Hell Hath No Fury Like Villains Scorned: Alex Marshall’s A War in Crimson Embers

Well, a funny thing happened on the way to the massacre: things have gotten a tad more complicated since A Crown for Cold Silver. For the most part, Zosia’s blame for her husband’s murder and her village’s destruction turned out to be misplaced, the circumstances behind them less easily pinned down. There’s also the minor detail that a long-lost civilization has resurfaced, bringing with it hordes of hell creatures bent on the destruction of the world.
Zosia, the Banshee with a Blade, will end the trilogy side-by-side with those she sought to vanquish, fighting to save the Star, their own home sweet hell.
This is where we pick up the action in A War in Crimson Embers, the final chapter in the thrill-a-minute fantasy series from Alex Marshall, nom de plume for fantasy writer Jesse Bullington. Like A Blade of Black Steel, its successor volume plunges into motion exactly where the story last left off—with virtually everything in the toilet.
Zosia remains the trilogy’s heartbeat, both caustic and compelling as she grapples with decisions she’d sought to avoid, to the point of faking her own death. She herds a tremendous, ever-growing cast of allies, enemies, and all those somewhere in the middle.

As the battle for the Star reaches its zenith, the characters who have accumulated along this bloody journey have room to breathe, and to grow, and to fight. The result is a book that zips across this world and the next to catch up with scattered heroes and villains—but in doing so, reaches a tenuous balance and a madcap peace.
The mighty Maroto is marooned in the (formerly) Sunken Kingdom of Jex Toth with his seafaring crew. On a sorcerous quest to find him, his nephew Sullen teams up with a ragtag band that includes the enigmatic wizard Hoartrap, a fellow Villain to Maroto and Zosia. Of course, Sullen’s mind also wanders to his love Ji-Hyeon, the princess turned general who’s forced to fight her way back to her friends through the mysterious and tormenting First Dark. Zosia, meanwhile, has her own torment, as she and her trusty devil Choplicker find themselves pinned with another former queen and nemesis, Indsorith, by a fanatic rebellion.
All of these separate storylines manage to converge in a final battle for the ages, as Jex Toth’s army of the (kind of) dead makes its assault on the Star. It’s a winner-take-nothing fight, with the Tothans content with nothing short of all-out destruction.
One of the most remarkable things about the Crimson Empire trilogy is just how awful Marshall lets things get. These are books that revel in misery and mayhem; they’re spotted with the gallows humor you’d expect, but also with descriptions of bloodshed and depictions of violence that will make your skin crawl.

Throughout the books, the prevailing Fallen Mother ideology—the inverted religion that helped spark this descent into madness—has provided discomforting moments, which reach an apex with the look inside the prophesied Jex Toth, with its flesh-and-blood accommodations and bug-fueled warriors. Ji-Hyeon’s journey through the First Dark proves nearly as gruesome, as does the threatened torture for Zosia and Indsorith. Everywhere you turn, you’re as likely to be flayed alive as you are to find a wink and a one-liner.
This whipsaw narrative style is part of what makes the Crimson Empire trilogy so much fun, even as the action grows so very dark. That, and that all the devils here are, despite their worst intentions, so damned likable. A War in Crimson Embers serves as the perfect finale for a series in which just about everyone plays the villain, if only, because, just this once, all of the devils are fighting on the same side.
A War in Crimson Embers is available now.