The Exile

Most of the time I think novellas as “nice to haves”, sort of optional extras to a series, but The Exile is absolutely vital reading in this series.

In this novella, we follow Dayne as a young man when his home and people are destroyed by the Empire. We follow him as he exacts his revenge on certain people and meets a very interesting character who we meet in the main book.

Dayne is a really interesting character when he's introduced in Of Darkness and Light but there's so little backstory I felt quite disconnected from his storyline. This novella is exactly the backstory we needed but I can see why the author didn't include it, it would have just gone on too long and distracted from the other major storylines.

If you're unsure if you need to read this as part of the main story then I would say absolutely yes.