Magic's Price by Mercedes Lackey

A Re-Read Review

Magic’s Price is a hard one to review. It’s not bad at all, but it also feels like it should have been two books rather than one. It really feels like Stefen and Vanyel’s romance and relationship should have been given time to really breathe and Van’s whole thing with Learth could probably have been its own story. It made the last third-or-so of Magic’s Price really intense compared to the earlier parts of the book.

I quite enjoyed the beginning with Van and Stef’s blossoming relationship. I feel like it’s a better representation of the kind of age-gap relationships I’ve seen represented. I also actually buy Van and Stef as a couple, like I didn't with Van and Tylendel. I also liked that Van’s relationship with his family turned out the way it did. After Magic’s Promise I felt they were well on their way to earning the redemption for their early treatment of Van and here, they definitely earned it and fully repaired that relationship.

Van’s transitioning the Herald Web from the Herald-Mages to Heralds as a whole took up much less time that I was really expecting it to. He was charged with that by Jays at the end of Magic’s Promise so I was expecting it to be harder or something.

The last, about third, I think, of Magic’s Promise was intense, to say the least. As soon as the last batch of mages were being killed (and no, this is not as spoiler as the series is The Last Herald Mage), it really ramped up the pace and tension. I had honestly even forgotten that Kilchas and Lissandra were even characters, even though they worked with Van and Savil earlier in the book. That’s about how much is packed into this one. Anyway, I really felt Savil’s death and completely understand how that kicked Van into high gear.

I’m very glad we got most of what happened after than from Van and that bandit kid’s perspectives. I don’t think Van’s head was right before the bandits got him and it definitely wasn’t after. That we also had time in there for Van to recover from his trauma was interesting. Weirdly didn’t feel like there was a dip in the pacing, either. I was pleasantly surprised to get kyree and actually see some into their culture. Before this they were only vaguely mentioned in the series.

The ending… well, the ending had the kind of bow on it I like. A nice ending that’s not sickly sweet nor overly horrendous. I was very pleased. 

On Another Note...

I'm currently in the middle of a run of Valdemar short stories and then starting The Collegum Chronicles.