Forged

The penultimate book in the series wraps up a number of plotlines and does so with a focus that's heavy on action. There are quite a few violent scenes as he faces down one of his main enemies, and the body count is particularly high. As indicated in the last book, Verus is making more of a move towards the dark side and that's reflected in much of what happens here as he really takes the battle to the Light Council.

The violent scenes at the end of the previous book, however, came too close to the conclusion to give any real indication of how Verus was responding. Fortunately, we do get some reflection on that here, and it's good to see that he isn't becoming quite so heartless as it was beginning to look. (Although ruthless, certainly). Having said, this is mainly a series of action sequences as the tension mounts up, and it wouldn't work on its own, heavily relying on the plot that's built up to this point. Notably, it ends on another semi-cliffhanger to take us into the final volume. But, with a lot of the dangling threads tied up in this book, it's clearer what the focus of that will have to be.