SPOILER WARNING: This article has important plot information. Caution is advised! |
The War is the unofficial name given to the war between the faeries and humans five hundred years ago before the events of A Court of Thorns and Roses.
History[]
In ancient times, mortals and faeries lived in the same kingdoms and taking advantage of their power, faeries treated mortals as slaves.
In Prythian there were High Lords who were in favor of slavery and others who were against it. At some point the humans got tired of being slaves and a war began between the two classes. One of the leaders of the mortal armies was Jurian.
Rhysand and his Inner Circle fought on the mortal side in the war.
The same thing happened on the Continent. More precisely in the south there was a faerie realm called the Black Land where its Fae queen enslaved mortals, who were then freed by Miryam and Morrigan, the cousin of the current High Lord of the Night Court, Rhysand.
Farther west, in Hybern there was a King who did not want to free his slaves, and before he was forced to do so he murdered them all and sent two of his greatest commanders, Amarantha and Clythia, to participate in the war. The King was supported by some High Lords of Prythian, such as the then High Lord of the Spring Court, Tamlin's father, who at the end of the war was killed along with the rest of his family, except for Tamlin, by the then High Lord of the Night Court.
At first Miryam was Jurian's lover but then she left him since she loved the prince Drakon, a High Fae, and as revenge towards faeries he seduced Clythia and when he got all the information he needed he crucified her with ash wood and then cut her into pieces and left them for Amarantha to find. This action made Amarantha not rest until he was dead, but after she destroyed his body, she kept his soul in his fingerbone which she wore as a necklace, and in his eye which she wore in a ring so that he could witness all the atrocities she did.
After the war ended, a Treaty was signed between the faeries and the Mortal Queens, human slaves were freed, the Wall was established dividing the faerie kingdoms from the Mortal Lands. Faeries would live to the north of the wall while the mortals would live to the south. The Queens were also given half of the Book of Breathings as it contained the secret to nullify the power of the Cauldron, which could be used to destroy the wall. The other half went to the Summer Court
Consequences[]
The actions of this war caused a permanent prejudice among mortals towards faeries, reaching the point of hatred. Faeries who ventured beyond the wall to the south were hunted down and killed and people wore weapons and jewelry made of iron in the belief that it would stop faeries, which was a myth. People who worshiped the Fae, known as the Children of the Blessed, were insulted and attacked by those who even many centuries later held a grudge against the inhabitants north of the wall.