I loved the characters. The gentle prince that deals with a lot of anxiety and the stoic kahya that mistakes his mental health issues for weakness. I was actually thinking: how will they ever go from this to lovers? Which is a very promising sign for this trope. But then the first sparks start to fly and we abandon character development completely. It skips the „I have new respect for you“ or „I like you“ part and jumps immediately to „I will literally cut my hand off for you for absolutely no reason“. And all that anxiety is conveniently cured by love or more likely attraction which was just disappointing. So while both of the characters eagerly fantasize way too fast about sacrificing themselves for the other the author insists on a slow burn so slow I’m afraid the fire went out somewhere between the bad plot and the fealty oaths. Speaking of the plot, it is a disaster. Every interesting part turns out to be irrelevant, the villain hides in plain sight like a child thinking closing their eyes will do the trick and everything that wasn’t bad could have been better still.
That all being said, there are some cute romance vibes, the story takes place in an amazing setting and the queer rep is beautiful. It’s bingeable, it’s flirty, it’s funny. I can see why people like it. If you’re a vibe reader you’re probably going to love it.
