City Of Miracles by Robert Jackson Bennett

 

This is the last novel in the Divine Cities trilogy.  As this one begins, the former prime minister Shara Komayd has been assassinated.  No one is taking credit but her friends think they know who is behind the heinous deed.  Her oldest friend, Sigrud je Harkvaldsson comes to the city where Shara was killed.  He finds a message she left behind asking him to watch after her adopted daughter.

Sigrud is known for his physical prowess.  He is good with any weapon and strong beyond most men.  For some reason, although he finds all his old friends aged, he has not aged.  Perhaps it is related to the scar on his left hand where he was tortured and made to hold a miracle sword until he bled and it branded him.

He starts on his mission but before he can leave the city he finds another mystery.  There are children who seem to have miraculous powers but all the gods have been killed and their miracles along with them.  One child tries to kill him while another saves him.  When he meets Shara's daughter, he finds she looks just like the girl who saved him.  What is going on?

It turns out that these are the children of gods and have powers.  One has turned into a power hungry tyrant and is seeking out his brethen and killing them to take their powers to add to his own.  He is the Night and rules over everything dark.  Can Sigrud and his accomplices defeat Night and save the children?

Robert Jackson Bennett is one of the best fantasy writers currently working.  This was his first trilogy and it was a Goodreads Reader Choice, British Fantasy and World Fantasy nominee.  The plot is intricate and the characters memorable.   Important characters lose their lives as one would expect in such epic battles.  The odds against the protagonists seem so daunting that the reader expects that all will end in defeat but there is always some hope.  This book is recommended for fantasy readers.