Timeline & Map Reference: Twenty-Two Years of Fallen Hearts

This is the post readers have been asking me for since book three. A consolidated reference: the chronology, the geography, the dynastic chart. I keep my own copy in a leather folder on my desk, dog-eared and over-annotated, and what follows is the cleaned-up version.

Print this if you reread the series. Bookmark it if you are mid-reread now. The series spans twenty-two years of in-world time and three generations of warrior queens, and even I have to check the chart sometimes when a reader writes in to ask whether Marcus is older or younger than Elena.

(He is younger by five and a half years. I get this question every other week.)

The Chronology

I date the series from Year 0, which is the year of Stolen Hearts — the year Aria reclaims her throne. Three years before that is the West Wing coup that killed her family and put Varen on the stolen throne. Twenty-two years after that is the constitutional signing in The Weight of Legacy. The full timeline:

A note on dates: I do not give specific calendar dates in-world. The Valdorian calendar uses sixteen named seasons rather than twelve months, and committing to those names in-text would have triggered a worldbuilding cascade I did not have the room for. If a reader presses me, I will say Stolen Hearts opens in early Storm-tide (roughly equivalent to our late February) and closes in deep Wolfwake (roughly mid-November). The rest you can extrapolate.

The Stormborn Dynasty (Three Generations)

          King Edmund Stormborn — Queen Liana
                        |
     +-----------+------+------+--------------+
     |           |             |              |
   Two sons   ARIA     [other sister, died    Cousin Darian
   (Y -3,     (Y -22 — y 11,   in childhood]  Stormborn
   ages 11    poisoned coma                   (off-page,
   and 14,    Y 11 to Y 12)                   Monastery of the
   died in     |                              Eternal Vigil)
   the West    |
   Wing)       |
              + married Darius Blackwood
                        |
              +---------+----------+
              |                    |
            ELENA              MARCUS
            (Y 1 — onward)     (Y 6 — onward)
              |
            + married King Aldric of Valdris
                        |
              +---------+----------+
              |                    |
            ARIA               (no second
            (the granddaughter,  surviving
            Y 7 onward)         child on-page)

Two specific notes for new readers:

• Marcus is named after Aria's advisor Marcus Kensington, not after the Stormborn line. Aria insisted on the name in Iron and Flame against Darius's quiet preference for Edmund. Marcus the advisor died in the Korrathi war defending the western flank; Aria named her son for him while her grief was still fresh.
• The granddaughter Aria is named for her grandmother. She is fifteen at the events of The Weight of Legacy and almost the same age her grandmother was when the West Wing fell. The series's structural symmetry runs partly through these naming choices.

The Map of Valdoria and the Region

I am not going to render the map in ASCII. It would not survive translation. What I can give you is the spatial relationship between the major locations, walked through as a tour:

Valdoria (the kingdom): A roughly diamond-shaped kingdom with the capital, Crownhaven, at the central crossroads. The royal seat is Stormgate Castle in the inner city. Crownhaven sits on a major river (the Stormwater) navigable to the southern coast, and the harbor is the kingdom's primary trade port. The market quarter — Aria fights an assassination attempt in the Spice Quarter in book seven — is a half-mile north of the castle.

The Eastern Marches: A long, forested, hilly territory east of Crownhaven. Aria spent her three years in hiding here. Thornfield Crossing, where Darius was born, sits in the middle of it. Blackstone Keep — where Elena is born — is in the northern Marches. Greymarsh is a coastal estuary town in the southeastern Marches; it figures into book two as the staging point for the Lyra rescue. The Marches border Valdris to the east through a contested mountain pass.

The Mountain Clans (the Northern Reach): North of Valdoria, across the Ironpeak range. Thorald Ironheart's people. The Clan capital — though they would not call it that — is the great hall at Ironpeak Hold. The Trial of Endurance takes place in the high caves above the hold. Mountain Clan territory extends north into open tundra that the series never crosses.

Valdris: Valdoria's neighbor to the east. A roughly equivalent kingdom in size, more rigidly traditional. The capital is the Valdris Keep in the city of Valdris-on-the-Bay. Aldric Aldarin's home. Valdris and Valdoria share a long mountain border with two passes — the Redrock Pass in the south, the Ashling Pass in the north — both of which figure into the Brennan campaign in book two.

Morthaven: A ruin in the deep eastern mountains, at the upper edge of Valdris territory. Malachai's stronghold. After the events of Shadows of the Crown, the place is left to decay. By the end of the series, it is being slowly reclaimed by forest.

The Free Cities: A federation of democratic city-states south and east of Valdris. They never feature on-page in a major scene, but their judiciary is the model Celeste Harwick eventually proposes for Valdoria's constitutional reform. The Free Cities are where Cassian goes in book three to chase Grey's network. Kethara — the amber-walled harbor city — is the largest of them.

The Korrathi Empire: South across the Narrow Sea. Their capital is Korrath, a tidal-terrace city of great age. The empire's territory continues south and east beyond any borders the series defines. They invade Valdoria's coast in book three through a fleet landing at Riverside and pushing inland toward Crownhaven. After the treaty, they withdraw and do not return.

The Monastery of the Eternal Vigil: A six-day ride west of Crownhaven, on the headland above a fishing village. Cousin Darian Stormborn is in holy orders here. The monastery is mentioned in every book of the series and visited only once, in a scene that ended up cut from the published edition of Stolen Hearts but survives in my draft folder.

A Reader's Quick-Reference Card

If you are reading the series for the first time and want a single page to keep beside you:

• The kingdom is Valdoria. The capital is Crownhaven. The royal seat is Stormgate Castle. The dynasty is Stormborn.
• The first three books follow Aria and her partner Darius (called The Raven).
• The middle two books follow Elena, Aria's daughter, and her partner Aldric, prince and later king of Valdris.
• The seventh book bridges generations and brings in Aria the granddaughter as a fifteen-year-old who watches the throne be set down.
• The Korrathi Empire is the major external threat in book three. The Death Lord Malachai is the major external threat in book four. Internal political conspiracies — Lord Thane in book two, Vivienne Petra in book five, Adrian Terrence in book six, Lord Brennan and Thorne in book seven — drive the rest.
• The series ends with the kingdom transformed into a constitutional government. The throne, in the final scene, is a chair in a museum. The Stormborn line continues in the people, not the title.

That is the whole map. Walk it gently if you are heading back in.

— Elara