The Trials of Empire

• Author: Richard Swan
• Genre: Fantasy
• Publication Date: February 8, 2024
• Publisher: Orbit
• Series: Empire of the Wolf #3

Thank you to Orbit, Angela Man, and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

CONTENT WARNING: violence, murder, excessive gore, blood, grief, harm to an animal, self-harm, mention of suicide

THE TIME OF JUDGEMENT IS AT HAND.

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 battle lines 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.

I was thrilled to buddy read this with Leslie @ Books are the New Black, There’s so many reasons to love buddy reads, but in this case, I was able to process everything that was going on, make wild and occasionally inaccurate predictions, and have a laugh when things got too dark, heavy, or serious in the book.

This series stole my heart with the first two books, but there were a few things about this book that set it apart and made it a really good read. Over the course of the series, we’ve gotten pretty familiar with the world-building. We’ve seen some of the outer borders of the empire, as well as the capital city and beating heart of the empire. But in this book, we got to see the lands outside of the empire as Vonvalt and company seek allies from anywhere they can possibly find them.

Another thing I loved is that Helena plays a much more active role in this story. While she was a side character who took on a narrative role in the first book and gradually played a bit more of a role in the second, she is front and center in nearly all of the action in this book. She made the ambitious leap from a narrator to a main character in this book, and it was wonderful to see how brave she was, acting according to her values despite her fears. There’s so much growth in Helena’s character, not just in how she sees herself, the way she thinks, and her behavior, but also in how she interacts with others, sees herself in relation to them, and her place in their lives. 

This is seen most clearly in her relationship to and with Vonvalt. Throughout the first two books, there has always been a simmering, almost-tension between them, leaving readers (and by readers, I can only confidently speak for myself and Leslie) wondering about the will-they-won’t-they dynamic. And complicating that dynamic has been the mentor-mentee relationship that they have. But in this book, all bets are off in so many ways, making things complicated for the characters, but fascinating for readers.

As the empire crumbles, so does the justice system. The story starts with a scene of an ethics lesson, which is ironic, since there is such a breakdown of ethics later in the story. Swan incorporates foreshadowing in multiple instances, warning readers to prepare themselves. This is a much darker and gorier book than the previous two, bordering from grimdark into horror. And various characters state a warning, but it was most chilling coming from the stand-up, stickler for rules himself:

“‘Desperate times call for desperate deeds,’ Vonvalt said. ‘I think we are all going to have to get our hands dirty in order to save the Empire—or rather, the parts of it that can be saved.’”

Rather than focusing on the politics and set-up involved with the earlier books, this one allows Swan the freedom to explore what happens during the breakdown of the empire. The pacing was a bit slow at the start, but then it found a flow and was fast-paced and smooth sailing until the end. I was glued to the pages and couldn’t wait to see what was going to happen next. Because I knew something was going to happen, and it was going to be horrific and shocking and have me unable to put the book down. There’s more fighting, both in the mortal plane and the immortal plane, and everything tied together so neatly. Swan even ties everything up with a bow for his readers, with an ending that I found satisfying and thought was the best possible ending to this series.

People who have sat around with me while I’m reading, especially when there’s a surprising reveal, a shocking plot twist, or an unexpected event often look up in alarm when I gasp audibly. The gasp factor is directly related to the number of times I audibly gasp during a reading, and there isn’t an upper limit.

Gasp Factor: 28

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