This book had me from the start - a dangerous mission, a whip-smart and acid-witted teen and her hardened ex-soldier companion, and...pirates?? This all had me sold from the start, but after the first third of the book, my interest started to wane. It wasn't that the pacing was slow - far from it. Buc and Eld get tossed from danger to danger within each short chapter. What was missing for me was a buy-in of the characters. We learn so little of Eld, with only a couple of chapters from his perspective, and Buc's hardened attitudes and actions come across as less and less sympathetic as the story goes along. There is hints that she had some earlier trauma with losing her sister, and the full details of this are revealed in a flashback crammed in towards the end of the book. By the time it's there, it feels ineffective and underwhelming. The worldbuilding also felt a bit lacking - I had no sense of the geography or history of this world. By the time the gods get introduced toward the end, I didn't feel the stakes. This book was a fun adventure in places, but without the solid world and characterizations, it all felt a bit hollow and made it hard for me to stay invested.