Ygseril, the Eboran’s tree god died at the end of the 8th reign, the 8th time the Worm People, the Jure’lia, attacked Sarn. Now the semi-immortals of Ebora are in decline. Without the sap that sustained them, they discovered that human blood could provide a small semblance of the regeneration and halting of the aging process they had grown used to while consuming Ygseril’s sap. However, after the carrion wars, in which the Eborran’s raided their southern neighbors, the Planes people, a new crisis arose in Ebora, the Crimson Flux. Any Eboran that consumes human blood can be afflicted by the Crimson Flux. It doesn’t matter if all you’ve had was a little sip, or if you sustained yourself with liters per day, the Crimson Flux can take you. There is a belief that although it’s not always associated with consuming a lot of human blood, every time you drink from humans you put yourself at greater risk of contracting this horribly painful, fatal disease.
Tormalin the oathless has decided that he doesn’t want to witness the decline of his once great people and plans to leave Ebora to live the remainder of his life among humans. Eborans, although they experience ostracization for their part in the Carrion War over 300 years ago, are still useful and have skills that humans don’t possess. Tormalin is a practitioner of the House of the Long Night, a formalized study of the art of seduction that has named all the sexual moves they teach their practitioners, like the morning stroll, or the setting sun. Tormalin decides to spend the rest of his days, drinking wine, making love, and enjoying the blood of his lovers.
Vintage de Grazon is a scholar, interested in discovering what happened to the Jure’lia after the 8th reign and why the dangerous parasite spirits haunt the Jure’lia’s crashed ships–behemoths. A woman of means, she has hired Tormalin as her personal bodyguard. His price? All the good wine he can drink. He constantly reminds Vintage of this whenever he is unable to consume as much wine and cheese as he would like. Now, Tormalin accompanies Vintage on her sojourns into the dangerous behemoths, wielding his winnow-forged steel sword, The Ninth Rain, and using his enhanced strength and dexterity to ward off the beasts corrupted by their proximity to the behemoths and the parasite spirits. Only winnow-forged steel can cut a parasite spirit.
Fel-noon is one of the unfortunate women to be cursed with the ability to summon winnow-fire. By taking the life force of another, she can summon and shape a green fire. Fel witches are taken to the winnowry when their powers are discovered. There they are kept in cramped cages, and they use their powers to cook chemicals to create Acriss, a drug able to guarantee a dreamless sleep. Fel-noon always takes Acriss when offered, she has no desire to relive the horrors of her past. But one night, she receives a dream so powerful that it overpowers the Acriss. In the dream, the Jure’lia have returned and are laying waste to the winnowry. The dream is so real, Fel-Noon is convinced it is a premonition and she must escape the winnowry so she doesn’t die alongside her fellow prisoners. During all of the other rains, the Eborans rose up to fight off the Jure’lia, harnessing the massive war beasts that grew from Ygseril’s branches. But with Ebora in decline and Ygseril dead, no war beasts will be birthed to fight back against the Jure’lia, and the Eborans only exist as a handful of citizens, a lot of those are afflicted by the Crimson Flux and unable to fight any longer. If the Jure’lia return, it will be the end of Sarn.
Recently, I’ve read a lot of single books in a series. I don’t really feel the need to follow those series in the same way that I followed the Stormlight Archives, Mistborn, Price of Thorns, and Prince of Fools series. I will be reading the second book in the Winnowing Fire series at least. The Ninth Rain almost felt like a primer for the rest of the series, but still had a satisfying conclusion that answered all the questions I had, but left room for the series to grow after the first book.
One thing I really enjoyed about this series was that none of our main three protagonists were traditional heroes. Out of Vintage, Tor, and Noon, only Vintage presented as an unproblematic character. Tormalin has resigned himself to a life of leisure and has given up on Ebora. The best way to describe Eborans is they are vampiric elves that once were able to sustain their extremely long lives through the gift of their god. Now they must consume human blood, but they get consent beforehand. Think Baldur’s Gate 3’s Asterion. Tor is only concerned about his own pleasure and is distrusting those he hasn’t let into his inner circle.
Something horrible happened in Fel-Noon’s life; something she regrets. Without Acriss, she experiences nightmares almost every night, and she is unwilling to relive the memories that cause those nightmares, so much so that her desire to not live them makes sense why we never find out about the source of the nightmares as a reader.
Sarn is a semi-ruined world, one that still hasn’t recovered from the last incursion by the Jure’lia. Even if the Jure’lia never return, their behemoths continue to poison the land. One of the things I really enjoyed about this book was the epigraphs before each chapter. I’m always hesitant when it comes to epigraphs. They can be used very successfully in some cases, but in others, especially quotes, they don’t add much to the story and can either be skipped completely or forgotten easily. The epigraphs in this book are all about Vintage’s correspondence with other scholars and her friends/companions. They provide the background information about the world in a way that doesn’t detract but adds to the story. If someone is interested on how to do epigraphs right, this is the way to do it. As much as I enjoy Brandon Sanderson’s writing, his epigraphs are sometimes distractions from the story, rather than providing necessary detail. They’re great for world-building, but sometimes they aren’t necessary. I’m thinking of the epigraphs that describe the current fashion trends of Roshar.