Raisa Greywood-Wicked Fire

Raisa has gone back to her magical world of dragons, Sidhe, mages, and two-natured. I have been looking forward to Wicked Fire because I wanted to find out more about Drako and Morgaine, and this book let me do that, for sure.

So, for those who don’t remember, Morgaine is an ancient mage who has a hardon for the Archer family. She has done all she can to kill the entire family, down to Lily, who has 3 powerful husbands, including Myrddin, Morgaine’s old friend and teacher. Morgaine talked to a crazy dark elf named Teran and managed to get him to hold Lily prisoner. He did horrrrrible things to Lily.

For her pains, Morgaine ended up trapped in a stone, sentenced to be there until it turned into dust. She had no contact with anyone, although the king of the light elves would give her stuff every 10th anniversary. That included books, laptops, TVs, and radios. She could watch the world go by, but she couldn’t interact with it. It was a quiet existence, but not a terrible one, at least once she had the books and computer. She spent a lot of time researching and learning, which she loved. But then, there’s an earthquake, which destroys her prison. She gets picked up by a pair of elves, who tell her that the light king and the dark queen are going to give her another chance for redemption. She has to go kill Teran, who has escaped. And oh yeah, she has to do it without her magic, and if she fails, she dies. Meanwhile, she has to go from Cornwall to London in 6 hours to catch her flight. Now, Morgaine has been locked up in a stone for over a century, so trying to get from here to there is really hard for her. But, she manages to make it to New York, where she sees Lily and her husbands, who, of course, want to attack her.

So, Drako is the last dragon on Earth. He was bound to Myrddin for centuries, and now he’s bound to his many-times granddaughter, Lily. He’s a living tattoo on her back, but all he needs is a little magic, and he can be free. When Morgaine shows up, he tells Lily to free him, and he’ll handle Morgaine. After all, he doesn’t like her much either, since she killed all of his Archer descendants because Fergus wouldn’t leave his wife for her, or at least, that’s her story. So, Drako gets his freedom, and he takes Morgaine to his hoard. He says that he’s not interested in her, but he’s not about to trust her at all, because he knows that her story about having to get Teran is all bullshit. He figures that she only wants to get to Teran so that they can work together.

You know, finding out more about Morgaine made me really like her. I didn’t like her all that much in other books, mostly because she was cast as a villain in those books. But, her story makes me look back at her actions in the other books, and say ooooohhhhh, that’s why she did this. It was shitty, but it could’ve been worse, and I totally understand it now. I really like her now. This book gave her an excellent redemption arc, but really, I think that her redemption may have started much earlier. I’m going to have to go back and reread everything all at once, just so I can doublecheck.

I have liked Drako, but there were times in this one when I got really mad at him. I don’t know how much of why I got mad at him is the fact that he isn’t just out of touch, but that he’s hundreds and hundreds of years out of touch or how much he is acting on preconceived notions. I mean, yeah, he was there with Myrddin and Lily all those many years, but he spent a lot of that time kind of sleeping, and didn’t pay as much attention as he could’ve, so he’s still working on old behaviors. I can understand why he treated Morgaine the way he did at first, but when he started seeing stuff in her that was contrary to what he thought he knew, he just decided that she was lying and didn’t believe her or do anything to actually help.

I think that a lot of people failed Morgaine from the very beginning. I totally understand why she acted the way she did in the beginning. Even with being as strong as she was, she was innocent, trusting, and vulnerable. Everything could’ve been so different if she hadn’t been failed as she was.

There was one particular part that absolutely broke my heart and left me ugly crying.

Yan was fascinating. And I’m really hoping that we’ll get a story of Yan and Omer, because I’m pretty sure that would be totally awesome. And Feather’s story too.

OK, that’s all for this one. Go check it out! Happy reading!