The narrator in this book, Gyen Jebi, is a nonbinary artist who just wants to make art and would rather ignore the intricacies of politics and war, which allows the author to paper over a lot of the details of strategy and occupation. Jebi is a native of an alternate version of Korea, in a region under the control of an alternate version of Japan; as an alt-Korean, they find themselves without employment options as the alt-Japanese crack down on the local culture and language. To their militant sister’s dismay, they pursue a position with the local government, and find themselves unwillingly helping the war effort against their own people; no spoilers but it’s a really pointed reference to cultural erasure committed by colonizers. Jebi tries to find ways to express their rebellion, despite their pacifist artistic temperament and their inconvenient attraction to a certain deadly swordswoman. I really liked the characters, particularly the mecha steampunk (silkpunk?) dragon which reminded me a lot of Temeraire; pity it didn’t show up until quite a ways into the book. Although it would have been easy to make the rebellion into the good guys fighting against the occupiers for freedom, the author instead turns the book into a denunciation of war. Both sides are problematic, violence is terrible, and innocent dragons and dreamy artists are the ones who are the most unready to deal.