Honeyed Words: Cast in Courtlight by Michelle Sagara

Cast in Courtlight by Michelle Sagara · 14 May 2007

Cast In Courtlight is the second book in the Elantra series. After reading it’s predecessor, Cast In Shadow, I wasn’t expecting much from it, but I was pleasantly surprised.

Sagara starts the current story a short time after the conclusion of the previous installment. The main character, Kaylin, has just emerged from a trial which left her emotionally scarred, but physically whole. Kaylin has never been one to follow all the rules during her employ as a Hawk (one of the branches of Law in Elantra) and she doesn’t look to be changing her ways in this installment. She’s been removed from the duty roster during the Festival season (a time when every active duty officer is double-booked) as a precaution to herself and others, and is chafing under the yoke of authority.

In Cast in Shadow it was obvious that Kaylin lived to be a Hawk. In Cast in Courtlight, Kaylin is mysteriously called to the Barrani High Court but Sagara wastes no time showing us that whatever else has changed in Kaylin’s life, her heart still belongs to the Hawks. Though her greatest desire is to enforce the Emperor’s law as a simple ground Hawk (Elantra’s version of a beat cop) circumstances and fate conspire against Kaylin, once again putting her in the middle of circles she’d rather not deal with.

In the first book, Kaylin is embraced by one Barrani lord, in this second book she is shoved into the Barrani court. As an immortal race, the Barrani have an outlook on life that directly contradicts Kaylin’s mortal one, and they play a vicious game of power. Cast in Courtlight juxtaposes the Barrani and the Human outlooks as Kaylin navigates the tricky High Court protocol, trying to solve the mystery of the Barrani heirs without getting herself killed for a misstep in words.

Kaylin is a character that acts as a catalyst. She speaks before she thinks and acts before she speaks. She has great power, but little wisdom and so she attracts the political interest of the wiser and the powerful. Set upon the High Court of the Barrani, she is surrounded by a culture counter to her nature. Sagara sums up the conflict between Kaylin and Barraini culture succinctly after Kaylin initiates another uncomfortable exchange of wits with one of the Barrani:

”We talked to your father,” she said. The blunt words felt almost foreign in her mouth because, in the end, there we some things she didn’t want to speak about.

A brief flash of something like insight came to her then. She wondered if, in living for centuries, one accumulated so much one didn’t want to speak about, Barraini was the only natural tongue in which not to speak.

Cast in Courtlight reads like a crime-drama set in an alternate reality, which sets it apart from the style of many fantasy genre books. Sagara does justice to both outlooks on the story by creating a fully-fleshed world in which Kaylin is the loveable but not lovely pit bull set upon a case, surrounded by forces outside her understanding. Tasked with a mission and without the tools of experience, Kaylin works the problem like a detective, observing and worrying at the details, forcing her way into forbidden places to observe the scenes, and always speaking bluntly as she does. I think the character of Kaylin, with her unique sense of heroism, is the strength of this novel.

In book two, the five races of Elantra and their peculiarities are familiar to us, as are the main characters. Part of my issue with the first book was that I felt Sagara was trying to introduce too many tangential characters (and their requisite racial traits) that distracted from the plot. In Cast in Courtlight, Sagara was able to skim over these details since they had been introduced in book one and to focus on a more in-depth study on the Barrani race.

Sagara also builds on the character relationships that were introduced in book one. During Cast in Courtlight, we learn more about Kaylin’s history with her childhood friend Severn and the nature of her relationship with the outcaste Lord Nightshade. Cast in Courtlight advances both these subplots while deftly weaving them into the main story.

The pacing of Cast in Courtlight was also greatly improved due to the reader being familiar with Kaylin and her world. I felt Cast in Shadow moved slowly, but Cast in Courtlight led smoothly to a climactic end that left the reader anxious for the next installment of the Elantra series (available August 1, 2007!).

This book was reviewed for the 2007 Once Upon a Time Challenge.