Another enjoyable short story from Tor.com and one by Max Gladstone, best known for his 'The Craft Sequence' novels.
Told in the style of a journal chronicling a historical event, a being - The Scholast - appears on a world, at first revered like a god, mostly due to her appearance and in the way in which she arrives, but soon just treated like an outsider as she tries to win over the trust of the ruler, Princess Martial, of the land she's arrived in, in order to warn and prepare them for an incoming attack.
The story is briskly paced, as we go from the preparations for the battle and straight to the conflict itself quickly. As such, there's not much time for character development or world building, but even so, there's still enough of a sense of what the world is like to make it interesting.
The main focus is on the interaction between the Scholast, known as Jane, and the Princess, which feels like just glimpses. Maybe because of the way the story is written, and perhaps if the story was a bit longer, things could've been fleshed out a bit more, as I would've liked to have seen more. But it's still an enjoyable read and available to read online as part of the Tor Original Fiction on the Tor.com website.
***½/5
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