Fallen City by Adrienne Young is officially out, and given that I read it months ago, I have a good feeling that this book is going to get popular! Before Fallen City was officially released, I was lucky enough to get to read an advance reader copy in September. I talked about it as 3 upcoming book releases you need to add to your TBR and just knew that people would LOVE this book when it came out.

Now the book definitely left on a cliff hanger, and according to Goodreads, Fallen City is supposed to be a duology. In fact, there has been an Untitled book listed in her works for several years and is linked to being book 2. When it is supposed to come out, I’m not entirely sure, but I hope it is soon!!

COMPLETE Fallen City Recap

I want to preface this by saying that Fallen City is a dual POV, multiple timeline book. The order of events that are presented to us in the book are not in order. This makes it difficult to recap without being EXTREMELY wordy, so I am going to try to give as in-depth of a recap as possible in more of a chronological timeline order so that it makes a bit more sense in this context.

PAST

Fallen City takes place in a walled city called Isara. Isara is divided into two unequal parts by the Sophanes River: the Citadel District and the Lower City. Within the Citadel district is the Citadel and also where the villas of the Consul, Magistrates, and other highborn families live. The Lower City is 10 times bigger and houses everyone who isn’t the upper class.

Years ago, Isara went to war with Valshad in search of Godsblood, the gifted magic that made their city prosperous. The godsblood magic dwelled within 5 Valshadi priestesses, and while 2 of them where able to successful take their own lives instead of give the godsblood to Isara, the other 3 failed and were subjected to the blood rites when they refused to give their magic to 3 Isarians: Leah, Cadie, and Ursu (the latter being Priestess Ophelius’ great-grandmother). The stolen magic via Godsblood had given Isara the favor of the gods and spared them of famine, disease, and war; however, as time had gone on, Priestess Ophelius was now getting old, had no children, and had not yet passed her godsblood onto an heir- which concerned the Magistrates. The only way to pass magic from one mortal to another was by giving or taking (aka blood rites) which entails drinking every last drop of godsblood.

The Forum is the government that leads Isara. The Consul is supposed to be an unbiased figure within the Forum who calls tribunals and brings issues for Magistrates to vote on. The Magistrates within the Forum are divided into two parties or factions, and vote on issues using judgement stones. Luca’s uncle leads the majority faction who clamor more for the favor of the Consul, while Maris’ mother leads the minority faction who seek to replace the Consul. The minority faction have more of a platform that says they are looking out for the Lower City (however, this turns out to not truly be the case).

Maris Casperia was born knowing she would ultimately inherit a magistrate seat. Luca was not. Luca’s uncle, Kastor Matius, was dying and had no heirs. So he adopted Luca, who had lived his whole life in poverty in the Lower City, so that Luca could succeed his magistrate seat– specifically the one that led the majority faction in the Forum. As training to ultimately take a magistrate seat, heirs are expected to sit in on Forum hearings and also to take a noviceship– often as a scribe or in the legion. Maris is a novice to Priestess Ophelius and Luca is a novice to Philosopher Vitrasian. The Philosopher was extremely accomplished and studied biology, math, medicine, agriculture, etc. and even from plays; however, the Magistrates don’t care for her, especially because she relatively outspoken.

Knowing that his days are numbered, Kastor unveils Luca as his heir at the First Feast hosted at Villa Casperia– Maris’ mother’s home. Luca and Maris meet and Luca realizes that Maris is not exactly what he expected. She wants change for Isara and more equality. Luca is very taken with Maris, but Maris’ mother and Luca’s uncle would never approve of them being together because they are of opposite factions. Children of Magistrates often have arranged marriages to provide leverage for votes or power to a specific faction. This leads to them getting to know each other and falling in love while sneaking around.

Word gets out among the people of Isara that the harvest that had been paraded through the town during the First Feast was not real and that there was no harvest. Nej calls a tribunal and the magistrates from both factions vote for cuts to the ration of grain (called the dole). The Consul proposes a 1/4 decrease of the dole to the Citadel district and 1/2 decrease to the Lower City. Maris seems confident that they won’t get the votes because it goes against the platform that her mother stands on. But the Forum unanimously votes for the amendment to the dole and chaos breaks out among the onlookers. Maris and Luca vow to be the change in the Forum. With Luca’s best friend, Vale, being the heir to the Consul seat, and both of them being heirs to faction leader seats, they believe they can change Isara for good together.

