It's remarkable how enjoyable of a read this was, given that it is a long, repetitive court intrigue drama which essentially just consists of a long series of the protagonist emperor granting audiences to various people. The author asks the reader to remember a lot of made-up words for people, places, titles, and concepts. Unfortunately, the immersive pay-off is somewhat small, since Elven culture remains somewhat intangible given the limitation of the setting to the imperial court. One simply cannot put this book down for a while and pick it back up later, because one would loose the rough overview over the fantasy language gained through the tedious study of the glossary.
The realm's political issues that come up are enticing and hint at great world-building, but often are dealt with only superficially (e.g. the East-West conflict or the barbarians). Generally, it always feels like much more exciting things are happening to the people that the emperor grants audiences to, rather than to himself. Similarly, the protagonist's conquest of the court is a bit of breeze, really - the few stumbling blocks are deftly dealt with and everybody seems really well-intentioned. Weirdly, this makes for a unusually fun reading experience, although sometimes some more difficulties would've helped hooking the reader in more. The ending was abrupt and some relationships, like with Csevet,  were left hanging a bit. The dialogue feels snappy though and is very economic in its use. Star of the book is the well-done tale of character drama and personal growth.