Cast in Chaos.

Unrelated at the top: I still have a spare AO3 invitation looking for a good home. If you or anyone you know is looking to skip the queue (I hear it's ~14 days now), let me know!

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Sagara, Michelle. Cast in Chaos. New York: Luna Books, 2010.

With the caveat that I don't really recall books three and four very well (four was the Leontine book, right?), I think this is my favorite Elantra book yet. It's not, however, probably a good place to jump in to the series; for that I would recommend the first, second, or fifth books (Cast in Secret, Courtlight, and Silence, respectively).

One of the Yuletide prompts I saw on the Chromatic Yuletide list was one asking for, essentially, case fic for this series, because in the books it's always almost the end of the world, even as the real end of the world looms in the background, rushing closer with each passing month, day, and chapter. But I'm getting ahead of myself: once again, Private Kaylin Neya of the Hawks of Elantra, the capital of the Eternal Dragon Emperor, finds herself in a position where only she and her companions can save their world of Elantra, this time from a threat that comes from beyond the world itself. To Sagara's credit, there are good reasons for this threat to be coming for Elantra, and she explains them within the text itself, just as there are good reasons that Kaylin and her companions (I love that image, and keep returning to it) are the ones who must deal with it.

( Details, not spoilers )

 The good thing about having read this book five months late is that now I only have about seven months until Cast in Ruin.