Unfortunately, after the long wait for a conclusion to the Legacy of Orïsha series I am still left wanting. I would have dnf'd if I wasn't behind on my reading goal already - although with how long this took me to get through I don't actually know if I made the right choice.
I'll reiterate what I saw in a ton of other reviews: this book feels so disconnected from the first two in the series, almost like a side book in the same universe or even a fanfiction.

The random new enemy that is all powerful, except not sometimes?, came out of nowhere and honestly felt like a cop-out. The "we need to put aside our differences" trope doesn't work when the 'difference' is literally one side committing genocide against another.

The pov switches made me feel like I was missing information instead of getting more. It's like every time we switched to someone the action was actually happening somewhere else. The voices also didn't feel distinct at all. Multiple times I had to flip to the front of the chapter to remind myself who's pov I was reading.

I don't know how many times I needed to hear the inner monologue of Tzain just listing dead familiy members and repeating how he couldn't lose Zelie. His "journey" felt so shallow.

He was just super angry and a bad fighter but then one time he cried and suddenly was accepted by everyone and good at battle?

Amari was just useless? Like I actually don't understand what her role was literally in any of this was. We could have taken out all her povs and the story wouldn't change.

And I guess she's gay now? More power to her but it felt a little weird to have such a long setup for her and Tzain to just have her fall in love with someone new 15 minutes later.

Inan's pov's I guess were slightly better? Although we essentially missed the entirety of

his time reuniting Orïsha

while we chilled with other pov's. It felt like a very "trust me bro, he did it" situation.

You're telling me that he showed them ONE vision of them being attacked and they were singing around a campfire together making friendship bracelets like a literal genocide hadn't been taking place? And even if they could set aside their differences, the peace then LASTED after the outside threat was vanquished?

Zelie's was the most interesting pov, but to be honest even hers dragged most of the time. It was so much just train of thought, with very little plot momentum. I was often stuck thinking "okay, you're scared for Orïsha but like what is actually happening right now?" We never saw her actually doing anything.

All her "training" happened while we were in someone else's pov..and really it never amounted to anything until the end.

As a side note, never understood why no one even mentioned

killing Zelie as a way to prevent the skulls from getting her magic? She was the only one who thought of that? And then they brought her back to life why? Each and every time they had depended on her to be stronger than the king she failed and then didn't do anything different the next time. Why did they keep doing the exact same thing?!

One of the things I loved about the first book was the intricate magic system - it stands to reason that with new cultures being introduced that our main characters are going to be interacting with magic they don't quite understand the rules for, so I can be lenient in me not understanding it, especially as I'm learning everything in a first person pov. But they didn't really seem to wonder, or care how it worked the majority of the time.

I had a lot of problems with the ending, not the least of which was it just kind of ...ended.

I really don't understand why suddenly she was all powerful and able to defeat the king with one strike.