I enjoyed the first half of this book better than the last half. As the war is being fought, I found myself wondering why I was supposed to care about any of the people the main characters were fighting for. NONE of the soldiers in the army are ever named, not even an officer or anything like that. They are nameless and thus expendable, and I found that do be annoying. (view spoiler)[Verex didn't even care about his people--he just left so he could have his happy ending and didn't care that he was leaving his country in the hands of a conniving court. Also, Arin pretty much rules Herran at the end, but he somehow has time to just be taking a nap on the grass? I found that very unrealistic. (hide spoiler)] So those things annoyed me and made me not like this book as much as the first two.