Book 2 basically documented Medo's falling out with society at large.
The book began two years after the events of book 1. Marlin and Medo were teaming up in a business venture to sell somewhat innocuous Black Magic trinkets to locals. They were beginning to change the way people viewed the 'dark side'. Witches were beginning to seem like not such a bad thing.
But then Rallyn showed up, cracked open a hidden door in the basement, and woke up a sleeping queen (this queen was basically Migwul AND Rowan in human form--if you don't remember who they are, Migwul was the dragon antagonist from book 1 who used to be a queen).
Medo was well known for witchery in those parts, so when a Queen that was supposed to be dead turned up, mindlessly roaming the woods, people blamed Medo almost automatically. Hoping to protect their reputations (and their blossoming business), Medo and her companions pursued the queen, promising to halt the problem promptly.
But the long lost Queen's sudden reappearance also drew attention from other parties. Namely Rowan's brothers: Tenebrim, seer king of Orchrim, and the ever-scheming Arkhold.
Long story short, Owyn turned out to be Tenebrim's long lost kiddo. Arkhold turned out to be the sort of uncle who likes to kill their nephews so they can have the throne to themselves when the king finally croaks. Medo quickly found herself in Arkhold's crosshairs and struggled to not only keep her companions alive, but, secondarily, attempted to prove Rowan was not merely a walking corpse, but a capable human being who could vouch for everyone's innocence and make a happy little ending for our heroes.
None of Medo's hopes worked out :( She and Rowan were captured by Arkhold and sentenced to public execution by burning. In her escape from this, things got excessively murdery. One of her captors was rendered paralyzed and Medo ensured his eyes got eaten right out of his face by crows while he was still living. Don't mess with that girl, amiright?
Anyways, Owyn had been revealed to be royal blood just before his capture, so Arkhold had no choice but to take him up to see Tenebrim. But Arkhold is a scheming jerk, remember? So he managed to boobytrap Owyn's unconcious body with a black magic weapon of Medo's, setting up Owyn and Tenebrims for a long slow death.
Anyway, Medo fled her attempted execution and arrived just in time to save Owyn, bust him out of his dad's and Arkhold's clutches, and escape into the ruins of the palace Orchrim.
Unfortunately, in the process, Medo used a lot of dark magic, and thus emotionally exhausted herself. At this point Medo had gathered both halves of her black magic spellbook, and knew from Rallyn that there was a rune inside the book that had an extra store of Black Magic trapped inside of it.
Needing a little more magic to ensure her escape, Medo joined the book halves together, drew from the store of trapped power, and used said power to extinguish the nearby fires so that she could get away in the cover of night. But due to the amount of power she drew on, spell turned out kinda huge. It extinguished every hearth in the castle and surrounding city.
Medo had little time to process this because shadowy figures emerged from the corners of the room, cornered Medo, tore something vital from her being, and she fell to the ground, unconscious.
Owyn came on this scene just in time to carry her off and wish his crazed father goodbye. There was no hope of taking Arkhold on at this point. He'd already turned everyone against our heroes, rendering them outlaws.
Other Plotlines of Note:
The Druid: there was an old forest dweller who kept intervening to save Medo at different times. He was revealed to be one of the only survivors of the House of Larkin (a dead royal house who practiced black magic openly, were friends with the mountain dwelling Lyns). When pressed about his helpfulness, the old man revealed he believed Medo was his dead son's daughter. This was based on the fact that before his son died, he spoke of having a daughter with a Saiheen woman (the Saiheen are Medo's people).
Sinder: Is a young knight trying to rekindle his dead father's order: the Cold. The Cold were responsible for fighting Black Magic users, surviving Larkins, stray Witches and the like. Through book 2 Sinder found himself reluctantly switching sides once he realized Owyn was royal blood and Arkhold was plotting to have him killed. But the alliance was shaky. He spent a lot of energy telling Medo how terrible Black Magic is and how she shouldn't use it. In the end of the book he ended up opposing Medo, so she and the Druid knocked him out and left him behind.
Rallyn: has been generally mysterious thus far. For the last two books he really pushed Medo into using black magic, and into using her spellbook/seeking the other half of it when they broke into Orchrim, etc. In his introduction, Rallyn claimed to be a seer, and to have lived forever. We learned in book 2 that he might be capable of seeing not only distant places, but also the future (making him a prophet, technically). Prophets are never forthcoming about what they've foreseen, as a general rule.
Haunt trees: The gang camped out by a Haunt tree. Its a massive oak like tree that people associate with Black Magic. Medo is told Sinder's order, the Cold, used to execute witches by hanging at trees like those. Also according to Sinder, Old Stagger, (more or less the folk god of Black Magic) is said to frequent these trees, sometimes appearing to mortals so that he can strike deals with them.
Royal betrayal history: It was also revealed that Arkhold and Tenebrim worked together to betray the High King Tresdayle. Basically how it worked was Arkhold, Tenebrim and Rowan were all siblings. Their dad was Morogwym, a bad guy from the past who had been banished from the realms. When Morogwym returned from his exile as an old man, Tresdayle wanted him executed, but the three siblings protected their father, hoping to learn things from him. Things escalated, and eventually Arkhold and Tenebrim conspired to help Morogwym get into Tresdayle and Rowan's castle because they were fed up with the High King and all of his crap. So Morogwym broke into the castle, but his attack didn't center on Tresdayle, it centered on his own daughter, Rowan. This is how Rowan became Migwul. After doing this, Morogwym fled over the winter wastes of Cryferiss. With no obvious cure to Rowan's ailment, Tresdayle pursued Morogwym into Cryferiss and neither were ever heard from again.
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I think that's pretty much it. I advise you read the names and places list, so that you're familiar with returning characters from book 1.Reading a full recap of book 1 is probably unnecessary, but if you wish to, that link is here:
https://tatterwing.blogspot.com/2017/08/beshrewed-recap.html
