(no spoilers) At first I found the main character very nebulous and confusing, and I didn't initially understand what was going on. I was not familiar with the Three Kingdoms saga which this book is based on, nor with ancient Chinese dynasties. However, once I got into it and understood the main character as a masterminding strategist sort, the story began to make more sense. Basically she has a strong internal locus of control and believes that her actions put a chain of events into motion. I really liked Zephyr's interactions with Crow. Actually I just liked Crow, since he's a fellow strategist who makes a chronic illness work for him and protect him to an extent. As more plot points were revealed, I was more and more enthralled with the story, since I felt like I had more information with which to understand the story building of this world. Also this book made me want to look up zither playing; I don't know what a zither sounds like but the instrument had cool interactions with major characters.