Theft of Swords

Rating this book is not easy as it's actually two novels in one.
The first one is about Hadrian and Royce being framed for a crime they didn't commit, while having to protect the new king. The other is basically the search for a great hero through a competition of kill-the-monster. I preferred the first one, though the second set up many interesting possible future plot lines that I want to see.

I've actually read this one a couple of years ago, even started the second one, but it was annoying, so I put the whole thing down. Now I couldn't just pick it up again without reading the first one all over again, as I... didn't remember that much. Whoops?

You know, I love bromance. A good story of friends going on an adventure, having to put up with each other, that is my jam. On the other hand, I dislike romance and annoying princesses. I guess we all get my problem with book 2.
Hey, I even really like Hadrian and Royce, because they shouldn't like each other, one is almost completely emotionless and more than willing to do some bad shit, while the other is super nice and just an all around friendly dude you can depend on. That's cool, though, I love their little dynamic and the parts that are about them, doing shit are A+. Do all the hero things, do some... stealing and shit. Have fun, have a good time.

Now the problem, which happens more in the second story is that Arista, the princess is a bitch. Don't get me wrong, her brother, the new king Alric is an annoying, spoilt little shithead, but we see that and everyone agree. Arista, though... she has the whining right for being a woman and we are supposed to just say “yeeeeees, you are a poor victim”. Her issue isn't that she has too little, but that there is someone who has a bit more and we can't accept THAT.
This is so ridiculously pronounced when one of the protagonists in the second story is this extremely poor girl, Thrace, who has nothing. The girl has a super sad life and she doesn't bitch 1% as much as Arista does. Even when Princess MeMeMe gets an important position... she bitches about how she has to DO THINGS NOW.

Now let me return to the fact that so much is being set up in this. I am not sure how much is going to come into fruition, as I've read a good 150 pages of book previously and it was the Arista Being Annoying Show.
There are elves, though. I don't love them in general, they are one of the races that have the biggest chance of becoming cheesy as shit. I don't want beautiful people staring into nothing, being super deep and wise. So I hope we won't have that. Still, it's obvious there is plenty of possible depth for them. Don't disappoint me, please.
We are also before a war of different groups trying to get the power and that can be cool as well. We've seen some of that, some workings and one piece of extremely obvious foreshadowing (we are looking for someone with a necklace, while someone is casually mentioned to have one, how weird). I'm not sure how all that will turn out.

We also have characters I hope are not going to get tossed side for bullshit love interests who are boring as fuck. I want Thrace, Myron, Esrahaddon.