The Crown Tower

This is the first of a possible 8 (I think) books that detail the lives of Hadrian and Royce before the events of the Riyria Revelations series. In this first book, we learn how Hadrian and Royce are brought together and how two people so different become a team—yes, it's the Crown Tower mission and Arcadius puts them up to it. The book starts out focused on Hadrian and his return from Calis. He's making his way to Sheridan, the university, because of a letter from Arcadius about the dying wish of Hadrian's father. After disembarking from his boat into the city of Vernes, Hadrian is quickly introduced to a little man named Pickles who steals his bag, runs away, and then shows back up holding his bag and offering to help him find his way.

Later in the book Hadrian is making his way up to Sheridan and is on a barge with three other merchants, a woman, and a man wearing a hood who keeps to himself and doesn't talk much. The merchants and woman are convinced that the man wearing the hood is a killer from the city of Vernes and conspire to kill him. Hadrian, being the guy he is, implores them not to because they have no proof. After a few days of traveling Hadrian wakes up to find a barge with everyone dead or missing.Assuming it was the man in the hood—since his body is nowhere to be found—he makes his way to the nearby town, Colnora. He only stays for a few days after bringing the sheriff to where the barge with the murdered victims was, but it was missing. The sheriff was a bit suspicious of Hadrian so he had to get out of there quickly. From there he makes it to Sheridan, finds the professor and is sent on his mission to the Crown Tower. The mission goes awry the first time when stealing the book as Royce ditches Hadrian since he's _stupid_ and slow. Hadrian realizes he's been left alone and heads back to Sheridan to find Royce already back in the professor's office with the book they were supposed to steal. The professor, frustrated with Royce, asks them to return the book back to the Crown Tower as the whole point of this mission was to have Royce and Hadrian work as a _team_.Royce is furious at this point, but this is the one thing that will grant Royce his freedom from Arcadius's debt. They practice climbing, but Hadrian just can't get a hang of the hand claws that Royce uses, so in frustration they decide that climbing harnesses might be a better call. After figuring that out they head back to Crown Tower and climb it. During the climb Royce leaves Hadrian in a lot of sticky situations but he keeps getting himself out of them. At the top, Royce's internal alarms are going off and something is _different_ from the last time he was there.Royce sneaks into the hallway and sees one priest sitting there and before he can do anything Hadrian stumbles into the hallway panting. The priest sees them and starts to scream. Royce kills the priest, they put the book back, and run out of the tower—Royce running one way, Hadrian the other. Hadrian makes it back to the rope and harnesses and sees two harnesses. Royce on the other hand, runs into four guards, which is about two too many. Hadrian realizing that Royce—the man who doesn't care for Hadrian whatsoever and who has left Hadrian for dead several times—is in trouble, goes to his aid. It's at this point that Royce finally sees just how good Hadrian is with his swords. Hadrian manages to take down a few guards and Royce runs for the harnesses, but encounters a very strange looking guard in strange looking clothes with a strange looking weapon (even in a spoiler, I won't spoil who this is). Royce has no chance with this guard and takes a rather severe hit and is only saved in time by Hadrian. Hadrian's sword is destroyed by this strange guard's strange weapon, so he's forced to bring out his spadone. Fighting faster that Royce has ever seen, Hadrian is parrying and working the strange weapon and keeping the guard at bay, but he won't be able to keep it up. Royce sees that there's blood by the crenelation that's behind the guard and Hadrian must have noticed it too because Hadrian manages to shove the spadone into the guard's breastplate, not hurting the guard, but pushing him over the side of the tower.They make it down the side of the tower with little fanfare and are forced to jump into the river to stay hidden. All the while, both Hadrian and Royce are injured, with Royce being the more injured of the two. Via the river, they manage to make their way to Iberton—a town they passed through on their way to the Crown Tower—and to the inn where they went before and were welcomed and protected. Only the owner is there and they come in and start patching up once the owner lets them in. However, after a bit Royce notices that the owner is gone and presumably reporting the incident to the church, so