Blood’s Power: Broken
Series: Standalone
Author: Midnight Rose
Genre: Fantasy
Book Description:
A man who is caught in a downward spiral of corruption, and is raised out of it into a hero, who dies to save a people who shall never know of his sacrifice.
The stranger’s green eyes opened again.
Jewel ventured to speak, realizing that the spell on him, which was already wearing off, if not almost worn off, allowed him that leisure.
“Why did you do this?” he said in a deep voice, letting the stranger hold his eye contact.
“I do not think you would understand,” the stranger said softly. He let his eyes fall closed again.
“What?” Jewel said, his voice still deep. “You think you are a strong enough mage to fight me? Your spell is nothing, I have lost no strength, and you have lost much.” A sorrowful smile graced the stranger’s parched lips; Jewel had not till now noticed that the man’s lips were stained purple from tiny cracks of dried blood.
“I have not only fought you, I have defeated you,” the other mage said, in a grave voice, lifting his chin in weak defiance.
“Defeated me?” Jewel asked in mockery, his brows rising. “What spell have you put on me that I am defeated?”
A story of blood magic, both of deep evil and abomination, and of heroic sacrifice and selfless love.
When Jewel is at last broken beyond all hope, when his power is ripped so fully from his hands, that he fears he has lost not only his power, but himself, he discovers at last that he can still be the Jewel he was before he was broken, before corruption stole his life away. For not until he is broken can he be Unbroken.
Review:
Blood’s Power: Broken is one of those books (actually, it’s a short little thing, a novella maybe) that’s raw and unflinching in facing the horrors of human experience and choice, and fundamentally hopeful, about redemption. It doesn’t cast any doubt at all on good, or the ability to be good and choose good, though it made me a little uncomfortable at times. But not necessarily in a bad way.
The story follows one man’s journey in life, from being a small, helpless child of impoverished parents who have major problems of their own, to his death as a man and a mage. It skims over the major events that change the world, but it shows the moments and the themes that shape his life, who he is, why he changes, and how he thinks, from when he’s a tiny child.
We see how he uses his mind differently than others, how he thinks about the world and his opportunities in a unique way as a child, and that shapes his ability to be a mage, is perhaps why he discovers his magic at all. What the morning and the birds’ songs mean to him, and the way that his parents’ failure to love him and his rebellion shapes him.
One sees many sides to those thoughts, as young Jewel develops a fierce independence and self-reliance, valuing his own freedom and self-determination above all else. It gives his compassion a strange touch, as he is compelled to help others at times, yet his desire for them not to become reliant on or attached to him is not entirely selfish: everyone should find their own way.
It’s not at all detailed or gory, but both Jewel and his environment are presented in a layer way, right down to a line expressing the pride of the impoverished street people, struggling to survive and often failing, who look down on the wealthy as slime, so filthy in their hearts that they’re afraid to be filthy on their bodies.
But though Jewel is a bright, complex person as a child, though one who is scarred by the pain and rejection of his parents and keep him apart from others and the love that might heal him and make him more resilient, as he grows up, things start to catch up with him. And one day, he’s made an offer: serve the palace, give away a part of his power over himself, or very likely lose his life.
From there, Jewel descends into villainy. One of the things I really admire about Midnight Rose’s writing is the way this journey is done. We sympathize with Jewel. We see the way the world has scarred and broken him, that at the core of his being he isn’t evil. We see the way desires that are good in themselves are bent into a thing that twists him.
Yet his villainy itself remains entirely unsympathetic. As a person, he can be seen and sympathized with, but as a villain – it’s just evil and horrible. There’s nothing morally gray about his choice to torture other people for their blood-power, something it would have appalled him to do, not only as torture, but as relying on power that isn’t his. But now that he’s been scarred in his own mind, much of his magic taken from him, nothing matters to him except getting the power back that has been stolen from him. No, his choice is just evil. His motivation is just evil.
Yet, even in the darkness, we see the Jewel from long, long ago, in the moment when he first discovers the power of blood magic. There’s something horrifying about the intimacy about it, but the lonely, frightened Jewel thinks, maybe he was wrong, maybe this isn’t such a horrible way to die, but the least lonely way to die, as the blood-mage shares in the victim’s dying. And, in some ways, that moment might even be the beginning of his healing, going even deeper than his desire for power, to be in control, behind it into something even more essential, and in that wound that’s birthed his obsession with self-reliance.
And in the depth of the darkness, with Jewel fully descended in villainy, torture, and blackmail, one sees the horror shattered in the person of another one of Jewel’s victims.
The story has already set itself apart from everything else I’ve ever read, but this raises it to a whole new level. One sees one man broken, but one sees another man endure unbroken. The Healer. This is the part that made me feel most uncomfortable. I love Illivan’s wholesomeness. I love nothing more than the fact Jewel’s power to steal, to take, to use, isn’t absolute. Torture he can, but there’s something stronger than torture and that power lies in the hands of the tortured. And when he encounters a man who’s found it, who’s found a love he’s so secure in, and somehow knows something that means he can face pain without shying from it, but just love, then Jewel’s torture loses its power, and is conquered and turned – not against him, but finally, for him.
Even in his worst moments, is that what he’s looking for? Unconditional love? Even as he claims that he is so evil, that if he can be loved, the world is broken and love is not love?
But that scene, without being gory at all, manages to be poignant and painful, and I found Illivan uncomfortable, but again, not in a bad way. I just can’t relate to the way he … to the way he’s able not to fight or flee from the pain at all, but to embrace all in his love. I’d like to, or at least I … want to be able to like to. But you can just feel the story, so it’s … interesting.
And then, one sees Jewel’s life turn. The moments in which he rediscovers himself and the joy of living, and the joy of loving and being loved, something he’s never really known before, until he’s finally in the right place at the right time to face the intrusion of his world by an evil creature from another dimension, and confront face-to-face some of his fears and some of the scars that led him down such an evil path, but this time with the knowledge of what it is to be loved and someone who loves him beside him. And also to embrace the things he has right, even in those things. To make all the scars and all his truths into what they’re really meant to be.
To learn to be truly, finally himself.
I can’t do those chapters justice. I can’t do the whole book justice, but especially those, I think. And it ends so beautifully. I can’t say how. I’d just ruin if I tried. But it’s poignant, and deep, and emotional, and perfect, and far more expansive in a few paragraphs, complex touching on all the myriad aspects of Jewel’s choice than … it’s just amazing.
Honestly, the whole book is, in that expansiveness. That ability to touch on the different sides of a thought, the almost contradictory impulses that go into a thought or even a feeling sometimes, the dimensions of a choice.
To the last, this is a character novel. And a novel of hope and redemption, of weakness and strength, of the broken and the healing.
Enthralled By Love 