THE TRIALS OF EMPIRE – Richard Swan

The Empire of the Wolf is on its knees, but there’s life in the great beast yet.
 
To save it, Sir Konrad Vonvalt and Helena must look beyond its borders for allies – to the wolfmen of the southern plains, and the pagan clans in the north. But old grievances run deep, and both factions would benefit from the fall of Sova.
 
Even these allies might not be enough. Their enemy, the zealot Bartholomew Claver, wields infernal powers bestowed on him by a mysterious demonic patron. If Vonvalt and Helena are to stand against him, they will need friends on both sides of the mortal plane—but such allegiances carry a heavy price.
 
As the battlelines are drawn in both Sova and the afterlife, the final reckoning draws close. Here, at the beating heart of the Empire, the two-headed wolf will be reborn in a blaze of justice . . . or crushed beneath the shadow of tyranny. 

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I’ve tried to get very slightly more “organized” in terms of tracking what I’m reading lately, and pushing myself to whittle down the number of series/trilogies/duologies I need to finish. I knew I had a not-insignificant amount where, all I had left was the final book. So I made a list (I’m sure I’ve missed a few), and after checking of THE TRIALS OF EMPIRE (the conclusion to Richard Swan’s EMPIRE OF THE WOLF trilogy), fifteen is the current number. Yeesh.

I’m glad to have finished this trilogy! THE JUSTICE OF KINGS became an all-time favorite of mine when it was released. I fell hard for the dark/moody/creepy vibe of the book, and the dark fantasy/thriller mashup really worked for me. And I adored the cast of characters from the get-go, and they’ve carried this story in a big way.

This review feels a little hard to write, mostly because THE TRIALS OF EMPIRE wound up being my least favorite book in the trilogy. I still enjoyed it plenty! It just didn’t totally wow me the way the first book in this trilogy did. All that said, I still would wholeheartedly recommend EMPIRE OF THE WOLF & I’m really looking forward to seeing what’s next from Richard Swan!

This third book feels vastly bigger than the first two, and in hindsight, I think that’s where it just didn’t all-the-way click for me. There was just something about the settings in THE JUSTICE OF KINGS that I loved so much. That sense of Vonvalt and Helena lurking in the shadows of a dark, foreboding city, looking into horrible & macabre crimes. There was an intimacy to that book, regardless of how grotesque and unsettling things were.

But the story obviously had to grow, and grow it did. So in THE TRIALS OF EMPIRE, Vonvalt’s obsessive quest to rid the world of the religious fanaticism of Bartholomew Claver sends our heroes to farther & farther corners of the Empire and beyond.

Like, way beyond.

A lot of this book takes place beyond the mortal plane, with all manner of demons & horrors haunting Vonvalt & Helena. Sometimes I struggle with scenes like this…with the unreality of it all. That feeling of being untethered from reality is not always my favorite aspect of a fantasy novel, but Swan pulls it off well here. There’s definitely some really creepy shit happening!

A huge chunk of this book is dedicated to Vonvalt & Helena trying to gather support to their cause, which is definitely a pretty common theme for the last book of a trilogy. The final battle looms, and Vonvalt finds himself wildly outnumbered. This is where THE TRIALS OF EMPIRE got pretty adventurous & unpredictable, and all I will say about that is…wolf-people.

WOLF-PEOPLE!

It’s the loss of Bressinger that impacts this book so heavily, I think. Oof. Helena is still absolutely reeling from the loss, and going through the messiness of grief every step of the way. But in addition to the loss of Bressinger, in THE TRIALS OF EMPIRE, Sir Radomir also goes in another direction for a huge chunk of the book. And while Helena & Vonvalt are obviously the main characters of the trilogy, I think losing/sidelining these great secondary characters ultimately hurts the book, even if it’s in service to the story (if that makes sense).

I want to take a second and talk about Heinrich. I remember wanting to say something about the dog that was introduced in the second book, THE TYRANNY OF FAITH, but then just having kind of…strange feelings about it all. Because Heinrich is a Very Good Boy, extremely loyal, and more than a little ferocious. And the way that he was introduced and utilized in the second book, had me feeling like he was going to be a big part of the story. And then at some point, he just kind of…disappears. And I was confused & somewhat put off by that. BUT! Heinrich makes a triumphant return here, and if you’re like me, you’d want to know: he does suffer some pretty serious injuries during battle, but he makes it out ok!

I’ve spent days working on this review & I’m not sure it “works.” But here it is anyhow. Taken as a whole, the EMPIRE OF THE WOLF trilogy is fucking phenomenal. I really grew to love these characters over the course of the three books, no matter how many times Richard Swan tried making them unlovable. If you’re looking for a dark fantasy trilogy that blends in mystery & legal thriller elements, these books are awesome!

Huge thanks to Orbit for sending THE TRIALS OF EMPIRE my way!