After this, Maris and Luca get married in the temple by Priestess Ophelius with Vale as a witness. When asked whose name they will take, Luca says he will take the name Casperia which cut him from his family line and ends the lineage of Matius. Luca’s evil uncle finally dies, and before he takes his final breath, Luca is able to tell him that his lineage is going to die with him, which infuriates him.

In the past scenes, its clear that something is happening behind the scenes that Maris and Luca cannot fully see or understand. Priestess Ophelius and the Philosopher seem to be communicating and the Philosopher is being evasive toward Luca about what she is working on. After the cuts to the grain ration, Rhea the Philosopher premieres her play called “The Fifth Feast: Fields of Favor”. She had been instructed to write a play that would bolster hope in Isara, but quickly it becomes clear that this play is more of a critique of the Forum and that the grain issue is due to lack of favor from the gods and that retribution is coming for Isara. With the play still going on, Luca goes to talk to Rhea about what she has done. When they hear boots coming down the hallway she sets all of her scrolls and papers in her office on fire. The guards take Rhea to the catacombs to await her tribunal.

At the philosopher’s tribunal, they vote to execute her. Maris tries to hold Luca back, but because he was so close with the Philosopher, he avenges her and kills the legionnaire that executed her. Immediately after he stabs the legionnaire, a golden halo suddenly appears over Luca’s head– a sign of blessing or fate from the gods. That act becomes the match strike that starts the rebellion and Luca becomes the face of it. The insignia of the New Legion is a drawing of Luca on his knees holding a bloody sword, looking toward the sky with a halo over his head. After the Philosopher is killed, the 3 priestesses attempt to take their own lives so that Isara would no longer have the power of the godsblood; however, Ophelius was unsuccessful in taking her life and is taken to the catacombs. Luca is also taken to the catacombs for treason after killing legionnaires. He is awaiting his own tribunal and likely execution when Vale comes for him, breaks him out, they kill legionnaires in their wake, and cross the river into the Lower City.

PRESENT

I believe that the “now”/present chapters pick up about 6 months after the war/rebellion begins. It picks up with the New Legion (the rebellion) having pushed the front line to the edge of the river with plans to invade the Citadel district soon. In light of the impending invasion that they know is likely to happen, some Magistrates and their families try to flee the Citadel district, but are almost always captured and killed by Centurion Roskia with their corpses displayed and hung on the south bridge. Roskia is the most brutal and barbaric centurion in the New Legion and has loyal followers, even though these executions and skirmishes he creates are often against orders and unsanctioned. Every time Luca sees these bodies, he worries one of them is Maris, and is unaware at this point that Maris herself is a magistrate.

Meanwhile, in the Citadel district, Maris is getting her magistrate portrait painted. We are told that Maris’ mother had committed suicide by drinking poisoned wine, which then opened up a seat for Maris to take over. Her uncle, Nej, is the Consul’s scribe. He is coaching her in her new position. As a new magistrate, she is supposed to have a 1 on 1 dinner with the Consul, and she plans to speak with him about negotiating a peaceful transfer of power, as she believes the New Legion will likely be successful in taking the Citadel; however, she knows that Nej would never approve of her plan to speak to the Consul about this. Nej and the Consul speak as if there is no way that the Citadel will lose to the rebellion.

The commander, Vale Saturian, is the Consul’s son and Luca’s best friend. They spent their first years in the legion together. They are going to meet with Roskia to get his support in their plan to attempt to make a deal with the Consul for the citadel’s surrender. Vale is recovering from a serious stab wound in his chest that occurred during battle where the New Legion took the Illyrium (the temple for the gods). Luca is assigned a tribune (named Théo)– which is essentially a body guard for centurions, but he keeps his tribune at arm’s length, hoping he can keep him safe because he doesn’t want him to die on his behalf. The Citadel’s aviary has been releasing birds holding a rolled note inside that appears blank, but glows with the evidence of godblood on it. The New Legion had been shooting down these birds and were trying to figure out why they are carrying these blank notes.

