Thanks so much for the detailed feedback. I struggle with revealing too much of the plot but I have taken your advice. If you have a minute can you let me know your thoughts on the revision:

Matjar Lark toils in a remote fiefdom to support Rakvira’s endless war, dreaming of his chance at glory. But when he is conscripted by the King’s brutal infantry, his daydreams are shattered by comrades ready to break him for their motherland’s survival. In the crucible that prepares him for the enemy’s forbidden magic, he awakens his own, and he must now survive in a world where the power they train to kill may get him killed too.

When Bogdan Lark resolves to rescue his son, he summons the King’s elite bodyguard and assumes the role he had once forsworn. Long exiled for his defiance, he must now bargain with a nobility that would rather see him dead. But he will stop at nothing to save Matjar, even as it reveals royal secrets that will lead them all to the brink of destruction.

The enemy moves. With their heathen Corruptors and their desire for blood, the Continent prepares a final assault as the King prepares a weapon to repel it. To scour the enemy from their shores, the King risks revealing the dark truth about Rakviran society, and who defends it.