With war on the horizon and his relationship with Annie changing fast, Lee must choose to kill the only family he has left or to betray everything he's come to believe in. Fabulous reading, magnetic scenes, and the turmoil of being a young adult expected to become steely warriors.

So many beautiful YA novels have been about kids starting a revolution, but I wanted to explore the other side of it. I guess it was supposed to hype the reader for the rest of the series, which did not work, at least for me because I have no plans on continuing with this series.And even sometimes when the things were happening on-page, I felt like they were not really happening more like we were told and it was described to us what was going on.

Emotional turmoil, political intrigue, the horrors of the past and the hopes of future peace may rest on the shoulders of young dragonriders who have trained together and are now faced with heart wrenching decisions. And then the ultimate message is if you are sufficiently pure of heart, you can totally make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. It asks the question "What happens when the new regime begins making the same mistakes as the one it fought to overthrow?Surprisingly, there are quite a few emotional moments as you follow the characters' hardships and see how their worlds fell apart and came back together. We also get just enough of a backstory to understand the political climate without getting bogged down with the past. What I got was one off page battle between enemies and two on page battles between allies n dragonback. Aside from the reason listed above, I would say half of the reason that I adore this book is the writing itself. There is always something actively occurring, even if it is a flashback to better inform the characters' present situations.