The Final Strife: The Instant Sunday Times Bestseller: Book 1 (The Ending Fire)

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Anoor a blue-blooded Duster, replaced in the cradle to the stolen Ember, and Hassa, a clear blooded Ghosting, the dredges of the empire, hands, and tongue cut off at birth to keep them silent and weak. On the continent, Sylah and Jond also learn about how bloodwerk operates beyond the Warden’s Empire.

Many of the minor characters are also non-binary, and medical treatments to aid in transitioning are easily accessible and widely accepted in the Empire. El-Arifi also ensures there is a world-changing or gut wrenching cliffhanger each time we switch which plot thread we are currently following.

Without getting into spoilers, she carefully constructs a brand new worldview/ideology around the blood magic we learned about in The Final Strife. With The Final Strife being the first in a trilogy, it will be great to see what else El-Arifi comes out with.

She’s a talented artist, but is barely keeping her late father’s gallery afloat while being blackmailed by a local lord who knows a potentially ruinous secret about her. It takes the norms of the ‘chosen one’ trope or the ‘brooding assassin with a past’ throws them straight out the window. Anoor had a very sheltered upbringing – but a very keen curiosity and sense of fairness, and through Sylah discovers much about the privilege and destitution of the outside world. That said, it did seem a bit short-sighted that there didn’t seem to be any runners-up in training just in case the next Warden has some sort of accident like being wiped out by a tidewind before starting their term. But then, maybe that will be addressed in a later book in the series since this one focused on the competition more than the ins and outs of the guilds.The nature of the book is dark, but the lightness in their relationship was like a beacon in the dark and I loved to see it. Sylah is a secret Ember, stolen as a toddler by the rebellious Duster sect known as the Sandstorm, who left a Duster in her place and raised her to revolution. Sylah and Anoor are two characters I would go to war for, and their dynamic is wonderfully crafted throughout the novel. Sylah was raised to believe in justice and revolution, but she’s been depressed and jaded since the night she lost her family and her role in their mission.

Part of her arc involves questioning her father’s methods and some of the teachings she grew up with, some of which stem from seeing that some red-blooded people are just ordinary kitchen workers with no real power of their own. She raised Anoor as her own, sending her to an elite school and arranging for her to mix a dash of her blue blood into a servant’s red to do blood magic. There are three main character in this book – all female and of different castes: Sylah (Ember), Anoor (Duster) and Hassan (Ghosting). Their style is smooth, and easy to read, holds your attention, even when it is three in the morning and you know you should be sleeping. This setting does not have obstacles for women or LGBTQ+ people—as shown through the lives of the three main characters, a trans woman and two women who are attracted to each other—but instead, has divisions based on blood color.The sapphic romance between Anoor and Sylah was a sweet, slow burn, and was honestly so cute my heart couldn't take it! When he’s invited to play a dangerous magical game with a prize that could save his people, he goes all in. The world-building was vivid and rich, and while it does follow the age-old assassin, enemies to lover’s trope, this book does it with ease. During the Night of the Stolen, this group sneaked into the homes of several noble families, swapping Sylah and the other highborn children with their own blue-blooded babies.