Prythian is a land of immortal faeries, separated from the mortal world by an ancient wall. Its seven courts are each ruled by a High Lord, divided between the Solar Courts (Day, Dawn, and Night) and the Seasonal Courts (Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter). The Night Court contains Velaris, a hidden city kept secret for five thousand years, as well as the Hewn City, a subterranean court of exiled nobles, and the Illyrian war-camps in the northern mountains. An ancient wall still separates Prythian from the mortal lands, where six human queens rule from a shared palace across the sea.
A Court of Wings and Ruin opens with Feyre back at the Spring Court. The King of Hybern possesses the Cauldron and intends to use it to destroy the wall. Feyre carries powers from all seven High Lords and is Rhysand’s mate, operating as a spy inside the Spring Court. Tamlin has allied with Hybern, granting the king’s forces passage through his lands. Feyre’s sisters, Nesta and Elain, were forced into the Cauldron and Made into High Fae against their will and are now at the Night Court. The mortal queens have fractured: one aided the Night Court, another allied with Hybern, and a sixth has gone missing. The Inner Circle holds both halves of the Book of Breathings. War is imminent.
A Court of Thorns and Roses Series
Book 1: A Court of Thorns and Roses
Book 2: A Court of Mist and Fury
Book 3: A Court of Wings and Ruin
Book 4: A Court of Frost and Starlight
Book 5: A Court of Silver Flames
Book 6: COMING SOON… (27 October 2026)
Book 7: COMING SOON… (12 January 2027)
Main Characters
Feyre Archeron: High Lady of the Night Court.
Rhysand: High Lord of the Night Court and Feyre’s mate.
Tamlin: High Lord of the Spring Court. Allied with the King of Hybern.
Nesta Archeron: Feyre’s eldest sister. Newly Made High Fae.
Elain Archeron: Feyre’s middle sister. Newly Made High Fae and Lucien’s mate.
Cassian: Illyrian commander and member of the Inner Circle.
Azriel: Rhysand’s spymaster and shadowsinger.
Morrigan (Mor): Rhysand’s cousin and Third-in-Command of the Night Court.
Amren: Rhysand’s Second-in-Command. An ancient entity bound in a High Fae body.
Lucien Vanserra: Spring Court emissary and Elain’s mate.
Supporting Characters
Ianthe: High Priestess in the Spring Court.
The King of Hybern: Ruler of Hybern, in possession of the Cauldron.
Jurian: A legendary human commander from the War.
Eris Vanserra: Eldest son of Beron, High Lord of the Autumn Court.
Tarquin: High Lord of the Summer Court.
Helion: High Lord of the Day Court.
Thesan: High Lord of the Dawn Court.
Kallias: High Lord of the Winter Court.
Beron: High Lord of the Autumn Court.
Keir: Steward of the Hewn City and Mor’s father.
The Bone Carver: An imprisoned entity beneath the Prison.
The Weaver: An ancient, powerful creature living in the heart of Prythian.
Vassa: A cursed human queen, bound to a death-lord as a firebird by day.
Drakon and Miryam: A Fae prince and human woman from the War.
Brannagh and Dagdan: The King of Hybern’s niece and nephew, stationed at the Spring Court.
Recap Summary
Feyre returns to the Spring Court under the guise of Tamlin’s broken, compliant mate and operates as a spy within the court, working from the inside to hollow out its defences. She keeps communication with Rhysand through their mating bond to a minimum, fearing detection.
The King of Hybern, meanwhile, sends his twin niece and nephew, Brannagh and Dagdan — along with the resurrected Jurian — to conduct tours of the wall and identify where it can be breached. When Brannagh and Dagdan murder a group of Children of the Blessed during one of these trips, Feyre and Lucien retaliate by setting the Bogge on the twins, and Tamlin scolds them both
Ianthe has previously claimed to foresee a naga attack on the estate and engineers one herself — stealing keys from the guards to let the creatures in — so that, when the attack comes, her prophecy appears to have been fulfilled. When Tamlin discovers what she did, he sides with her over his own sentries.
Feyre works each crack deliberately. She provokes Tamlin’s temper, then makes no attempt to shield herself when his magic tears the room apart, ensuring his men see it. At the Summer Solstice, she repositions a stone so that the solstice light falls on her rather than Ianthe, as though the goddess herself has chosen to bless her. On Fire Night, she dresses provocatively for bed and then cries to Lucien after a feigned nightmare, knowing Tamlin intends more from her that evening. When he walks in and finds them together, his jealousy ignites.
By the time the final wall inspection arrives, Feyre has gathered what she came for: Hybern’s troop strength, its allied courts, and the specific vulnerability in the wall that the King intends to exploit. On the way back, she finds Ianthe holding Lucien in shackles and attempting to assault him. Feyre uses her daemati abilities to stop her, and Brannagh and Dagdan appear immediately afterwards, revealing that they have been lacing the Spring Court’s water supply with faebane for weeks.
Despite their diminished magic, Feyre and Lucien kill the twins and escape through a portal into the Autumn Court, where Beron’s sons pursue them. They evade capture, cross into the Winter Court, and are ambushed again before the faebane has fully worn off, at which point Rhysand senses the mating bond and sends Azriel and Cassian to bring them home.