As the priestesses former novice, Maris is tasked with visiting Ophelius and drawing godsblood from her so that the Citadel can use the magic for various things. Ophelius wants Maris to sneak her something so she can kill herself, but Maris knows that will end in her own execution. Ophelius tells Maris that Maris needs to go visit Luca; however, there is not really a safe way for her to get over there without risking the New Legion recognizing her and killing her.

Iola, the maid that basically raised Maris and is like a mother to her has moved to the Lower City since the rebellion began. Maris regularly meets with Iola’s brother, Zuri, near the bridge and smuggles her ration of grain for them to have, but this time when she meets with him, she begs him to smuggle her into the Lower City so she can see Luca. She sees Iola who now has a child and then while she is sneaking off, she gets herself captured by a New Legion solider. Maris had taken off her medallion, which is everyone’s form of identification, because she knows if she wore it, someone could recognize her name as a magistrate and kill her. The solider brings her to Luca to have him decide what to do with her and he has to pretend like he doesn’t know her.

His eyes ran over my face slowly, the gleam of tears just barely visible, and I could see the weight of it all pressing down on him. He’d lost control of the monster he created. And he knew it.

Fallen City, page 196

Luca tells Maris to try to figure out what the blank parchment papers from the aviary means and that maybe getting the new legion this information will be like a trade for her life when the New Legion invades. Zuri arrives in the camp and retrieves Maris, claiming that she is his sister. Roskia spots this exchange and sees Maris and recognizes her, but says nothing. When Maris gets home, she pours a vial of godsblood on the blank parchment from the aviary which reveals words in the Old Language that she doesn’t know.

The Consul meets with Vale and Luca on the bridge; however, the Consul makes it immediately clear that he does not plan on surrendering. Luca tells him that in 2 days, before they plan to take the Citadel, they will open the gates and anyone in the Citadel district who wishes to leave, may do so; however, they will surrender their medallion and citizenship and they will forfeit any claims within Isara. They inform the Consul that this offer is not extended to him or any magistrates. The Consul doesn’t try to negotiate and leaves, which makes Luca and Vale feel uncertain and uneasy like he has something up his sleeve.

A tribunal is called, which is Maris’ first where she gets to vote by casting her judgment stone. However, the Consul calls for a vote to enact the blood rites to choose a new recipient of the priestess’ magic. The Consul wants this because the priestess has already tried to end her own life, and because she refuses to gift her magic to someone else. He blames the dying fields on the dying magic and the Priestesses. He proposes that Maris be the one to take the magic because she was her novice and also because it clearly would be a sign of loyalty to the Forum.

Eventually, Maris comes to realize that her uncle, Nej, is playing a bigger role than scribe in Isara and is pulling strings and influencing the Consul to get what he wants. After they have a confrontation, Nej leaves Maris alone in his office. She begins going through his things and finds a stylus that glows and recognizes it as a gift from the gods and realizes that Nej had been gifted. She tries writing with it and sees that when writing with the gifted stylus, the letters quickly fade leaving a golden shimmer behind– like the blank parchment the New Legion had been finding from the Citadel via birds.

Breath by breath, the realization took shape in my mind. Mortals weren’t the architects of this war. The gods were.

Fallen City, Page 273

Maris then goes into the catacombs to visit Ophelius and asks her why Hermaus gave his blood (godblood) to the Valshad mortals as a gift. She tells her that there are 2 stories. One that is the one that is painted in the temple: that the mortals saved Hermaus’ life and he gave them godsblood as a gift. The other story is one that is painted on the temples in Valshad: that 5 women happened upon the wounded god, Hermaus, and drained him of his blood and took it from him. Maris makes a deal with Ophelius that she will leave her with a knife (so she can end her own life) if Ophelius can help her decode the message in the Old Language. Ophelius reads it and tells Maris that Valshad is coming, and Maris realizes that the messages were being attempted to sent to Valshad. Nej/Consul realized they had no chance at beating the New Legion, so they signaled for Valshad who could come and beat the New Legion and reclaim their godsblood. Even if that means that the Consul and the Citadel lose– Nej/Consul see the New Legion being defeated as a win.

