The Fire Within Them

• Author: Matthew Ward
• Genre: Fantasy
• Publication Date: June 11, 2024
• Publisher: Orbit
• Series: The Soulfire Saga #2

Thank you to Orbit and Angela Man for sending me an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

The second book in Matthew Ward’s action-packed trilogy, the Soulfire Saga, The Fire Within Them is set in a world ruled by an immortal king, where souls fuel magic and a supernatural mist known as the Veil threatens to engulf the land. Perfect for fans of John Gwynne and Anthony Ryan.

For the first time in a millennium, the kingdom of Khalad is divided. The Battle of Athenoch has fanned the spark of Bashar Vallant’s rebellion to a raging flame. Tyzanta, jewel of the east, has declared for his cause, and other cities have followed. Vallant, the people’s hero, may soon be powerful enough to challenge Caradan Diar, Khalad’s immortal king.

But such power demands great personal sacrifice.

Afflicted with omen rot after channeling the Deadwinds to save Athenoch from the koilos army, Kat searches for a means to stop the disease killing her as it did her mother. Her journey will uncover secrets long since buried–secrets concerning her past, her family and the kingdom itself. Eventually she’ll learn that the past never stays buried in Khalad–and that the truth can cut deeper than any blade.

I was a big fan of the first book in this series, The Darkness Before Them, and I was really looking forward to starting this one. Not just because the story ended on a cliffhanger, although that did play a role. And after a quick reread of book one, I was ready to start this book.

The pace of this story was about the same as the first book. It was kind of meandering, but it allowed for plenty of room for the plot to unfold, as well as character interactions and growth. There was some action, but it also felt like Ward was strategizing, moving around chess pieces to set up a bigger payout in book three, where a big showdown is going to have to occur. The stakes are higher in this book, but I’m willing to bet that the next book in this series is going to be epic. 

Although the story was a slower-moving one, it worked out beautifully because the character development has the space to shine. And there is so much more character development in this book than in the previous one. We have three POV characters in this book—Katija, Tanith, and Damant, and each of them provides much-needed insight into the story. 

Kat is a character that we already know well, but we get to see a different side of her in this book. She has omen rot, and for a woman who has only been able to rely on herself for most of her life, asking for help is obviously difficult for her. But in order to get by, she especially as she gets sicker and the plot gets more involved, it’s something she’s going to have to learn how to do. Showing vulnerability doesn’t come naturally to Kat, but now that she’s found a family’s worth of people who care about her, they’re all willing and ready to be there for Kat, as soon as she asks. 

Tanith was a character that I truly disliked in the last book, especially once I got to see who she was and what she was really about. So I wasn’t thrilled to see her as a main character in this book with so many POV chapters. Fortunately, she grew on me, and I got to see a different and more human (no pun intended) side of her. Instead of being a surface-level character, we got more in-depth development for Tanith, and she ended up being a complex, multifaceted character. I found myself enjoying her chapters more once I knew her a little better and got through the surface persona to know who she was underneath the mask.

There aren’t as many Damant chapters as the two women, but he provides a nice balance to them. Damant was the guy who tried to do the right thing in the last book, and now he’s settling into a morally gray lifestyle, although I could also argue the opposite for this book—working with the Bascari family was his morally gray period and now he’s actually trying to do the right thing and be a good guy, depending on which way you’re looking at the situation. 

Overall, I’m still loving this fantastic series. Despite all the jokes out there about men writing women, Ward actually does a wonderful job with writing a series with many female characters. There’s great queer representation in the story, especially with the resurgence of Azra/Yennika Bascari in Kat’s life, and all of the baggage that accompanies that relationship, not to mention how tangled up Kat is with both Azra and Yennika, and how much work she did in the last book to heal. Since this is such an involved and complex story, I would love to see a quick summation of the story thus far, like I’ve seen in some other books. And of course this book leaves off on another cliffhanger, so I’ll be quietly suffering until the next book comes out. But I can easily recommend this to my fellow fantasy readers.

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