they leave that building and make for the trees.After a bit of rest, Royce sees a pack of men with dogs on their trail so they make for a nearby house. The house happens to belong to a man who served under the noble that Hadrian befriended at the inn in Iberton, the same man who protected them when they were being looked for back then. The home's owner gives them food, while the wife is worried about the repercussions of them helping Hadrian and Royce. The soldiers eventually show up and start beating on the door. In an attempt to protect the family in the house, Royce tells the men outside that if they try to open the door, they'll kill the family—Hadrian leans over and tells them that they won't really do this, that it's just ensuring that they aren't implicated.We're then treated to a final showdown as Tom the Feather (the owner of the house) picks up his bow, Hadrian his swords, and Royce his dagger. They rush out the door, Hadrian handles the soldiers, Royce goes to cut the knight out of his horse, and Tom shoots the soldiers. Royce's job of cutting down the knight works but the horse falls on his leg in the process. The kite shield that Tom gave to Hadrian manages to protect Hadrian from most of the arrows, but he takes one from the last hidden archer, and Tom makes it out just fine killing the archers.Both of them bleeding, Hadrian and Royce seem to have given up, but a cart stumbles it's way over to them as Tom yells for the man. We know this man from the secondary storyline, it's Dixon from Medford. So, about that secondary storyline: Gwen DeLancy is a whore, she didn't realize it at first, but the only place she can get a job, food, and housing is a bar in the Lower Quarter of Medford. She originally thought she'd just be a server, but soon realizes that also means she's whored out to the customers. She tries to escape once, but with no luck. And every time she tries to escape or do something willful, Raynor Grue, the owner, hurts her and tries to keep her under his thumb. After one of the whores is killed by a frequent customer, she's afraid and runs to the sheriff who only asks that the customer pay compensation to Grue. That customer promises to come back once everything is paid off and ask for Gwen. Grue actually refuses the man, but Gwen knows the customer is going to kill one of the whores anyways.Knowing no other ways out, Gwen convinces all of the ladies to leave Grue's bar and go to the abandoned building across the street. They get some blankets and some food for the first night, but it's a cold and miserable night. They manage the night and Gwen shows that she has some gold coins which she then uses to buy the writ to operate the brothel and uses another coin to have some carpentry work on the house to fix it up. After a while, Gwen has built herself something of a place and the artisans are happy to have the work, but Raynor Grue is upset that she's making money off of his whores. He sets her up for failure saying that he'll take over the business and give a cut to the local quarter assessor, the man who can approve or deny Gwen's writ. Gwen finds this out using her _gift_ and makes the same deal Grue made with the assessor, but instead she makes the deal with the magistrate, the man above the assessor.There are two more relevant parts to Gwen in the context of these notes. Her _gift_ is the ability to see the future of people. At one point, the customer who killed one of the whores comes to their place and wants..._service_. Gwen will never let him have one of her ladies, but he's adamant and Dixon, the House's normal protector, isn't around to save them. Gwen looks into his eyes and sees his future, she sees that _he_ (a man her mother told her is in Gwen's future and must be protected at **all** costs) will end up killing this man (the customer who killed the whore) and it will be so horrible that Gwen is apologizing to him. The man is scared and leaves telling them he'll never be back. The other relevant part of her gift is when Gwen looks at Dixon, the man with the cart, and realizes Dixon will end up saving _him_ and that he'll need to take his cart, get a horse, and go to a certain spot where Gwen know's _he'll_ be. Well, if you're this far along, you might realize that _he_ is Royce and that Gwen is meant to protect him. But why?

This was an excellent book, one that I'd hardily recommend to someone who's read the Riyria Revelations already. I originally thought that I'd be better off reading the books in chronological order rather than published order, but knowing what you know from Revelations only makes the Chronicles just that much better. It gives you a feeling that you know a secret and you know more about the story then the characters. This book is definitely worth reading, just make sure you read Revelations first.