Meanwhile, the New Legion is preparing for invasion, but Luca knows he needs to get Maris outside of the city gates to protect her. He sends his tribune, Théo, out to get a forged medallion for Maris which is illegal and also extremely unethical because they view medallions as sacred. Soon though, the New Legion is under attack, but not from the Loyal Legion, the attack is coming from outside the walls by Valshad who has now arrived. They realize that all this time in negotiating with the Consul, that he wasn’t delusional in thinking he could beat the New Legion, he knew he had lost but wanted to take the New Legion down with him.

Meanwhile, Maris has a falling out with Nej after priestess Ophelius is found dead and they figure that Maris purposefully left her the tools to end her own life. Nej confesses that he had something to do with Maris’ mother’s death. A tribunal is called regarding Maris’ betrayal, but before it can happen, the New Legion breaks in and attacks the Citadel to hunt Magistrates. She jumps out of a high window to escape. As she is falling, a gold light encircles her. When she lands in the water, she finds a pair of wings around her arm like a cuff and realizes that the gods had saved her.

Rosakia is proud of himself because he went against orders and arranged the attack on the citadel. However, when Rosakia crossed the bridge, the Consul locked himself in the granary where their few reserves of grain were stored and set it on fire. So while Rosakia thought he was giving the people what they wanted by feeding into their bloodlust, he ended up eliminating what food they had left.

Valshad and the New Legion make a deal where Valshad will allow civilians to leave the city and give up their citizenship. Maris and Luca are able to meet and talk and Maris admits to Luca that she realizes now that she made the wrong decision in staying and not going with Luca to the lower city when everything started. He wants Maris to get out while Valshad is giving them the chance and he agrees to go with her and says “… we’re the only thing left to save, Maris. You and me” (page 380), but then Luca and Vale have a conversation and Luca chooses being at Vale’s side and fighting for Isara over Maris. The next day, when Maris goes to the place where they agreed to meet before leaving, Luca is not there. Vale shows up and tells her that Luca is not coming. He gives her a note from Luca that says:

Every part of me that matters, every part that’s real, you’re taking with you.

Fallen City, Page 391

As acting Consul in the Citadel of Isara, Vale strips Maris of her citizenship and expels her from the city against her will. He takes her medallion and sends her out. Théo hands over his medallion as well and tells her he is coming with her. Vale’s tribune (who is also Théo’s partner) also tries to step forward but Vale stops him.

Luca had left me. Again.

Fallen City, Page 392

In the epilogue, Maris and Théo are living in a camp outside of Isara and beyond where the Isara/Valshad conflict is happening. One day, a Valshad troop comes to their camp and tells them that them can join Valshad and will be treated as one of Valshad’s own. Maris sees this as a way to get back to the city and get back to Luca, and despite Théo’s attempt to hold her back, she steps forward to Valshad’s troop.

“He made his choice.” My voice lifted over the crowd. “Now I’m making mine.”

Fallen City, Page 397

Fallen City Review

Overall, I really enjoyed this book! I liked the political complexities a lot.

I hadn’t been able to walk away. Not ever. But Luca had found a way to walk away from me.

Fallen City, Page 113

We are moreso told rather than shown Luca and Maris’ love story, but given the complexity of their relationship– specifically with Luca leaving her TWICE and choosing the rebellion over her, it is a little complicated. I hope we get a little bit more showing of the romance in book 2– that it can actually convince me that Luca loves Maris more than anything.

Predictions/Questions

1. Does Luca have a forged medallion? He took Maris’ last name, but everyone calls him by his old last name. Has no one noticed his new medallion, or does he have a forged one with his old last name?
2. Vale is bad right? RIGHT?! He doesn’t seem to care about Maris at all, despite the fact that shes married to his best friend. I feel like he has ulterior motives that we will see in book 2.
3. Is Nej still alive? And if so, where did he go?
4. How was Valshad able to read the messages from Nej? Didn’t they need to pour godsblood on them to read them? But they don’t have godsblood anymore, right?

Have you read Fallen City? Share your thoughts and predictions in the comments below!

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