The prose. How can I start this review without glazing the prose? Artful. Immersive. The prose is easily the strongest aspect of the story. Vivid. Active. Layered descriptions that are worth a look at for anyone who enjoys good prose or wants to learn how to get better at writing prose. It never gets pretentious, never gets too purple, grounded to a sufficient degree.

HOWEVER, the beautiful prose did cause some issues, in my opinion. Some repeated descriptions of the same scenes with different wording didn't undercut the beauty of the words, but it did slow down the pacing sometimes. It isn't a glaring issue, but subtly, I did feel a little demotivated sometimes when reading some chunks of text that had some elements of repetition (especially when describing the take-offs and flying). But because the prose is so beautiful (yes, can't stop glazing), I get how difficult it must be to cut away some of the descriptions and shorten them. And there is also the argument of immersiveness, but this is an issue that the author would have to balance. (And I don't envy them for having to take on this task)

Other than the prose, I also love the character chemistry and the lovey-dovey moments. The sometimes-sudden perspective shifts in the narrative can feel jarring at times, but those moments didn't detract from the enjoyment of the romance between Jere and Ylfa.

Another possible improvement is in the villains. Hatred and greed were branded as the culprits behind the kingdom and its inhabitants' devious deeds and antagonism against Jere and Ylfa, but even though the novel already took their perspectives, the exploration of these emotions wasn't in-depth, which feels like a missed opportunity.

Again, I'm going to glaze the prose. The locations and character appearances were vividly described and easy to imagine. The fight scenes were clear (though sometimes Jere cutting off people's heads gets a little repetitive) and a breeze to follow.

Overall, I will give this story a 9/10. Solid, but has nitpicky details to improve on that occasionally dampen the enjoyment of the story.