fi in the brig as a prisoner. They know people are suspicious, so at night they jump overboard and swim to the Bay of Gifts together. They run deep into the slums after they come ashore. Fi is faltering from his wounds from battles at the prison and against Swinton.

Bleak sits by Bren’s bedside. Athene comes to say the Ashai are being treated. Bleak looks into Athene’s mind. She sees her relationship with Henri; Athene telling Luka Henri left with Bleak, so now is the time to show her leadership skills; and Sahara in the Forest of Ghosts arguing with Athene before walking into the mist, with Athene doing nothing to stop her.

Athene shakes Bleak awake, begging to know what she saw. Henri arrives in time to see Athene gripping Bleak’s arms tight enough to bruise.

Bren wakes up, asking Bleak who Alarise is. Henri and Athene are shocked it’s Bleak. After Sahara and Casimir arrive, they ask what it means. Casimir says she’s is one of the three heirs to the Oremere throne. Casimir is one of the other heirs, too. The third died years ago as a child. Bren calls Bleak a liar over and over.

Eydis questions Dash about his abilities. They’ve had similar visions of war recently. She asks him to join her on the battlefield. She asks Luka to make sure he can hold his own in a fight. They spar. Luka bests Dash at first but can tell he has potential. He’s shocked he’ll be allowed to accompany them into battle with his limited skill set.

Sahara writes a letter to Allehra to let her know she’s alive. Henri thinks it will be enough to keep her fighting for life. Sahara thinks bringing her here among family, even with the impending war, is the best chance for survival.

Bleak goes with Henri to deliver the letter. Athene tries to accompany them, but Henri suspicious. She asks Bleak about what’s happened between her and Athene. Bleak says Henri should ask Sahara.

Henri asks Bleak if Dash reminds her of anyone. She’s been piecing together his looks with a comment Swinton made to Fi. They hear a noise but discover it’s just Mariette out searching for Bear.

Henri and Bleak arrive at the Valley of Twisted Trees to give Sahara’s message to runner dogs to send to Valia.

Henri finds Eydis and Dash talking quietly with Bear at her feet. Henri says she’s glad that they found her, and Eydis is confused. Nicolai charges into the room saying enemies have come ashore and mist is rolling in.

They’ll move out at dawn. Eydis asks Dash to stick close to her. Their Ashai vision powers works best when they’re together. Bleak and Dash talk a bit a dinner. They remember each other from the castle. Bleak saw a map in Dash’s mind, and Dash had a vision about Bleak sailing into the mist.

Fi leads Swinton through the Battalonian marketplace to meet with his contact. To Swinton’s surprise, it’s his former squire Klamath. Klamath sneaks them into a garden where Olena is with Prince Nazuri.

Swinton pleads his case about how Olena’s father killed her mother, he fears Olena is next on the king’s list, and war is coming. He also mentions Dash is actually his son. He’d never forgive Swinton if something happened to Olena. Nazuri and Olena agree to meet them at the stables that night.

How did Reign of Mist end?

Swinton makes Fi vow to tell him about his past someday while they wait. When Nazuri and Olena arrive, they all ride off into the sunrise. Fi urges Swinton to take his coin necklace off. Fingering it has become a tell. Swinton’s magic pours in. His direct line to Dash becomes taut.

Bleak goes to the wing where they’re treating the rescued Ashai. She asks for anyone willing to use their magic in a fight against Ines and King Arden.

Bleak tries to visit Bren before she leaves for war. He orders her out. She passes Tilly in the hallway as she’s going in to visit Bren. Bleak vows to fight for him like he’s fought for her in the past.

Dash has a vision of being trapped in an icy river. He tells Eydis. Bleak and Henri are there to hear. Bleak thinks the vision is about a snow slide. They decide to dig into the tunnels below as a way of escape.

Henri leads their combined forces into battle. They’re outnumbered. The Ashai’s magic won’t work because they’ve taken protective herbs. Luka tells Henri Eydis wants her.

Henri leaves the front lines reluctantly. Eydis wants her to trigger the avalanche Bleak mentioned. It’s a fool’s plan, but the dangerous mist released by Swinton is advancing. Henri says it’s Mariette, not Swinton, who released it but finally agrees. Tailor brings the recovering Ashai to the mountain peak with Henri for support. They begin to move the snow.

Tailor asks Bleak if she recognizes him. She does from recently at Heathton but thinks it might be from further back, too. She can’t waste her energy on remembering right now. Bleak makes sure Henri has the tunnel entrance opened up. Then she and Rion race down the mountain. He bellows to his fellow panthers above. They bellow in return, shaking the mountain. The snow slide begins. It quickly pummels everything in its wake, including the mist and their enemies.

Henri can’t see Eydis’s forces. All she sees is stark white.

Bleak and Rion race back to Wildenhaven. No one has returned from the tunnels. They finally stagger in, some well, some injured, and some dead.

They use the palace as a makeshift hospital because of the vast number of injuries. Lyse (the groundling healer) arrives with Allehra. Then Bleak sees a healthier looking Bren by Tilly’s bedside holding her hand.

Casimir leads Bleak out for some fresh air. He’s ready to face Langdon and wants Bleak to come with him. She doesn’t want to but finally complies. Before they get very far into their questioning, the Tailor appears in his cell, accuses Langdon of murdering his family in their beds, and kills him. Tailor the long-lost Prince Ermias. The Tailor disappears using his Ashai power, leaving a trail of red flowers in his wake.

There you go! That’s what happened in Reign of Mist, the second book in this series.

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