The Merciful Crow

 The Merciful Crow by Margaret Owen, 384 pages.

In a society divided into magical castes, each with their own birthrights granted by the thousand dead gods, Crows are at the bottom. They have no birthright of their own, but are the only ones immune to the Sinner's Plague, meaning that their role is to burn the bodies and give a quick death to those dying a slow one. They are universally mistreated and often literally hunted and tortured, and the life of a Crow is generally a short one.

Fie is a Crow Chief in training, which means that she has the power to draw on other people's birthrights through their bones (generally teeth), and also that she abides by the same rule as all Crow Chiefs, look after your own. Which is hugely complicated when her people get intertwined with the Phoenix Prince Jasimir and his bodyguard Tavin, who are fleeing Jasimir's stepmother's assassination attempts. They strike a deal that will protect her people if he survives to make it to the throne, but if they fail his stepmother will give the Oleander Gentry (essentially a KKK analog) free reign to hunt them.

I read Little Thieves by this author earlier this year and really enjoyed it, so I was excited for this one. It also hit on a lot of weirdly specific things I like in a story (crows, dead gods, teeth magic) so I was really excited. And it lived up to my expectations! The plot was exciting, and I'm really into all of the world-building we got this book (although there's still huge swathes of the world we know very little about because it was so plot focused, and I hope we get more in the second book of the duology. I also really appreciate that Prince Jasimir is gay, which handily circumvented the inevitable love triangle of a young woman traveling with two handsome young men. Owen dedicated Little Thieves to "the gremlin girls" and that definitely seems to be the type of protagonist she likes to write. Fie is complicated and messy, and I really really like her as a character. Owen's prose is strong, sometimes poetic, always extremely readable, and this book is definitely worth a read.