The Goblin Emperor (2014)

Can a kind ruler carry a political novel? Katherine Addison's fantasy says yes. Maia, the unwanted half-goblin son of the elven emperor, has grown up in exile far from court, until an airship crash kills his father and the three sons ahead of him and leaves the throne to an eighteen-year-old who barely knows court manners. Formal speech demands 'we' for 'I', and he keeps fumbling it. His power grows with each lesson in whom to appoint, whom to trust and when to drop the formal pronoun on purpose.