Kate Elliot has dazzled me in the past with her Alexander the Great-inspired space opera – The Sun Chronicles, and her fantasy novellas. I’ve always had too much on my plate to dive into her Crown of Stars series, but I may be changing my mind about that. The Witch Roads duology, by Kate Elliott, is a small but wonderful adventure filled with humor, darkness, small acts of heroism, and mystery.
El, a deputy courier in the Orledder Halt region of the empire, has built a life for herself and her nephew. But when someone from her past shows up at the same time an arrogant Prince needs a guide, she chooses to grit her teeth and deal with the arrogant entourage. However, she does not realize the political struggle she has just attached herself to. But when the Prince disobeys her advice around an ancient tower, he is possessed by a Haunt who has plans of his own. Can El help the Haunt keep his cover while staying on the Prince’s mission?
Something I’ve come to admire about Elliott’s writing is her ability to manage tone. The Witch Roads is no different and puts this skill on full display. Throughout the duology, horror, romance, fantasy, bawdy humor, and deadly serious court intrigue all swirl together into a potent blend that delights, entertains, and turns a critical eye towards the very world it takes place in. I want to point this out because I had trepidation for the duology and took a while picking it up because the covers for the book, along with the synopses, led me to believe this would be a cozier outing. And while that’s not exactly untrue, it’s not anywhere close to the experience I had either. There is a lot of room for the characters to banter as they trek across the wilderness between the various manors that populate the imperial realm. People question each other’s intentions as they try to reinforce strict royal hierarchies. But just as the reader is lulled into a state of relaxation, the story throws a wrench in the gears. Political plots, raiders, and the mystery of the pall all sneak up on everyone. Baggage between characters slowly gets unearthed, and El’s tortured past rises to the surface by the end of the first book, leaving me with a bittersweet hunger for more. I think it would be easy to consider this uneven, but the false sense of security built by the unorthodox nature of El’s relationship with the party makes the big tense moments that come out of nowhere feel all the more threatening.
The budding relationship between the haunt that takes over the body of the prince and El is cute in the best ways. There are times where the reader is reminded how unrealistic it all is based on their social positions, but the slow roll paired with the inevitability of the relationship not being long-term made it feel less out of place. It didn’t feel like a defy-the-odds kind of romance, just one born of a time and place that has an end that is approaching. They are two people who are out of place within the context of the royalty, but El is in her element of traversing the wilderness of the kingdom’s borders, and the haunt is tracking a long-lost duty. The romance isn’t an immediate flowering so much as it is cultivated by the interactions between them doing what they are supposed to be doing. Their outsider tendencies allow the bond to grow more quickly, but a romantic relationship between them is not required. It’s a side story in some ways even for the characters, but it’s charming enough that I rooted for it the whole way, and if you’re worried about issues of consent and body control – Elliott has it under control.
This tonal management also gives space for the reader to really get to know the arrogant royalty that one would be predisposed to despise. I, for one, flinch at the phrase “noble-bright fantasy,” (not that The Witch Roads falls into this category) as it conjures some deep resentment for hereditary power transfers and the problems born of it. But Elliott makes feudal society feel like the material and social force that it is/was. There are formalities to be followed, titles to be addressed, and personal distances must be maintained. People can only engage people if their statuses align within the system. Otherwise, there are people whose jobs are to remind them of their place, through force if necessary. Opinions can’t even be considered if you aren’t deemed worthy enough through title, occupation, or lineage. It engenders a specific level of arrogance, but it doesn’t come off as personally malicious or born out of an innate desire to crush those below(though there are characters that revel in the ability to do so). I’m not saying this is a forgiving portrayal; it just highlights how hierarchy works. How it naturalizes these systems and not only represses the average person under arbitrary rules. It creates a tension within itself wherein those in ruling positions have cages built around their lives as well that force them to separate themselves from everyone else or become obsolete and die. It gives the system an opportunity to become a character-building device, not to highlight that they are assholes, that is already visibly on display, but a reason why they feel the need to become assholes. It doesn’t make the prince important; it gives him a reason to assert why he is important and that the mission he is on is monumental in his ascension to the throne.
