I quite liked this. I felt like the plotting struggled a bit to force Talyen into circumstances where she was just some nobody on the street, while every so often allowing her to take up her queenly mantle and be recognized among enemies; but aside from that, the intrigue and world-building was great (loved the hints about dragons returning), and I was genuinely uncertain about what was going on with her missing husband: why he left, what he wanted, what the deal was with him and his handlers and so on. The structure of the main characters' relationships was set up to be some sort of love triangle, except it was nothing so tedious or predictable as that. People were multilayered, and their relationships had layers and complexity (and a solid dose of respect), and that kept me guessing at what would happen next. I'll happily read the rest of the series.