I think this book is the definition of Not For Me. I walked into it knowing it was reylo fanfic (at least in its original inception) and still gave it a hearty shot. What I got was a whole bunch of tropes with so little substance. There was potential with an interesting world and magic concept. We could have talked about the effects of war and colonization on a culture. But all we got was a no chemistry ass colonizer romance. The war? Doesn't matter after the first 100 pages. The politics? We don't actually care about that. But don't worry, this book can hold so many romance tropes in it. A massive man with shadow magic won't kill his mortal enemy, a tiny woman and the last person with the light magic that can destroy his entire empire because she's pretty. And she won't kill him because... you know. They can't be enemies to lovers if he's dead. Forgive me for believing there needs to be better reasoning for that trope to work.