The finale of the series. Honestly, it wasn't as good as the others and the ending did not feel as satisfying as I had hoped. First, I didnt like that at the end of the previous story Saida "realizes" her feelings for Malon. It felt like a left turn after 4 books of her despising him (and me too, quite frankly) so fully embracing that romance in this book felt so off. He was so unlikeable for most of the series and suddenly he's...just fine. Almost bland, actually. Saida deserves so much better.
I also felt like there wasn't as much lore/mythology explored as was hinted at, particularly with Ithune, Cindra, and Arcale. The little bit of backstory we do get just falls flat. It's almost like this book was rushed through in order to finish the series and wasn't as thoughtful in execution as the other books. Kind of disappointing.
The demon realm story line wasn't really that interesting. For the first 4 books you have the big bad demon antagonist, Egrin. The other demons dont really feel like as much of a threat as he did. And since the last book took care of the one who might have come close, we are basically left with no real antagonist in this story. Just a problem with warping portals and merging realms that really didnt feel as high stakes as fighting Egrin did.
I absolutely loved this series and these characters otherwise, and would definitely recommend it to fantasy readers, but the finale of this book just wasnt as exciting as some of the others.