I’ve just finished a book I’ve been wanting to read since it was released; but spin the wheel had other ideas. This month I picked the books I wanted to read. The book I’m talking about is ‘We Who Will Die’ by Stacia Stark.

Someone on booktok had the opportunity to ARC read this book and said in a video that she thought this book would be the best fantasy of 2026; I don’t agree with it being the best but it was a really good book.

In this book you have vampires, mythical creatures, mundanes – normal people – and Sigilmarked. Sigilmarked are people with some kind of power. There are different levels of Sigilmarked.

Six years ago, Arvelle’s best friend Kassia died during the Sands. Arvelle and Kassia have been training for the Sands with Kassia’s father Leon ever since they could. The Sands is a series of fights where you win when you strike someone down; so, killing is not something that really happens in the Sands. Leon has lived in seclusion ever since, not leaving his house and stopped living so to speak. Arvelle became a shell of herself, with her mother taking her own live after the Sands, Arvelle had to step up. No time for wallowing in self-pity. One of her brothers has significant lung damage and needs expensive medicine to live.

Six years of surviving; with her brother’s health deteriorating and money dwindling a vampire comes for a visit. After introducing himself as Bran he comes with a proposal; Evren will be healed once Arvelle accomplishes the assignment Bran has for her. Survive the trails of the Sundering and after that, kill the emperor. Arvelle hasn’t trained for 6 years, ever since Kassia died but she knows taking Leon as her guardant gives her somewhat of an opportunity.

A lot is below grounds because of the fact that the emperor is a vampire with a lot of other important people. There are three trails in the Sundering, it’s not known beforehand what the trail entails but one thing is for sure, this isn’t like a tap out, your opponent needs to die for you to win and you have to make it entertaining because if it wasn’t to the emperor’s liking your live could also be forfeit.

The Primus, head of the private guards for the emperor. There is something familiar about him and after a while when he finally shows his true identity Arvelle can’t believe her eyes. Tiernon, Ti? Her childhood friend, her first, the one that took off without a word or a letter to explain himself has only been a couple of miles from her hometown.

There is so many deaths within but also outside of these trails. People keep disappearing and eventually wind-up dead with weird markings on their bodies. Nothing is as it seems, people who seem friendly end up being dangerous schemers, people you are hesitant about actually surprise you. There are so many people that want the emperor dead, vampires that think they can live in the sun again start rebelling and in attempting to murder the emperor they also take out a lot of innocents.

This review is a bit all over the place, isn’t it? I can only say that this book was very good but was very hard to review because there was so much happening, so many parties with different things going on. This book is definitely for people who loved The hunger games, Vampire Diaries and The Gladiator.

I’m giving this a solid ⭐⭐⭐⭐.5 stars