A Sea of Stars

The second book in the Bayern series. Enna, a young woman, lives with her brother, Liefer, in the Forest. Liefer returns one day acting strangely and hiding a piece of vellum from Enna. He shows her how he can start fires and conjure flame using nothing but his mind. He eventually becomes so enslaved to the fire that he burns Enna and ends up burning himself out trying to fight against Bayern's enemy in the war. Enna, grief stricken, reads the vellum and learns how to fire-speak, much as her friend, Isi, can wind-speak. Enna tells herself that she needs to know why Liefer died and that she can control it. Isi notices that Enna is acting odd and confronts her about it but Enna brushes it off. At this point, the wind is starting to make Isi sick and being too discorded for her to handle.
I didn't like that Enna lied to Isi, her best friend, merely because she was afraid of how angry Isi would be with her for blatantly lying and disrespecting Isi's wishes about learning to fire-speak and to keep a promise that she broke a chapter later.(more on that later)

When Finn takes place in the augury to predict the outcome of the coming war and is about to die, thus not only losing his life but the augury; Enna takes matters into her own hands and slightly heats the opponents sword, causing him to veer slightly and giving Finn a chance to get up and fightwin. When the augury is won in Bayern's favor, Enna realizes that because she helped Bayern win the augury, she must also help them win the war. She sets off by herself, setting fire to Tirian provision and weaponry tents at night. She promises to herself and Liefer that she will never burn a person but is forced to break that oath in order to save her life from a Tiran. She also promises never to tell anyone; also breaks that promise by telling Razo and Finn(so far).
She tells Razo and Finn so that she may bring them along with her on her skirmishes and they can help stop her if she seems like she might go too far.
I liked that even with the highrush that Enna derives from burning things; it doesn't prevent her from being torn up about the Tiran that she killed to save herself. That scene was well done in my opinion.
Also, they are scouting for Bayern at the same time. They are very productive that way.

Whilst on various skirmish scouts, the three of them often must sleep in the same tent. Finn is a perfect darling about protecting Enna's honor and giving her space. Quite the gentleman. Ship them so hard.

They run around scouting and lighting things on fire for a while. When Enna returns and sees Isi again, she almost sets her on fire but Isi protects herself. Enna, shocked that she would do such a thing, runs away and gets captured by some Tirans.

Enter the captivity chapters. So Ennna is drugged and sluggish and can't use her fire. And there is a man, Sileph,(evil and everyone but Enna knew it)who treats Enna with tenderness and apparent kindness. He convinces Enna, her mind being weakened by the drugs and her incessant overpowering urgeneed to burn, to go and burn things; houses, some of which held Bayern spies. Hay bales, etc. (In her defense about the houses with Bayerns, she gets super angry at him and refuses to burn anymore, until he sweet talks her into doing so again.)

Enna starts to like Sileph. She chastises herself for doing so and then just falls for him again. In her mind, he's the only kind one there, he protected her from another soldier ready to "disgrace" her, he lets her burn things, he's kind to her and holds her when she is drugged and confused. I mean, right......? NO. She contracts a version of Stockholm syndrome. Also, in case nobody guessed, Sileph is a people speaking "honey tongued bastard." Enna's words; not mine.

So then Finn and Razo show up in a rescue mission, by themselves, to save Enna. They get captured and used as leverage against Enna. She is distressed at seeing that they have been beaten and are bloody and tied up. For a while she is angry at Sileph and scared for Finn and Razo. If she starts a unsupervised fire that was not previously told by a soldier to start, the boys die.

One time, though, when she and the Tirans go out of the camp with Razo strapped to a horse to come along, Enna pockets a knife from Sileph's boot, draws it on him and threatens to burn everyone else if they don't let Razo free. They refuse and point out that if she kills them all then Finn is dead anyway. She relents and gives the knife back.

Then she falls into the pattern of, "well, if I behave, they won't get hurt, and I'm starting to get nice things and maybe Sileph really does love me and we can go get married after the war...." NO.
I do wish that Enna's side of the attraction had been handled better; I always thought she was smarter than that but, after realizing he was a people speaker, I sorta relented and just thought about how well I would have fared in that equation....probably not well.
I think it was put in the book to show the power of people speaking and how dangerous people speakers really are. Also to show that Enna's desire to burn was so strong that she felt intense emotion for the person who had let her let the heat out. And there was really nothing she could do about that particular aspect of her feelings for Sileph.

Well, one night, Enna overhears Sileph talking to somebody about being a traitorous traitor who lies to people. She feels betrayed and stupid and angry. She confronts him and he apologizes but that his love for her was true. She tells him that he's stupid to think that she'll forgive him like *that*. He says that he will come back for her after his scoutingleadering thing is over and he'll make her come with him after the war to his home. *cough* Creepy git.

Isi shows up at the camp one night, disguised of course, and tells a story around the Tiran campfire. Enna hears the story. Isi still LIKES me!! I can destroy the vellum so nobody has to live through this insatiable need to burn!! Oh, wait, what's that? The guards talking about their captain's evil plan to trick Bayern? Why yes! I can still save Bayern!! I will prevail!

Enna sneaks out of her tent and is attempting to catch up to Isi to warn her about the tricksy plan of the Tirans when the guards, drunk and a bit lecherous, try to stop her. Enna, having no more of that crap, thank you very much, burns them and runs. She finds and frees the boys and they all escape the camp. Isi had already informed her troops that they should move back to the capital. (she heard it on the wind)
When Enna, Finn, and Razo get to the fight, Enna starts letting loose, hitting the Tirans hard. She ends up blacking out.
She is in and out of consciousness for days and very sick. The mutual decision is that Isi will take Enna home. But Isi has other plans. She gets to the forest and informs Enna that they shall not be staying but going to Yasid to see what they can do for her there, otherwise Enna will succumb to the fire and die. They are now friends again. Obviously.

They travel and travel some more till they run into Sileph on the road. He's ready to take Enna back now. Isi and Enna fight, using their fire and wind together. Then Finn shows up. A guard from the Tirans kills Sileph, even he was getting sick and tired of this man's crazy talk, also hoping that his team would be let back into Ingridan now that Sileph was dead. (somebody there didn't not like Sileph. Understandable.)

They reach Yasid. Once there, they talk to the special fire people, who see the way that Isi and Enna interact, and everyone comes to the decision that if Isi and Enna can "teach" each other wind and fire, respectively, then their need to burnsickness and the discord caused by the wind will be cured by wind and fire keeping the other at bay. They attempt and are successful. Everyone is happy and safe and cured. Isi is also pregnant.

They travel back to Bayern and on the way, Isi has her first child, a boy and heir to the throne. Luckily, they had been sending letters to Geric and he had been riding back to meet them so he was able to attend the birth and be there for his wife.

Enna and Finn become a couple. Yay! My favorite two finally! I do remember there being some troubles for them in the next books ( [b:River Secrets|248470|River Secrets (The Books of Bayern, #3)|Shannon Hale|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1316728647s/248470.jpg|240752] and [b:Forest Born|6407514|Forest Born (The Books of Bayern, #4)|Shannon Hale|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1312037111s/6407514.jpg|6158856]) but for now everything is happy. Good writing and characterization. Good read.