Set in the glittering, treacherous courts of Elfhame, this companion tale follows a High King who has learned to turn mockery into armor and stories into weapons. Framed by a present-day quest that pits the royal couple against a “monster” in the mortal world, the narrative interweaves formative memories, poisonous court games, and the dangerous allure of tales told in the dark. Around them, abusers, betrayers, and storytellers form the crucible that shapes a boy’s cruelty into a ruler’s hard-won wisdom.
Main Characters
Prince Cardan
Both protagonist and narrator, Cardan recounts his evolution from scorned princeling to the cruelly charismatic High King of Elfhame, revealing how neglect, abuse, and hedonism hardened into a persona he wore like a crown. His rapier wit, theatrical excess, and cultivated indifference mask profound insecurity, yet the present-day frame story—sparked by his queen’s relentless courage—forces him to measure the man he has become against the boy he once was. The recurring tale of a boy with a heart of stone haunts and guides him, mapping his resistance to vulnerability and his suspicion of narrative manipulation (see Chapter 3-4 Summary and Chapter 9-10 Summary). Betrayals by those closest to him sour pleasure into nihilism, but love—and the responsibility it demands—teaches him a different kind of power. In the end, he chooses clever mercy over spectacle, confronting a troll storyteller and, to protect his queen, penning a new ending for himself—the moment he stops hating stories and starts authoring his own (see Chapter 11 Summary).
Jude Duarte
The mortal High Queen of Elfhame and Cardan’s wife, Jude is a strategist and fighter whose grit elevates her in a land designed to break humans. Though the book is not told from her perspective, her unwavering pragmatism and appetite for risk drive the frame narrative, becoming the measure against which Cardan weighs his own maturity. Their bond—born of mutual defiance and sharpened by years of rivalry—has tempered into a fierce partnership, even as her instinct to meet threats head-on alarms him. When she sets her sights on a “monster” menacing the mortal world, she catalyzes Cardan’s defining choice to protect rather than punish, proving that love can be as demanding as any crown.
Supporting Characters
Balekin
Cardan’s eldest brother embodies the court’s ugliest creed: survival through domination. His sadistic “tutelage” during Cardan’s exile grooms cruelty as a shield, turning pain into pedagogy and leaving scars that shape the king’s reputation long after. A static emblem of power without conscience, he demonstrates how violence perpetuates itself—especially within a royal family.
Aslog of the West
A troll storyteller who returns across Cardan’s life like a bad dream, Aslog tells two versions of a tale about a boy whose heart turns to stone—parables that echo his own temptations and fears (see Chapter 1-2 Summary and Chapter 7-8 Summary). Wronged by a former king and a rival queen, she becomes a bone-grinding “monster” in the mortal realm, personifying the Power and Peril of Stories. Cardan defeats her not with brute force but with narrative cunning and a measured mercy that spares lives while asserting his authority.
Nicasia
A princess of the Undersea and Cardan’s first love, Nicasia mirrors his early delight in malice and spectacle. Her fickle betrayal detonates his fragile trust and cements his cynicism, teaching him that courtly romances can be as cruel as any duel. Later, spurned in turn, she seeks a bruising solidarity in revenge, proving she has learned little beyond how to wound and be wounded.
Locke
The charming puppet-master of Cardan’s youthful circle, Locke treats lives like narratives to be orchestrated for his amusement. His treachery reframes betrayal as a “plot twist,” seeding Cardan’s belief that stories are simply elegant lies told by those who cannot lie outright. A hedonist without a conscience, he turns affection into entertainment and leaves wreckage in his wake.
Minor Characters
High King Eldred
Cardan’s father, whose regal indifference becomes the root of his youngest son’s insecurity and prophecy-fueled self-loathing.
Dain
An ambitious elder brother who frames Cardan for murder, ensuring his exile into Balekin’s brutal household and accelerating his descent into performative villainy.
Valerian
A member of the cruel inner circle who delights in torment “the way some Folk loved poetry,” hounding weaker targets—including the mortal High Queen—without remorse.
Margaret
An ensorcelled human servant forced to beat Cardan in Balekin’s home; he later steals her away to free her in the mortal world, an early fissure in his hardened facade (see Chapter 5-6 Summary).
Bryern
A phooka and former employer of the High Queen in the mortal realm, he petitions the High Court for help against a “monster” and Queen Gliten’s encroaching knights.
Character Relationships & Dynamics
Cardan and Jude anchor the book’s beating heart: once enemies, now sovereign partners who sharpen each other’s strengths and expose each other’s blind spots. Her mortal steadiness and appetite for direct action challenge his instinct for spectacle and evasion, while his newfound restraint and cleverness temper her drive to meet violence with violence. Their love is less a cure than a forge—demanding sacrifices, inviting vulnerability, and ultimately giving Cardan a reason to choose mercy over myth.
The Greenbriar family is a crucible of harm: a distant father cultivates neglect, one elder brother weaponizes cruelty, and another engineers betrayal. That closed circuit of power and pain isolates the youngest prince, pushing him toward a circle of “friends” who treat malice as sport. Within that circle, Nicasia and Locke become the twin tutors of his disillusionment—one fickle, one calculating—teaching him to see stories as traps and romance as theater.
Storytellers and monsters mirror each other here. Aslog’s fables seduce and warn, while Locke’s dramaturgy manipulates for pleasure; both force Cardan to confront the idea that narratives can wound as surely as blades. Against them stands the High Queen’s pragmatic ethic and the king’s evolving belief that a story can also be a promise: a deliberately chosen ending that spares lives, binds oaths, and remakes a boy with a stone heart into a ruler with an iron will. Factionally, tensions braid together the High Court of Elfhame, the Undersea’s proud royalty, and mortal territories pressed by Queen Gliten’s knights, setting the stage for shifting alliances where love, loyalty, and legend collide.