Nine Centuries in One Page
SAGA TIMELINE
From the Closing to the final working. Spoiler-light for unreleased books — only the events you would already learn from reading the jacket copy.
≈ 900 years before the saga
The First Bargain Is Struck
The fae of the Hollow Crown and the mortal king of Aerlann sign the founding bargain — a girl tithed every ten years from the southern coastal villages in exchange for a winter that does not end. The bargain is meant to be temporary. It is not.
≈ 400 years before the saga
The Court of Aislinn Falls
The Verdant Wild orchestrates the erasure of the fae court of Aislinn from the maps, records, and treaties of Faerwynn. The fall is officially attributed to a long quiet plague. Officially. The court's lord, Vesryn, is presumed dead. Mother Aldris does not bring the subject up at council.
≈ 300 years before the saga
The Closing
The old gods of Faerwynn withdraw. They take with them the Whispermark and the long-name workings. The four remaining courts agree, under oath, to keep the peace. The Verdant Wild agrees to nothing.
≈ 130 years before the saga
Roan's Silence Begins
On a night the records of the Hollow Crown have declined to enter into the official register, Roan — captain of the Hollow Crown's shadow guard — stops speaking. He continues to fulfil every duty of his office in writing. He does not raise his head in any reception in any court for the next century.
3 weeks before the saga opens
Lyra Ashwood's Name Is Drawn
In the village of Caer Mhainn on the southern coast of Aerlann, the tithe lottery is held. Lyra Ashwood, twenty-two, is drawn. She has three weeks before the carriage from the Hollow Crown arrives.
Whispermark — Chapter 1
Lyra Walks Into the Throne Hall
The tithe arrives at Mortvale. Lyra does not cry on the carriage road. She does not lower her eyes when she walks into the throne hall. Caelum Mortvale, who has presided over seven previous tithes, registers, instantly, that this one is different.
Book 1 ↗Whispermark — Chapter 3
The First Bond Strikes
Caelum extends his hand for the formal greeting. Lyra accepts. The first bond strikes both of them and the Whispermark blooms across her wrist for the first time in three hundred years. Neither of them pulls back.
Book 1 ↗Whispermark — Chapter 11
The Second Bond Strikes
In the lower courtyard of Mortvale, Roan raises his head. Lyra is on the threshold. Their eyes meet. The second bond strikes him with the precision of a blade pushed slow through ribs. He does not speak. The mark on her wrist grows.
Book 1 ↗Whispermark — closing chapters
The Third Bond Begins
On the night Lyra believes she has earned the right to a quiet sleep, a presence she has not met arrives at the edge of her perception. The third bond — from a fae lord whose court vanished four hundred years ago — begins. The book ends.
Book 1 ↗The Vanished Court — Chapter 2
Vesryn Walks Into Her Chambers
The lord of Aislinn — beautiful, theatrical, four hundred years dead by every record currently in public circulation — walks straight into Lyra's private chambers as if he has a standing invitation. The third bond locks. She is not pleased about it.
Book 2 ↗The Vanished Court — Chapter 9
The Architect Is Named
Lady Eiryne Mortvale, in the lower archive at three in the morning, says a name out loud for the first time in thirty years: Mother Aldris of the Verdant Wild. The architect of the erasure of Aislinn, of the war that is now beginning, of nine centuries of patient interference. The Hollow Crown has, at last, decided to remember.
Book 2 ↗Tideglass — middle act
The Fourth Bond Strikes at the Summit
All four fae courts meet at the summit table for the first time in four hundred years. The Prince of the Frozen Tides — Kael, honor-bound, cannot lie — sees Lyra across the table. The fourth bond strikes him. He stands. He bows his head. He says: She is mine. The political consequences begin within the hour.
Book 3 ↗Tideglass — climax
Mother Aldris Arrives in Person
After nine centuries of acting through intermediaries, the matriarch of the Verdant Wild walks into the summit chamber. She drinks tea. She speaks softly. The book ends on the consequence.
Book 3 ↗The Burning Thorns — opening
Maeve Ashwood Is Taken
Lyra's younger sister is taken from Caer Mhainn. The court that holds her demands no ransom. The death-clock begins.
Book 4 ↗Aislinn — middle act
The Mark Begins to Break
The four bonds across Lyra's body have been growing the Whispermark steadily since the first chapter of Book One. By midway through Book Five, the tracery has reached her collarbone and has begun, for the first time, to crack along its edges. The Whispermark is asking, finally, what it wants to be when it stops being borrowed.
Book 5 ↗The Last Bearer — final chapters
Five Voices in One Working
On the final page of the saga, five voices — Lyra and her four mates — speak a single working aloud at the same moment. The realm of Faerwynn finds out what the Whispermark was for. It is not what any of the four courts predicted.
Book 6 ↗
The Crown Letters
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