Back in Velaris, Feyre finds Elain withdrawn and unresponsive, and Nesta volatile. After some convincing, Nesta works with Amren, who trains her to channel the power she clawed from the Cauldron while being made. Amren is also working to decode the Book of Breathings, searching for a spell that can nullify the Cauldron.
Shortly after her return, Feyre and Rhysand visit the Bone Carver, who agrees to fight, but only if Feyre can face the Ouroboros — an ancient mirror that forces the viewer to confront their truest self — and survive it. They then head to the Hewn City to demand Keir’s Darkbringer legion for the coming war and negotiate for the Ouroboros, which Keir holds.
Lucien, unwilling to sit out the conflict, volunteers to seek out Vassa, the cursed human queen, and secure a mortal alliance. While Nesta and Feyre are in the library, Hybern’s Ravens descend on them. With no other way out, Feyre strikes a bargain with Bryaxis, the creature imprisoned in the library’s deepest level, to save them both.
All six High Lords agree to meet at the Dawn Court to confront the Hybern threat. Feyre is publicly revealed as High Lady of the Night Court. Beron makes his hostility plain, Tarquin still holds the Night Court responsible for the stolen Book, and Tamlin accuses the Night Court of manufacturing the crisis. To aid with the upcoming war, Nuan from the Dawn Court presents an antidote that grants immunity to faebane. Feyre notices the physical resemblance between Helion and Lucien — their features unmistakably alike.
Before the meeting can conclude, Nesta feels sick as a wave of power passes through the land. Moments later, it is confirmed that the wall across Prythian and the continent has come down. The High Lords scatter to rally their armies.
Feyre and the others travel to the mortal lands to visit Graysen, Elain’s fiancé, and ask him to shelter humans from what is coming. Jurian arrives and reveals, for the first time to their side, that he has been working against the King from within Hybern’s ranks; the King plans to strike from the Summer Court. Graysen, faced with what Elain has become, ends their engagement.
Feyre faces the Ouroboros and survives what it shows her, securing the Bone Carver’s commitment to fight. She then returns to Bryaxis and strikes a second bargain in exchange for fighting Hybern’s forces.
Hybern advances on the Summer Court. The allied forces use a glamour to disguise their war camp and lure Hybern into an ambush, but they realise that the army they face was not Hybern’s true force.
Feyre goes to find the Suriel, pressing it for what she is missing. It tells her that Nesta can scry for the Cauldron’s location and must find a way to nullify it, and that Amren should look at the second, penultimate page. Before it can say more, Ianthe and two Hybern soldiers shoot it through with an ash arrow. Feyre leads Ianthe and the guards into the Weaver’s cottage and then returns to sit with the Suriel as it dies.
Nesta scries for the Cauldron using bones and stones, casting her mind towards it through their tether. What she finds reveals that Hybern has been playing them: while the allied armies have been chasing these engagements northward, Hybern’s main host has assembled near the human lands, close to the Archeron family estate. The two battles were a feint.
In the middle of the night, the Cauldron uses the connection Nesta established to seize Elain. Azriel and Feyre, with Feyre disguised as Ianthe, get inside Hybern’s camp and come across Jurian, still working against the King from within, who guides them to where Elain is being held. Azriel gets Elain out while Feyre stops to pull an injured human girl from the camp. When Feyre is cornered at the cliff’s edge on the way out, Tamlin arrives and helps her escape.
In the battle that follows, the Bone Carver, Bryaxis, and the Weaver (who struck a bargain with Rhysand) join the fight. Tamlin physically compels Beron to bring his Autumn Court army to the field and arrives alongside his own Spring Court forces.
Three more armies converge before the day is over: a human force under Graysen’s banner, led by Jurian, who openly confirms what he was doing inside Hybern’s camp; Drakon and Miryam with a Seraphim legion and an armada, alongside Lucien and Vassa; and Feyre’s father at the head of a mortal army.
Feyre’s father has not been idle. Months earlier, after discovering that the mortal queens had sold humanity to Hybern, he began quietly raising an army. Lucien found him as he was making his way towards Prythian.
The King of Hybern captures Feyre’s father and snaps his neck in front of Nesta. Through the Cauldron, Feyre sees everything. Cassian is struck down. Nesta covers his body with her own as the King moves towards them — and Elain steps forward and drives Azriel’s blade, Truth-Teller, through the King’s throat before Nesta severs his head.
With the King dead, the battle turns, but the cost is not yet done. Amren enters the Cauldron to unleash her true form, and the Cauldron shatters. Feyre and Rhysand pour every piece of power they have into reforging it, but Rhysand gives more than he has and dies.
The High Lords each give a piece of their power to bring him back. Amren is drawn out of the Cauldron as a true High Fae with her ancient power gone.
When Rhysand comes back, Feyre understands the Suriel’s last words. Stay with the High Lord was never about Tamlin. It was Rhysand all along.
Drakon and Miryam take the Cauldron away for safekeeping. Peace talks open between Fae and humans. Jurian, Lucien, and Vassa form an alliance to navigate what follows as the courts withdraw to their own territories.
Next in Series
The next instalment in the series is A Court of Frost and Starlight. The Inner Circle recovers in the aftermath of war as they approach the Winter Solstice.
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