Het Drakenlied

Het Drakenlied treats promises as tide-marks: they ebb, return, and stain what they touch. Linde moves through markets and mines learning that a bargain sung is still a bargain kept, and the central conceit (a song that keeps score) lets the story ask what we owe when the witness is melody itself. I loved how the book reframes debt and consent through performance, especially in the way the Drakenlied is described as "a melody that remembers every promise ever broken". That idea resounds long after the last note.

Linde begins as a meticulous note-taker and scavenger, and that meticulousness becomes her courage. Her voice changes from whisper to instrument, not through destiny but through careful listening, and that made every choice feel earned.

Koen's absence is a pulse rather than a hole, guiding rather than stranding her, and Mevrouw Rook's rough mentorship crackles in dialogue that sounds tasted on the tongue. I left the Waterhoen believing these people had lived sea-salted lives before page one.

The prose glints without preening, trading ornament for cadence. Chapters open on sensory beats and close on sly refrains that echo Linde's work of copying tide-songs.

I liked the alternating textures of market bustle, river hush, and choral menace. A brief slack-water around Vlinderhaven costs some urgency, and a few Choir scenes repeat their imagery, but the return to Klaagberg tightens every line.

Smoke, song, and stubborn courage carry Linde from tide-ledger to rebel voice, and the journey delivers clever set pieces even when the middle eddies a little.

De wereld voelt eigenzinnig en zilt. De riet-eilanden, de rookkanalen en de obsidiaan van Klaagberg vormen een geloofwaardig geheel waarin lied en wet samenvallen. Regels zoals dat één onbedekte noot leviathans kan wekken maken elke overtocht spannend, en het onderhandelen met woorden is een heerlijke vondst. Vlinderhaven, de runepoorten van Oude Stad en de Moonquarry blijven na het omslaan van de bladzijde hangen. Af en toe is de kaart in mijn hoofd wat wazig, maar de Waterhoen en het Choir of Cinders blijven scherp.

Half of me loved the briny weirdness, half of me wanted a tighter route.

• Salt-and-smoke atmosphere that feels original
• Song-magic rules that stay consistent
• Midsection meanders around Vlinderhaven
• Climactic imagery slightly repeats choir motifs

Net result is mixed, yet the humor and heart kept me aboard.