The second volume in the Azure Rain series.
Crimson Lightning’s plot centers more on Kwoltan Gera. The book kicks off with Keida and Naesa returning home to a destroyed village and setting out to find where the missing members were taken to, along with the main cast of Azure Rain. As such it features a lot more of what tribal Azure life is like than Azure Rain, and also introduces a lot more characters since the previously minor Kwoltan Gera characters—though still fairly minor—are developed a little more.
Like Azure Rain, Crimson Lightning also balances out the murder mystery/serious plot with lighter moments of family bonding and even a few romantic subplots. It focuses a bit more on Eureka and Keida’s pasts and relationships with each other and the rest of the tribe.
Shares a character page with Azure Rain.
The book is slated for release in late 2014/early 2015, so these tropes only apply to what’s been released so far.
This book provides examples of:
- Almost Dead Guy: Daelyn reanimates in time to tell Keida that the tribe was attacked and taken to the north, and is then Killed Off for Real.
- Ascended Extra: Keida and Naesa are present throughout most of the book and even get some chapters from their perspectives, including the introduction
- Some of the Kwoltan Gera warriors are shown to have very distinct personalities, which is a step up from their role as background characters with few or no lines in Azure Rain. Daelyn and Egrieak especially have gotten a lot more detail.
- Also the main ancestor that talks to Lleuwellyn (his great grandmother), unnamed in Azure Rain but stated to be his namesake, has her name revealed (Lleunalane), and she once again gives him advice.
- Catchphrase: Keida has a lot of people he needs to have a talk with.
- Continuity Nod: The book starts with Keida taking Naesa home from the hospital after a Time Skip of just under a year.
- Mytyln isn’t mentioned in Azure Rain by name, but mention is made of young warriors leaving the tribe. Mytyln is one of them and in another Continuity Nod when he asks about Klaide and Keldie, Keida tells him that Klaide is a warrior now, but decides not to tell him that his former mentor Sitr is dead.
- In the worst way, there was a lot of mention in Azure Rain of hostilities over putting in a dam between Kwoltan Gera and Vinez. This is highlighted again and stated to be getting worse, right before Keida sees the ruins of what used to be the village.
- Darker and Edgier: While Azure Rain started out rather dark in its own right, Crimson Lightning kicks off with a reminder that Naesa is permanently crippled, though she doesn’t let it affect her too badly and the destruction of the entire Village of Rivers that played a key role in saving the day in the last book as well as a Mercy Kill and some background characters getting Killed Off for Real. Though most of them either didn’t appear or only appeared briefly in Azure Rain, two of them are ‘‘the king and the medic’’, which leaves the surviving Kwoltan Gera without any kind of leadership and is outright stated by Lleu Gera to put them at risk of being disbanded IF they are rescued, especially because they now have no territory, and Lleuwellyn is fairly convinced that there is no way they’ll be able to find a new home unless they steal it from someone else.
- Doomed Hometown: Kwoltan Gera being destroyed puts the plot in motion.
- Dropped a Bridge on Him: Egrieak died off screen trying to defend Kwoltan Gera, along with some previously unnamed extras.
- Hope Spot: Keida at first thinks that maybe there wasn’t a fire after all, since there’s very little damage to the area, and that it was just some smoke stacks lit to try to scare the warriors off their territory. And then he sees the village.
- Lethal Chef: Opal sends Baltan from her house back with a plate of cookies; he and Lleuwellyn both comment that they don’t look edible, and are hard as rocks.
- Mercy Kill: Daelyn is found crushed under a building and begs for death.
- Posthumous Character: Since we aren’t treated to any time with them, the warriors who are dead at the beginning are given a paragraph or so to describe what they were like when alive. Though Egrieak was briefly seen in Azure Rain to be a huge Jerkass, his personality is further fleshed out by flashbacks and other characters talking about the kind of leader he was, as well as his own interactions with Lleuwellyn and Lleunalane in Lleu Gera.
- Prophecy Twist: It’s finally revealed why Eureka was banished. The reason was a misinterpreted prophecy warning about destruction coming from twin winged horses, which Egrieak and Daelyn took to mean Eureka (Mare) and Keida (Feather), twins, being together. It was actually a warning about the two disasters that would strike from Vinez (the attempted mass-murder of the children and the village being burned down), whose patron is the winged horse.
- Proud Warrior Race Guy: Egrieak
- Redemption Equals Death / Death Equals Redemption: Daelyn finally comes clean about why Eureka was banished, but only after asking Keida for a Mercy Kill, so both of these can apply equally.
- The Worf Effect: How tough are the enemies the main crew are facing this time? ‘‘They killed Egrieak and captured all of Kwoltan Gera, a village renowned for their fighting skills.’’
- Though to be fair it’s hinted at in Azure Rain, if not outright stated, that Egrieak was getting old and either close to retiring or should have retired by then. The rest of the village, though…
- The enemy was using silver weapons so they had a slight advantage.
