Shadows of Myth starts with a woman who wakes up with no memory of who she is, at all, amidst a slaughter. She is the only survivor when Archer Blackcloak and his travel companions find her. They travel to the nearest town which is Whitewater where there we meet, among other towns people, Sara Deepwell and Tom Downey, who add a little background love story, but that's just what it is a background. The women soon recalls her name being Tess Birdsong along with other knowledge but doesn't know how she knows them or how she learned them. And you know there is something going on as its harvest time and an early winter has come in.Sara is the daughter of the inn keeper and her mother disappeared six years ago, Tom is the gatekeepers son, who is shy and in love with Sara, they both feel they are meant to journey the land not stay in the small town though they do love the town. Sara's mother was a healer before to disappeared and so Sara learned a lot from her.
The traveling companions of Archer are of the Anari race, Ratha and Giri freed men by Archer when he slayed the man who was trying to sell them as slaves. Archer is a traveler and warrior, through out the whole book it gives you a since that he has a long ago past and he was or did something that was part of how the land is now but never told what or who he really is.
For the first part of the book your told the stories of the Ilduin, women who can wield magick and the First Born you learn about them and many things of this world the same time Tess is, while they are traveling to the city of Derda hoping to find answers of who attacked the caravan that was slaughtered that Tess awoke in. But all they find is more questions and more desperation. However they do learn the name of who they need to look for, which well send them on the second part of their journey.
I wouldn't say that this part of the traveling was completely empty of any event there were a few things, a little bit of action, I felt like this leg of their journey the main focus was on the stories that Archer was telling of the ancient times, though they were good and the way they were told, it lacked for me the adventure and action. Also Tess and Sara kept sensing something within them, as if something and even sometimes someone was either warning them or an evil force call to them.
Its not till they are traveling to the city of Lorense that things pick up. The characters start to open up more and grow and get stronger together. This is also where the action picks up, there was a volcano eruption, and I just love how its described, not once was it called a volcano. As its only logical the reason why it was even brought up Archer realizes it real quickly that Tess is in fact Ilduin, and theres is an Ilduin being forced to help this evil force, theres also other Ilduin still around. They encounter a creature that has long since been a legend to the Anari people. Tess gets kidnapped. And the big battle happens. Tess gets more sure of herself though she still wants to know who she is, she's stopped questioning herself and her instincts.
It ends the Ratha and Giri finding out that something is going on where they come from and that they most go and help their people, after coming so far together no one is not staying behind they are going to see to the end of this greater dark force, and so makes for the beginning of their next journey, which is the next book. I hope with the next one it doesn't save all the action for the end.
