Elves on the run

 Book 3 of The Prism Pentad by Troy Denning concerns Sadira, The Amber Enchantress, who again proves there aren't any particularly nice characters in this series. At the end of the last book, we heard about The Levy owed to Borys AKA the Dragon, and in this one, Sadira heads off on her own to find the Pristine Tower, where the dragon was born, to find a way to stop or kill him. This is made complicated by several factors, among them, Nok, the halfling wizard whose staff she bears wants it back and is a bit annoyed by her holding on to it. We also have King Tithian riding the mind of her Kank (a horse sized ant) trying to get her killed. Oh yeah, and her long lost father, chief of the Sun Runners elf tribe and her half brothers and sisters. 

Now, to say Sadira has Daddy Issues is an understatement. Daddy left her mom to rot in the slave pits of Tyr. When she eventually gets around to confronting him, he doesn't even remember her mother's name. Mind you, the worst comes in the City of Nibenay, where Sadira and her half sister get wrapped in a plot to incapacitate Daddy, but they also have to keep giving him the antidote due to various complications. 

Mind you, the half centipede prince is out to get Sadira after being tipped off by Tithian, and half of her allies want her dead because she keeps abusing her magic. (This book delves deep into how magic works on Athas. Most magic users draw energy from plants. Problem being, you grab too much, you kill the plants, making you a defiler. Certain users can draw on the energy of animals, although again, it's possible to kill people by drawing too much. Thus the levy. Anyway, Sadira does manage to kill several plants along the way, instead of dying as her allies feel she should have.) On the other hand, when she does eventually reach the Pristine Tower, we find it has a strange metamorphic field that causes any wound to start transforming the bearer into....something else. 

By the end of this, we know the Sorcerer Kings are keeping something imprisoned, and the shadow people aren't happy about it. We know the Kings are afraid of something. Oh yeah, and Tithian wants to be a true Dragon King. 

Fun book. Not a single good person in it.