#18 Beyond by Mercedes Lackey

[missingvolume]

 

This book finally tells the story of how Valdemar came to be. It has been hinted at a bit in some of the previous books but not spelled out in detail. The current Duke of Valdemar works very hard to convince him Emperor that there is nothing special about his dutchy. He tithes the horses he breeds every year and secretly works on a magical plan to move everyone under his care to as far as gate magic can take everyone. There are mages in this book and more magic is used in this than is in the latter books.  The empire is run on magic and war to constantly expand the borders to feed the war machine.  The Duke is recalled to the capital where he finds out just how much things have changed there since he was a child hostage of the Emperor.  Most of the staff are magical constructs powered by enslaved vrondi and the Duke befriends them and incorporates them into his plan to escape and free them as well. There is a good stopping point at the end of the book but it certainly doesn’t cover how the Heralds came to be but I am certain that will be in the next book of the series.

 

Digital review copy provided by the publisher through Edelweiss