Since the death of the Maha, the Ambha Empire has been breaking down. The Emperor is near death, and his sons are preparing to fight to inherit his throne. Arwa is the only survivor of a fearsome supernatural massacre that killed her husband and everyone else at Darez Fort, and she has come to make her life at the widows’ refuge in Numriha. But once she’s there, she realizes that her Amrithi blood — inheritance from the biological mother she never knew; evidence that she is not the good Ambhan noblewoman she has always claimed to be — could help to save the Empire from its downfall. And so she comes to the empire’s capital city, where she is asked to work alongside the Emperor’s bastard son Zahir to walk in the Realm of Ash, and uncover the memories of the long-dead Maha. It’s the Empire’s only hope.
The first thing to mention is that while Realm of Ash is the second in the Books of Ambha series, it functions more as a companion novel than as a sequel. Arwa was the beloved baby sister of Mehr, our heroine from Empire of Sand, but she’s now an adult, widowed at twenty-one and traumatized from the massacre at Darez Fort and angry, angry, angry. For all the years of her life she has done her best to conform to what’s expected of her as an Ambhan noblewoman. She was the perfect daughter her parents wanted; the perfect wife for her late husband; now the perfect servant to the Empire. But none of that has truly given her the space to be who she is and express what she wants. Working with Zahir offers her some hope of agency, but at the cost of the facade of Ambhan normalcy that she has preserved all her life. All the time she works to save the Empire, it’s crumbling faster than she and Zahir can possibly shore it up; and nobody around them in the capital city can be trusted.
Tasha Suri comes out of fandom and it shows. Realm of Ash begins and ends with emotional stakes, such that I was immediately swept away by Arwa’s emotional journey. Even before it became clear that Arwa was on a quest to save the whole-ass empire, I was in on her, simply because of her rage and her desperation for her suffering to mean something. I liked Empire of Sand an awful lot, but Realm of Ash was maybe even more up my alley: Arwa wants to be good in a world that disallows the possibility of her goodness. Her person is the curse — at least, that’s what she’s always been told. No wonder she’s angry. You are angry for her, and there are few things more immediately resonant to me than an angry woman who wants like hell to figure out how to be moral.
Then of course there is Zahir. Like Empire of Sand, Realm of Ash functions in many ways like a romance, though Arwa’s own self-actualization is the most important plot element, the thing that begins the book and will mark its ending. The romance is pretty excellent, though. Zahir and Arwa have to build, and I know y’all know I’m about this, a grudging respect. Again as in Empire of Sand, this book is keenly aware of the power differential between its principals. Here’s what Zahir says when his sister implies to Arwa that she should be sexually available to Zahir:
“She cannot give what I won’t take then,” snapped Zahir. “You came here of your own free will, Lady Arwa, came to this service out of loyalty and love for the Empire, and I am grateful. But I know how free will can bend to necessity and survival. I know. And I do not ask for more….I called you my apprentice, my assistant, and that is all I want, and all I need from you.”
For the sensible friends who, like me, desire angry women and soft men, Realm of Ash is what you’re after. Zahir is a soft, careful, bookish, morally upright nerd who rightly thinks the world of Arwa, but also trusts her to know her own mind and make her own choices. Suri does a brilliant job of writing the development of this relationship into a true partnership, and it’s lovely to read.
The central theme of Realm of Ash is how to live ethically in an empire that sleeps on a bed of bones. Arwa and Zahir are constantly aware that the collapse of the Empire will mean the deaths of thousands of people. And Arwa has witnessed such deaths firsthand, at Darez Fort. She wants at all costs to prevent it from happening again. The Emperor’s warlike son Parviz wants to improve matters by cracking down on so-called heretics. Zahir has a plan that he thinks might maybe restore them to the status quo. These are the only ideas anybody seems to have. It is horrible because like, as Arwa has cause to learn, the status quo was horrible! But nobody else has any ideas, and a lot of people are going to die if the whole thing crumbles! Sooooooooooooooo…. ?
(As you may have discerned, I found this both timely and relatable.)
Realm of Ash is a tense, smart, beautifully insightful fantasy romance. If you are getting tired of quarantine and wishful of something brilliant to read, I can’t recommend better than Realm of Ash.