When simple farmer boy Mathias watches his parents being killed by the Emperor’s men, all he can think of is revenge. Rescued by the ranger, Alexander, and his ward, Fayette, Mathias finds himself first being trained to be a warrior and then ultimately to take over the throne. But the realm runs on fear and betrayal, few are trustworthy and everyone has an agenda. Through this Mathias has to grow up quickly and learn to be as devious as everyone else, especially when they have the emperor in their sights.

This was a fun YA fantasy novel to read, even if it is on the short side. The main characters are engaging and the twists and turns in the plot were fun to follow as well as being quite surprising for some of them. Watching as the multitude of schemes unravel was actually quite interesting to see who could get the upper hand on the others.  The book did have a few spelling errors in it, as well as some editing issues that could have been sorted out and the plot did jump from place to place without necessarily feeling fully joined up.

In general, though, it was fun to read and it would be interesting to see where the next book goes with Mathias and his situation. Certainly one for fans of the genre to enjoy.