Exile’s Honor

Series: Valdemar, Standalone

Author: Mercedes Lackey

Genre: Fantasy

Book Description:

Alberich had spent most of his youth in the Karsite military schools training to be an officer. As the son of an impoverished mother, he had had no other career choice open to him. And Alberich had risen in the ranks with almost unnatural speed. He developed expertise with many weapons and excelled in academic subjects with an ease that was the envy of his classmates. But in fact, the reclusive Alberich studied long and hard, pushing himself ruthlessly.

In battle, Alberich had always had a sort of “sixth sense” about things which were about to happen – when and from where the enemy would attack. Instinctively, he hid this ability, for the Sunpriests kept careful watch for anyone exhibiting the “demon powers” which were the hallmark of Karse’s greatest enemy – the witch-nation of Valdemar. Those they caught were “cleansed” in the fires of Vkandis Sunlord.

Both Alberich’s skill and secret served him well in the army of Karse, and when Alberich became one of Karse’s youngest captains, he received a special gift – a powerful white stallion “liberated from the enemy.” But this honor was merely a distraction, for the Sunpriests had laid a trap which even Alberich’s strange foresight could not predict ….

Saved from burning as a witch when his odd white stallion braved the flames and carried him over the border into Valdemar, he was healed by the same enemies he had been taught to hate his entire life. Though he knew he could never again return to his home, Alberich also knew he could never truly become a Valdemaran. How could Alberich remain true to his own people and still retain his honor while helping to train the direst enemy of Karse?

Book Review:

Alberich has a complex relationship with his gift – the gift of foresight, glimpses of the future – and when it starts to come on him in front of a rival, he begs for it to stop. But then when he gets the glimpse of what will happen if he does not stop it – an innocent village, helpless because he and his men helped divest them of their weapons and conscript their young men – then that changes, and he must know what and where so he can stop it. But this time he is caught, and when the priest of Vkandis orders him captured to be burned alive for witch-craft, his own men fight to capture him.

From the very beginning of this book I liked Alberich, and the story lives up to its promise. The main gist of it is not intrigue or plot. It’s one man’s journey, often within his own mind – over what he believes, and what the things he believes actually mean. Because for all that Alberich has always known that most of the priesthood is corrupt, he truly believes in his god, Vkandis Sunlord.

But he is plagued with doubts, and more so than ever when his Companion carries him, half-burned to death, over the border into Valdemar and he learns he is expected to be a Herald – and can certainly never return to Karse again. His thoughts and his struggles are so human, right down to being muddled, inconsistent, and contradictory at times.

Not inconsistent and contradictory with who he is, but inconsistent with each other and contrary to his actual experiences. But then again, his life has just been turned upside down, and his mind has been blurred by a lot of pain, and then by drugs while he was healed. So it’s only human that he thinks some very stupid things – but I love how the narrative makes this clear to the reader that he isn’t thinking very straight when, for example, he complains that he had no choice about being carried by the Companion of Valdemar, Kantor, instead of burning alive – when, in fact, if he’d truly wanted to burn instead of go with Kantor, he could have. And he certainly had more choice, not less, than he would have, had Kantor not been there.

From there, we view Alberich’s journey about discovering what his beliefs, and what his honor, really means to him. What it actually means to fight for Karse, what is actually betraying his people, and what is doing the best he can for them, under the circumstances. The realization that he is perhaps Chosen by his god to be a Herald, and that he can love and defend his people at the same time as being and defending those the Karsite rulers hunt.

What his vows mean, what keeping them means, and if perhaps the closest he came to breaking them was not defying the Sunpriests (though it would have meant nothing but his death), not being a Herald. Deep soul-searching into the choices he has made, and why.

I loved the religious aspect of the book too. God is beyond all human comprehension – yet the Companion Taver gives Alberich a glimpse of heaven no living mortal can remember: and I loved how Alberich thinks he’s found the solid rock he’s been looking for, perhaps without really knowing it, all his life, and the foundation for his honor. And Vkandis Sunlord is real. He speaks through his priests – though not the official and powerful ones. But the real ones, who fled across the border with the children they were ordered to kill …. He acts, to protect and guide a gaggle of kidnapped children.

I loved this balance. Though I must say that I did find the focus on the Monarchy of Valdemar and the office of the Monarch a little … too much. But, all in all, I really loved this book. I loved Alberich. I liked his Companion, Kantor, and some of the other characters. There are some truly interesting conversations between Alberich and a priest of Vkandis about how the religion and followers of the Sunlord got so horribly corrupted, and about a desire for simplistic answers. It is a really interesting conversation that made me think a bit, and I would almost recommend the book just to read the conversation.