Series: Velspar - Elegies, #1
Release Date: February 6, 2023
Book Length: 413 pages
Author: Sarah K. Balstrup
Author Site: sarahkbalstrup.bigcartel.com
Book Links: Amazon | Goodreads
Synopsis
The Seven Lands of Velspar put their faith in the Intercessors, a psychic priesthood responsible for the purification of the spirit. Where passion flares, they soothe its intent. Those who cannot be soothed, are cast out, their spirits destroyed by fire.
The Intercessors are mystics of the highest order, but Velspar’s ruling Skalens believe their power has grown too great.
Surviving the Intercessor’s murder plot against her family, Sybilla Ladain rises to power. The Skalens come together under the banner of her grief, bringing the practice of Intercession to its brutal, bloody end.
Yet victory brings Sybilla no peace. In time, she will have to face the people of Velspar, forced to live in a psychically alienated world, and a band of rebels led by an escaped Intercessor set on her annihilation.
Review
To my shame, I haven't written an indie book review since February this year. Part of that is the reality of having a newborn, but another part is that I've bounced off many of the indie books I've picked up this year. With a baby in the house, I feel the pressure to spend my time reading books I'm truly enjoying more acutely than ever. Sarah Balstrup's The Way of Unity is the book that broke my DNF slump, and perhaps not in the expected way.
One might expect the slump-buster to be something fast-paced, plot driven, and full of high-octane action. A Crichton-esque thriller that never lets you put the book down – just one more page! One would be wrong. Instead, what I found in The Way of Unity is a quiet tale, a slow burn with deep themes, a story that wants you to close the book for a night to reflect on what you've read. At the tail end of a hectic year, this contemplative novel is exactly what I needed.
He had passed through the First Gate of Wisdom – sympathy; the Second – to know a vision's source; and the Third – to instill a vision. The Fourth was to administer blood rites, and these he had performed, but to pass through the Fifth was to follow red thoughts right down to the base of the stem.
Internally, the book is divided into three parts; however, I think of it as a two-part story. In the first, entitled "The Fifth Gate," we follow Sybilla Ladain's rise to power, beginning in her childhood and the ominous epigraph, "Six Years Before the Fire." The promise of conflagration and the passage quoted above, providing the meaning of The Fifth Gate, set the tone for what's to come throughout Sybilla's ascent. From there, the book has quite a steep learning curve, throwing you right into this secondary world and expecting you to pick up on Velspar's unfamiliar culture as you read. And it is quite unique:
There are interspersed chapters from a mysterious priest called Waldemar, relaying his visions while under the influence of the mystical, hallucinogenic herb, Alma. We learn about Skalens and Intercessors, rulers of the Seven Lands of Velspar and the order of religious enforcers – the latter of whom are portrayed as something of a tyrannical psychic blood cult. There are empathic magic, allowing thoughts and emotions to be seen and felt by others, and Meridians worn on the head to block it. And I can't forget the sea serpent Mother Siatka and the carrion bird Father Kshidol, and the ritual of Blood Call when people offer their blood to these animal gods on their birthdays.
It's a lot, and it's packed into the first three or four chapters in a way that demands much from the reader. To Balstrup's credit, the prose is rhythmic and often gorgeous, making even the densest sections a joy to read – a boon to the pages I needed to re-read to understand some new plot or character development. I don't count any of this as a mark against the book, by the way. Personally, I love being thrown into challenging worlds and figuring out the puzzle of how it all connects. And in the case of Velspar, the worldbuilding is tantalizingly layered, especially the religious aspects that play a major role in the story. One must simply go into stories like this with eyes wide open: the book rewards close reading but may not be a good fit if you're looking for something light and breezy.
You, who have come, thirsting for truth – may your spirit be quiet, as Skalen Karasek was quiet when he heard the unheard name. May your mind be like the stuff of creation, ready to become, but not determining, for it is then that you will understand.
Once everything is established, the plot progresses in the form of a religious rebellion being fomented by Sybilla's father, resulting in a backlash from the Intercessors – the fire. Sybilla survives, and grief drives her desire for vengeance. She takes up her father's cause and carries it to its conclusion: the eradication of the Intercessors on the basis of their religious perversion.
Sybilla is...kind of a monster. Her motivations are clear, but hard to sympathize with once the full extent of her actions is understood. The Intercessors were tyrannical and murderous, yes. But in response, Sybilla becomes a mass murderer in turn. She executes all of the Intercessors and insists on personally being there when it's done – and she does so with her Meridian off so she's psychically linked to those who are being executed. That's brutal, and Sybilla pays a personal cost for it. But the executions don't stop there. We're told that, "The toll was great – there were more executed in Velspar than those who yet lived – but life went on." She killed more than half of the entire population? That's worst-mass-murderer-in-history levels of annihilation. Yet she waves it off as "life goes on."
One of my biggest critiques of the book comes in here. Not that she becomes a rather unsympathetic character by the end of her takeover – I think that's the intended read of her given the second part of the story. But that the true extent of her monstrousness is somewhat hidden from the reader, it's off-page. We're told of it, but only because Sybilla locks herself in her room for months, wracked with guilt. And then in the course of about three chapters, she swings from determination to guilt-ridden resignation back to determination. That her guilt is confined to just one chapter before she's snapped out of it by one of her allies was too quick for me – it made Sybilla feel unconvincing as a character, and it made her crimes feel less serious than they should have been.
Thankfully, the consequences of Sybilla's reign are thoroughly explored in Parts II and III of the book. We take up the next part with a new pair of young characters, the siblings Zohar and Ambrose, who are children to a family of Skalens who unwillingly submitted to Sybilla's power grab. Through their eyes we see the distortion of the religion of Intercession, which allowed everyone to connect psychically and empathically. Sybilla's new religious order forces the donning of Meridians, cutting everyone off from one another, allowing them to hide their "red thoughts." She also perverts all the old rituals, inverting Blood Call from an offering to the gods Siatka and Kshidol to a forced ingestion of the butchered serpent and bird.
It becomes clear that Sybilla has thrown the baby out with the bathwater. The Intercessors were stifling and dangerous, but they also enforced order. Now the cycle of violence repeats itself, religious fracture leading to new forms of rebellion and hidden resistance. Zohar and Ambrose demonstrate two different paths one can take in the face of Sybilla's new tyranny.
It seems they all wear the Meridian now. We need only to step into the shadows to avoid capture, for the Guard are now blind.
I won't say much more, lest I spoil any surprises. Personally, I enjoyed Part I focusing on Sybilla's rise more than Parts II and III, which included Sybilla's POV but focused more on Zohar and Ambrose. But I do appreciate that their story was necessary to explore the new order after the Meridian is forced on everyone, and I enjoyed how the themes were developed and everything came together in the end. Velspar is a richly detailed world with a lot more to uncover – I have no doubt I would benefit from a re-read. Balstrup's prose is rhythmic and evocative, and the story she's told in The Way of Unity is contemplative, driven by flawed characters, and has interesting things to say about the consequences of allowing yourself to "follow red thoughts right down to the base of the stem." Definitely recommended if you're looking for a dark, quiet read that leaves you with much to think about.
4 / 5 ⭐