Review: An Inkling of Flame by Z.B. Steele
Blurb:
Tell me how it happened...
Layne was a soldier, conscripted to fight under the Fox in a vengeance fueled march. He, and his friends, were due for a fated confrontation, one that has ended in blood and loss. Now, the inquisitors want to hear every detail of his conscription, his training, and the duel against the assassin in grey.
A backwards narrative full of banter and blood Z.B. Steele presents An Inkling of Flame, a Song of the Damned novella.
Review:
What a pleasant surprise this was. No, seriously. This book just dropped out of nowhere, and the second I saw it, I bought it. Did you? Maybe you should, because let me tell you, this was one hell of a ride, even in only 80+ pages. I am, and has always been, someone who loves dark fantasy and grimdark, and Steele absolutely nails it here. The vibes and tone are just perfect from the get go, and they drag you into the story in such a way that you haven’t even realized what happened.
Our main character Layne is a prisoner, at least in the interludes, which act as the “present day.” In the rest of the story, it’s his origin, leading up to how he’s become a prisoner. And by the way, in case you haven’t heard this from me before, I LOVE dual timelines, so thank you Steele for feeding into that, it is greatly appreciated. But before Layne was a prisoner, he was a simple boy raised by a single mother alongside his younger sister. His mother was, for lack of a better term, a husk. Layne lashed out in whatever way he could for attention, quickly becoming the town miscreant. He was beaten, abused—both verbally and physically—and cast out from almost everywhere possible.
And then Sharp comes along. He stands up for Layne in a particularly tight spot, and… Yeah, they both got their butts handed to them, crawling away with bruises and scrapes. But hey, Layne made a friend, but why? It turns out, Sharp belonged to a similar group of miscreants, and wanted to lend Layne a helping hand. Here we meet Spark—the only girl—and Harwood as well, and they become fast—and exceedingly vulgar—friends.
One of my favorite aspects of the story is the banter. Even in a world so bleak, in situations so dire, there was room for humor. It's how people cope. It's genuinely, utterly, human. And that only sucks us into the story more, invests us in the world, makes us feel for the characters.
Now, these little miscreants end up going to church one day, because Sharp and the others frequently do, and it opens Layne’s eyes to the world. He sees where he went wrong, how being mad at the world wasn’t justification for scorning it, and so he goes around town, begging forgiveness from all the people he ever annoyed, bothered, or wronged. He’s forgiven, largely, with some of them sending him on his way and others taking up his offer to work as recompense. And again, we are reminded how human these characters are, something that is often lost to the wayside in stories.
They do what they do for a few years thereafter, attending sermons at the church, hanging out, getting up to minor mischief, and after a while, Layne joins the city watch, meets a fellow named Koro, and has an alright time. He sees what the guards must have seen when he was a kid, being obnoxious, being a nuisance. But now he knows to have a firm, forgiving hand, rather than a harsh one.
But then the unthinkable happens. One of the gods, not the one at their church—Tudor—but a different one, is killed, and they’re all conscripted. Though willingly, for the most part. Even Spark goes, though under the disguise of a boy for a while.
They reach barracks, they train, they learn Layne and Sharp have the fire, some special power that sets them apart. But they don’t want to leave their friends, so they abandon that path and stick with Spark and Harwood. In the end, it gets them placed in battle, bloody and horrific and not at all heroic like the stories said. There was nothing glorifying about war, Layne and the others learned, and they’d give everything to be done with it. And then a message hits them. They need Layne and Sharp’s fire, and are willing to allow the other two to come with them. The only problem? They meet someone on the road, an assassin in grey, and things go south.
How does it end? You’ll just have to pick it up and find out, because this one is worth the read, trust me. Full of suspense, laughs, heartache and heartbreak, An Inkling of Flame is a phenomenal story, one that more people should be paying attention to. Steele’s writing was exemplary, his tone and pacing just as strong. My only complaint is that I wish this story was longer. Each scene felt real, and I wanted more of them. I loved the arc Layne went on, the forgiveness, the redemption, the way he stuck by those that brought him out of the mud through thick and thin. The side characters were just as great, and equally loveable in their own way. From how they quipped, fought, argued, made up, it was a joy to read.
The themes explored are dark (it’s grimdark, duh). We look at personal growth and redemption, at forced service, at fighting for a cause you might not believe in, and dying for it too. How far would you go for your friends? Well, that's something Layne is asked time and time again, and the answers never ceased to amaze me.
Moreover, the world was very interesting, made even more so by Steele’s expert worldbuilding. We see a bleakness to life, to living, to the gods and their relationship with mortal men. Every page we get trickled a bit more information, in just the right way that leaves me wanting so much more, and I can’t wait to get it in Steele’s future works.
We end with a cliffhanger, with Layne talking to his captor’s, from their POV. What will happen to him? His friends, his family, his town? What comes next? These are the questions I desperately need answering, and I’ll be patiently waiting to find out.
