This has some kind of weird pacing problems that you're probably familiar with if you've read Carey before: the first two-thirds are the hero growing up and meeting their soulmate: the last third is a breakneck saving-the-world adventure with a company of heroes.

I dunno who to recommend this to, either. In some ways it feels like you should read this if you liked David Eddings or Raymond Feist, but it has a genderqueer protagonist, which I do not believe is a thing either of those authors would be likely to do. I dunno, man, read it if you're nostalgic for nineties fantasy but want to avoid the suck fairy.

Khai has been raised to be the 'shadow' to the princess Zariya, a kind of warrior/bodyguard/companion. (He's also been raised as a boy without being informed that most boys do not have his anatomy, and is pretty upset when he learns this. Despite being coercively gendered in this way, Khai mostly identifies as male, except when she doesn't.)

There's a thing about how one of the gods is mad and wants to destroy the world, but honestly that's, like, about 10% of this book's draw?