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Mist, Shadow and Deep: Crystalline Dragons Saga book 2
by Eoghan R. Cunningham
UwU Publishing, 2024
Four stars

This continues to be a fascinating series. Our heroes are: Dusk, ex-salt-mine slave on the lam; Lex, a probably-noble young man on the lam; and Tara, a former royal army officer, muscle for hire, possibly on the lam.


Along with a gentle mare, Maribel, this mismatched trio is trying to get out of one country and into another one, the ultimate goal being freedom and safety for Dusk.


If the first book in the Crystalline Dragon saga taught us anything, it’s that this is not going to be an easy trip. Indeed it is not, and while not presented as an epic on the Lord of the Rings Scale, it is an intimate sort of epic, in which Dusk is figuring out what it is to be a real human being (after most of his life in underground enslavement). Dusk never stops marvelling at the wonders of the world, sometimes forgetting the dangers he faces. Lex and Tara are such unlikely traveling companions, Dusk can’t quite believe his good fortune—and this, at the center of this chapter in the story, becomes his point of real vulnerability.


Dusk has the crystal eye of a dragon embedded in his chest, and that has given him unsought powers. A seamless metal collar placed on his neck by a sorcerer has, however, curtailed that power.


When a wandering monk named Yarick appears out of the fog of a truly dismal swamp, Dusk seems to have found the answer to his prayers. The band of four begins to make its way south to Emerald Deep, and closer to the freedom Dusk seeks.


I love Dusk’s name, because it is not only a symbol of his unknown origins, but emblematic of his own dimness. I don’t mean lack of intelligence, but the lack of knowledge that keeps him from seeing clearly. That dimness will take him places he doesn’t want to go.


Poor Dusk. My personal theory is that Lex is his destined love, but nobody seems to know that yet. We do find out in this book that Dusk definitely is drawn to men, so at least I have that to hold onto.


The ending of this episode is a bit of a jaw-dropper, in which a sudden, unexpected light cast on his history (see what I did there?) goes with a crushing loss that is the stunning set up for book 3.