Koen and the Circle of Eight

The impetus for the journey in Koen: Quills from the Raven’s Nest is that the prince must cement peace between his father, the emperor, and the Circle of Eight of the Northlands. But who are these warlords, and why didn’t the emperor simply impose his will as he did across all of Lucardia?

In the realm’s prehistory, before the land was known as Lucardia, the Nyth Cigfran, or Raven’s Nest, warred with the Gwrachod gwyn y Llwyn Sanctaidd, the white witches of the Sacred Grove. In a desperate attempt to tip the scales in their favor, they used their magic of the flesh to lure an order of Seraphim from their celestial kingdom to mate and produce the Nephilim, hybrids of immense power.

The Nephilim dominated the region — especially the southern river basins, where the best crops grew. Corrupted by their power, they shattered the fledgling human civilization, erased history, and set themselves up as gods. They then drove humanity into marginal places: the Sacred Grove, the subterranean city of Dis, the wastelands, and most importantly for this post, the boreal forests of the far North. The Circle of Eight are the heirs of those Northland tribes. Fierce, brave, and grown strong by the North’s harshness, they are credited with leading the rebellion against the Nephilim.

Having won — with the aid of the Seraph Lucifer — the northern leaders chose a king, Devlian. He reigned only briefly and passed the crown to his son, Sathanas, who became the first unifying emperor of Lucardia through blood and steel (Sathanas earned the epithet “the Wrathful”). His vanguard drew from the leading families of the ten Northland tribes: Houses Thorne, Frey, Snow, Dire, Gold, Burm, Crow, Black, North, and Edge. I will explain why only eight chairs remain shortly.

After Sathanas’s spectacular rise and ignominious fall, his chosen heir — a nephew, not one of his five sons — vanished on a journey to correct a terrible mistake. The empire fractured into the Five Kingdoms Period; one of those kingdoms was the Northlands. It was briefly ruled by one of Sathanas’s sons, but soon reverted to its old governance: the Circle, led by the Jarl, whose chair at the table was only slightly taller.

That arrangement endured through the Five Kingdoms, through Rhime Battenborne’s brief unification, and into the Twelve Kingdoms Period. It is a system that has endured for thousands of years and survived some of humanity’s most severe trials. However, the Circle is not without its turmoil.

As I mentioned above, initially, there were ten chairs. Sathanas decimated House Dire soon after the unification, under the pretext that they were sympathetic to the Forest People, but in reality, it was because he coveted their castle. Centuries later, House Black fell in a civil war with House Thorne, leaving the castle at Blackdown conveniently vacant for Jarl Agris of Thorne to use as a certain wedding gift that we will discuss shortly.

The War of the Twelve Kingdoms was brutal even by Lucardian standards. Lasting twenty years, it touched every aspect of life and every inch of Lucarrdian soil. At first, the North stayed out — “let the Southlings have their squabbles.” But Vesper sought empire, and that meant all the Twelve must kneel. The North fought with ferocity; the South with numbers—the war ground into attrition until the North ran out of men. On a bitter winter day, the emperor sent a delegate under a white flag; this time, the messenger was neither turned away nor slain. To everyone’s surprise, the Circle agreed — temporarily — to add another chair to the Circle and talk peace. Desperate and tired, they agreed to the terms too quickly and later regretted it; in the end, it was a victory for Vesper, and he became the third Uniter.

Vesper’s second son, Koen, married the Jarl’s daughter and took up residence at Blackdown as Prince Regent of the Northlands. The title was largely symbolic: day-to-day rule remained with the Circle, while Koen’s word carried weight only in imperial matters. The one caveat was plain — the child of Thorne and Zulikaarme would inherit the Jarlship, and the Northlands would be formally bound to the empire in blood.

But it has been years, and there is still no child. Time is running out. The North has had time to lick its wounds and now doubts this new order; perhaps placation was always the plan, a way to buy time. Vesper has learned that holding an empire of sand with an iron fist is more complicated than he imagined — he is a warrior, not a politician. Another war with the North may be the wave that breaks the whole thing apart.

And it is here that Koen’s saga begins.

Koen: Quills of the Raven’s Nest released October 1st, and the ebook is available now for preorder!

Cheers!