Death Sworn

****

4 Stars/5

17 year old Ileni is losing her magic and with that everything she has ever wanted, her place as the most powerful sorceress in the Renegai, the man she loves and her purpose in life. The elders send her to be the magic teacher to the group of assassins who they have an alliance with, but her real mission is to discover what happened to the previous 2 magic tutors who died under unusual circumstances. The assassin’s caves are not how she imagined and neither are the young assassins, some of whom are hostile towards her but all of them will to anything to stop the Rathian Empire and obey their master, even if they will die. With some of the assassin’s out to get her, more twists to how the two teachers died and her growing feelings towards her protector, Sorin, Ileni has to find out what is happening in the caves before it is too late.

Death Sworn is a really good fantasy book which is fast paced and an interesting read. I liked this book partly because, unlike most other YA books about assassins, they were actually deadly and would actually kill people. However, there is not much world building in this book as all we really know about the world was the assassin’s caves and not much about anywhere else.

I liked Ileni as she was fatalist and depressed about her situation but instead of mopping around and waiting to be killed, she was determined to go out fighting and is willing to stand up for herself against a cave full of deadly assassin’s. Sorin is reserved, does not show much emotion and comes across as cold, but he is willing to bend the rules and is caught between his feelings for Ileni and his loyalty to the cause. I would have liked to have known more about Tellis as he was an important part of Ileni’s past but I knew nothing about him.

I really enjoyed this book but I hope we get to see more of the world and learn more about Ileni’s past in the next book. I would recommend Death Sworn to fans of Stolen Songbird by Danielle L Jensen or Throne of Glass by Sarah J Maas.