Voice of Command by Melanie Cellier

In this second in Spoken Mage series by Melanie Cellier, Elena is facing her second year at Mage School.  This means learning to do combat, not only with swords, but also with magic.  At first she is unable to do her spoken magical compositions fast enough to be effective in a fight, but she gradually figures it out and hones her skills.  Meanwhile, she is looking in dread to her 18th birthday when she plans to enlist in the military to fulfill her family's mandatory service obligation.  Her second year of school is sidetracked by a plague in another part of the kingdom, and all the students, including Prince Lucas, are sent to use their skills to help combat the sickness. Elena's feelings about Lucas swing wildly from frustration to admiration to fairly intense attraction; yet she knows that she, as a commonborn, could never end up with a prince.

I am finding I am enjoying this series, maybe even more than the other series I have read by Cellier.  I think both Elena's and Lucas's personalities are different than some of the stock personalities I got used to (and a little tired of) in her fairytale retellings.  She has also created an unusual and interesting magic system and social dynamic.  One of the interesting plot devices is that Lucas understands the court intrigue and politics of the kingdom, but Elena doesn't.  Lucas is also torn between his attraction to Elena, and his duty to his kingdom. There are two more in the series, and then an entire companion series after that.  I will probably finish this series, and then we'll see if I do the other.  (266 p. 2019)