I’ll try to supply some examples, then. I don’t promise I’ll find them all.
Of course. The only thing that felt odd was Veorn’s and Torane’s willingness to kill or (more likely) die for it. I just re-read it with a different choice (MC doesn’t use theurgy, they struggle more and then just deny his party a refuge) and it reads infinitely better. Fighting a theurge over an insult was the only thing that felt unrealistic (or rather, someone who would do such a thing surviving long enough in xaoslands to become a chief huntsman in a local village).
Herne was dumb when he thought that he can both keep the fact that they might be in Hegemony’s crosshair’s secret and train his followers to fight theurges. It’s even addressed in the text by one of the characters questioning why are they learning to fight theurges.
Yed being inconsistent I can’t find in my second preadthrough, if I recall correctly it was him being utterly deferential to the MC the entire time and in the later parts of the chapter becoming obstinate over something trivial (?).
M’kyar thus far has all the bearings of a Mary Sue. It’s too soon to tell for sure, but from what little is shown of her, that’s how she reads. She either is or seems physically, mentally, morally and emotionally superior to all the characters around her. I could not spot a single flaw so far, other than her penchant for liberal use of a racial slur. So perhaps my opinion is influenced by them being introduced by such a character but in my opinion Abhumans felt plot armored against moral and metaphysical scrutiny. Which examples of I’ll show below.
When the MC asks M’kyar about allying with Hallasurq, she mentions the reason being the injustices of Hegemony. The obvious thing to ask would be - what about the injustices of Hallasurq? Are those ok?
Later in that same conversation when she talks about spirits, she says that they can’t be measured but can be described. That point is absurd, you can derive any number of measurements from a description. MC takes it in like a gospel and moves on to other questions. When the MC questions whether low population density is enough to prevent any abuse of theurgic power, M’kyar give a non-answer and the MC just moves on to another question rather than pointing out that it’s not an answer or asking for a clarification. And that’s a constant trait here, that’s what I meant by the quality of philosophy lowering - whenever the reader finds a non-sequitur or a fallacy in a discussion, the MC doesn’t, the MC just moves on until their total acquiescence at the end of the discussion. When the MC asks why animals, he gets an answer that the Abhumans want to pursue new courses through life and animal glories while retaining human intellect and consciousness. Instead of asking how does she reconcile human intellect and consciousness with animal glories, he asks about walking on two legs. I know what are the benefits and differences between bipedal and quadrupedal locomotion, I imagine a MC with 2 points in intelligence would probably know it too. Both him and I would find it rather more interesting to learn something new - for example how and where do you find equilibrium between a human and an animal form? How does it not work like a set of reversely connected dials? The lazy way of writing would be “it just does, shut up”. But your worldbuilding is very consequential, I never saw any "it just does"s in your prose. This one would be the first.
Another thing is MC being extremely at ease with M’kyar right off the bat. This is the first time he met an Abhuman and before now most of his knowledge of them was based on negative propaganda from Ecclesiarchy/Hegemony. I recall several situations from book one where similar dynamic was played out correctly - the characters (and the MC) where initially hesitant or cautious to steal from the church, or hesitant or cautious to look into the maw of the harrower. Overcoming it was a process, a journey, sometimes one only a couple of sentences long, but still acknowledging what the characters would’ve tought initially.
As for the discussion with Jev, I’m pretty sure my input would be perfectly benign, but I’d rather err on the side of caution. I’ll just limit myself to saying that I don’t think any hostile reaction from the MC would serve any purpose, I didn’t see any gratuitously hostile reactions anywhere else, so why here? My main issue was reconciling that character with the world I’m shown. There are ways of doing that, I’m sure, it’s just that they’re very difficult.
I value all feedback, positive or negative, and especially from people I know are sincere fans (who if I’m not mistaken 