I want to point this out because it becomes very central, in the second book, to the mission the Prince believes himself to be on. It made me sympathetic to his plight in ways that I normally have a hard time buying into. Is he a jerk? Yes, but he’s also been molded by an insane system of tiered estates that divides princes into different tiers and, through complex marriage arrangements, often outside their control, can ascend into positions that allow them to make plays on the throne. And while I would not name him a victim of it, he is prisoner to the societal expectations that his position demands. It makes him feel like a person shaped by the system he has to operate within, not just some dig at royals. There is a joke about the myriad number of titles bestowed on Gevulin, and every time he is heralded, the whole gamut of them is listed off. It’s such a joke that El often cuts off the list and just says, “and they finished the run.” But there is a certain point in the books that she questions whether these titles are laudatory but empty or if the Prince has actual skills tied to them. He has a unique blend of hypercompetence, royal ignorance, and paranoia mixed in with an ingrained sense of ambition– not one out of personal glory, but survival. And while I still disagree with the system he is trying to bend to his will, to define the world in his terms, I felt I had an opportunity to better understand him.
And I think that’s something that this duology does a really good job of leaning into – the things we do to survive. Every decision in this world is born out of a need to survive. El and her sister 
running away from the manor lord with Kem as a babe. Kem pledging himself to the Wardens as a calculation to avoid a worse fate. The Prince obtaining as many titles as possible to ensure his competency is visible, and strengthening ties with various manors and other allies to ensure his ascension. So many decisions, though they feel hasty and somewhat irrational, are rationalized by the system and the context within which the characters find themselves. The duology starts with a lazy but cautious jaunt through the wilderness as El helps Kem make the decision about how he wants to spend the rest of his life. It feels nice and clean and filled with the excitement about an unknown future that I’m sure many millennials feel they were fed as they are being pushed towards college. But it isn’t long before the world and El’s past find a way to reassert itself and force a decision on Kem. And successive decisions feel similar. Nothing truly heinous has to be carried out by the protagonist party as a means to survive, but it does highlight how so much of one’s character is influenced by their environment, circumstances, and the people around them. Our lives are truly never our own, despite one’s placement on the totem pole. And I think this is something that can be easily applied to other hierarchical systems within fantasy and science fiction, but reapplied to life as well.
Elliott, within The Witch Roads at least, has an incredible knack for both explaining the complexities of the hereditary system she employs, while providing commentary both in opposition and in support of it through various characters. One could easily fall into the “well this is just both sides-ism” trap. But it feels very specifically designed to highlight the system in as much detail as possible. It gives the system a texture, a sort of crunch. These aren’t characters that have positions in a feudal society just because it gives them mechanical free reign (pun intended) to solve whatever mystery or tension they feel is necessary. These systems are integral to how they see their role within society. It informs their decisions. There are two wardens who have been soldiering together for years within the prince’s retinue. They’ve had intimate relations in the past, ones fraught with some emotion. But because one of them had to marry upwards to increase his family’s standing, there is a personal frustration and melancholy between them that clashes with their incredible professional synchronicity. It makes the hierarchy feel like the all-encompassing force that it is – not just some intangible understanding that “life used to be different.” It’s something other fantasy stories I’ve been catching up on have done well in the past, and I’m excited to see it here.
The Witch Roads duology, by Kate Elliott, was a satisfying adventure that comes with a cherry on top. It has fun, vivid characters that feel burdened by their pasts. The romance is a real winner for me, even though it was the part I was expecting to like the least. It’s a small story full of political intrigue and wonderful character moments. I didn’t really get into it, but the worldbuilding is great too in terms of the setting, filled with mysteries unanswere and ambiguous fantasy races. If you want to step away from something huge and overwhelming, but still packs a punch, pick these books up.
Rating: The Witch Roads Duology – Let Them Put A Spell On You
-Alex
I received an ARC of The Nameless Land in exchange for an unbiased review. The thoughts on this story are my own.
