I went to a friend’s house last week. She had just finished renovating her kitchen. New cabinets, new countertops, new everything. She stood there, arms crossed, waiting for my approval. And I realized: we all believe in fresh starts. That once the mess is cleared, peace follows. That you can turn a page and the old chapter stops existing.
This Blade of Ours, Shalini Abeysekara’s sequel to This Monster of Mine, disagrees. Deeply. What happens when you win, and the world refuses to let you have your victory?
Sarai and Kadra exposed government corruption. They toppled a system. And months later, the citizens who should be grateful are instead scornful. A plague sweeps the country. People rant about an approaching reckoning. And our protagonists are blamed. Not because they caused it, exactly. More like: it is easier to blame familiar monsters than to face the unknown ones.
Sarai returns to the frozen north to clear her name. But the ice holds more than she expects. It holds Kadra’s secrets. And the secrets are not gentle.
The Weight of Being Seen
Kadra was a mystery in book one. A man of violence and devotion, with a past we glimpsed but never touched. This Blade of Ours opens him up like a wound. We learn why he is the way he is. And the answer is not romantic. It is not “he was hurt so now he is dark and brooding.” It is worse. It is specific.
There is a scene where we understand what happened to him at thirteen. Just that number. Thirteen. The weight of it lands on your chest.
Sarai, meanwhile, is learning something harder: that winning does not mean the fight ends. She faces scorn, blame, suspicion. The people who cheered for her now whisper. She is too powerful. Too ambitious. Too much of a woman who knows what she wants. The book does not shy away from how exhausting that is.
I found myself thinking: when do they get to rest? The answer, I suspect, is never.
The Sickness of a Society
The core theme here is not romance. It is not even revenge. It is accountability. What does a nation do when it has been lied to for generations? What does a person do when the truth is not enough?
Abeysekara weaves in the gods. Wrath, mostly. A presence that watches and laughs. The imagery of eyes in the sky, of madness that makes people rant about reckoning, of beetles and frozen bodies killed by their own fear. It is horror, yes. But it is also metaphor.
The country is sick. The plague is real. But so is the sickness of a society that would rather blame the messenger than face the message.
There is a line that stayed with me: “You can show people the truth, Petitor Sarai. But you can’t make them believe it.” That is the book’s heart. The world-building expands beautifully. We see the north, the religious orders, the man whose voice can kill. But the real expansion is internal. How far can a person stretch before they break?
The Kind of Love That Does Not Fix
I loved that this sequel does not treat love as a cure. Sarai and Kadra do not heal each other. They do not make each other whole. They simply stay. In the mess. In the violence. In the moments when one of them wants to burn everything down.
There is a scene where Kadra tells Sarai the full truth of his past. And she does not forgive him immediately. She does not say “it does not matter.” She says something closer to: I am hurt. But I will stay.
That is rare in romantasy. The expectation is often that love erases. That understanding means acceptance without pain. This book says: no. You can love someone and still be wounded by their choices. You can love someone and still need time.
The horror elements are visceral. The political commentary is sharp. The villain is not a cartoon. Noceo bu Kader, the man whose voice can kill, is given complexity. We almost understand him. Almost. And that makes him more terrifying.
What We Carry Forward
Here is what I think the book is really asking: what do you owe the people who hurt you? What do you owe a country that does not want you?
Sarai chooses justice even when it benefits her enemies. Kadra chooses violence even when it costs him everything. And the book does not judge either choice. It simply shows the cost.
The prose is sharp. Lyrical without being precious. There is a confidence to Abeysekara’s writing. She knows when to let a moment breathe and when to cut fast.
I finished the book and closed it and sat still for a while. Not because the ending was sad. It was not. But because I realized something.
Maybe the point is not to find peace. Maybe the point is to keep fighting even when peace does not come. Maybe that is what love is. Not the absence of chaos. But the presence of someone who will stand in the chaos with you.
Core insight: you cannot make a broken world whole by being whole yourself. You can only decide to stay in the breaking.
