I just read a whole lot of words, and what I got out of it aside from the fact that Kragar loves Vlad is that we just spent one whole novel solving half of a problem...

Ahahaha. I did find the sudden materialization of a whole different and even more troubling branch of the problem at the very end of the book kind of ... um. I also feel as if Vlad actually has solved his entire problem, at least mostly, if the Right Hand now has a strong vested interest in keeping him alive, because in that case Vlad's death would effectively send the Right Hand to war against the Left, and I doubt if anybody wants that. So basically I don't think the Left Hand is that much more likely to kill him than they were before, and therefore I have no idea why Vlad is so sure they're going to.

I also feel a bit weird about that final scene with Vlad throwing away the amulet, because if the Left Hand wants him dead that bad, wouldn't he basically be dead within about 5 seconds of taking the amulet off?

So in general, I don't know how to take that last scene, and therefore I'm not thinking about it. I loved the book other than that, though.