Recap / Gleams of Aeterna

Below is a short synopsis of the Gleams of Aeterna novel series. Unmarked spoilers ahead!

1. Red on Red (2004). Richard Oakdell, the young heir of the disgraced ducal House of the Rocks, is taken on as a squire by Marshal Roque Alva, Duke of the Winds, who crushed the Oakdells' rebellion against the Ollar crown five years ago and personally killed Richard's father. At the same time, the Rakan remnant sets in motion a scheme to lure Alva, the Ollars' main trump card, into a military campaign he cannot win and to have him executed.
2. From War Till War (2005). Alva and Richard return to Ollaria victorious, only to have to suppress a riot when a reconciliation between the Ollarian and Esperatian Churches is sabotaged. Richard is drawn into a conspiracy to assassinate Alva but is discovered and exiled. Alva is sent abroad on a mission to assist Talig's allies in Felp and Urgot with their on-going military campaigns.
3. Face of Victory (2005). While Alva is away from Talig, Richard teams up with Aldo Rakan and his right-hand man Robert Epine, Duke of the Lightning, who mount a new rebellion against the Ollars. They succeed against all odds, thanks to the political chaos that engulfs Talig after the sudden death of the all-powerful Cardinal Sylvester. King Ferdinand Ollar abdicates and Alva, who returns to save his sovereign, is captured by the rebels.
4. Winter Break was the first book to be split in two tomes:
   1. From the Depths (2006). Aldo is crowned the new Anax by the Esperatian Cardinal Levy, but his rule is immediately marred by a stampede at Dora. Encouraged by the unrest in Ollaria and Alva's imprisonment, Talig's enemies start trespassing on its borders, most notably Drixen's naval incursion at Hecksberg.
   2. Poison of the Past (further split into two volumes, published simultaneously in 2007). To secure his rule, Aldo organizes a Kangaroo Court to have Alva executed, but Cardinal Levy manages to bail the Marshal out. Robert barely survives an assassination attempt. Richard's betrayal of Alva in court leads to an earthquake destroying the Oakdells' fiefdom of Nador.
5. Heart of the Beast was to be the last book in the series, but got hit by Exponential Plot Delay real bad and had to be split into five volumes.
   1. Lies of Mirrors, Truth of Steel ^note The original Russian title is actually "Truth of Steel, Lies of Mirrors" but a direct translation doesn't preserve the original's poetic meter. (2008). After Ferdinand Ollar is murdered, Alva's aide-de-camp Marcel Valmont smuggles the sick Marshal out of Ollaria. Aldo, in a vain attempt to surpass Alva, gets himself killed by mounting Alva's horse. With both kings dead, a new coup takes place but is stopped by Queen Catherine, who reveals she is pregnant with Ferdinand's child and claims regency.
   2. Orb of Fates (2009). Robert is appointed the governor of Ollaria and receives orders from Alva to cordon the city off from the rest of the world. Richard kills the queen in a fit of misguided jealousy, but her unborn son is saved. King Heinrich of Gaunau makes peace with Talig after interpreting an unnatural earthquake as an ill omen for continuing the war.
   3. Blue Gaze of Death was ostensibly the last tome of the last book but...
      1. Sunset (2011). In the wake of the queen's death, Robert tries to quell unrest in Ollaria, while Richard is secretly executed by Robert's wildcard aide Nicola Carval. Alva and Marcel end up in Nador, where the Marshal disappears under strange circumstances. Unnatural disasters strike at the warring sides on Talig's borders.
      2. Midnight (2012). Scores of outlaws are mysteriously drawn to Ollaria, until the city erupts into a massive riot fueled by a mystical Hate Plague. Robert and Levy evacuate the few thousand "uninfected", but the Cardinal is killed. Similar "outbreaks" occur in capitals and major cities all across the Golden Lands.
      3. Sunrise (2017^note first three volumes and 2019^note volumes 4 and 5). Alva turns up in Bakria with a mild case of Death Amnesia and reunites with Marcel and Robert to sneak into Ollaria, where the Possessed^note i.e. those infected by the Green Taint have formed an oligarchic republic. They then head north and team up with Prince Bruno of Drixen to defeat the joint armies of the Possessed now controlling the Drixen heartlands. The Battle of Gelbe River ends with the Possessed armies routed, and Alva returns to Old Pridda, where the Ollarian royal court reassembles itself around Ferdinand and Catherine's young son Karl. Meanwhile in the south, Lionel Savignac maneuvers his small force to contain another Possessed army under the treacherous General Sahl into Ollaria, and succeeds by briefly gaining control over the Beast of the Rakans with his awakening mystical powers.
6. Wind and Eternity was originally supposed to be the final volume of Sunrise, but the publisher has finally given up and split it off into its own trilogy:
   1. Heralds Pursuit (2021). With armies at winter quarters, courtly intrigue and Arranged Marriages begin in earnest, with the most prominent being King Heinrich's sudden wedding to Selene Aramona. Meanwhile, Alva and Lionel finally meet up and devise a plan to contain the Green Taint outbreaks in Agaris, Ollaria, Einrecht, and Paona, offering their lives to prevent the Orb of Fates from destroying Quertiana.
   2. The Song of Four (TBR)
   3. Sun Above the Tower (TBR)

Additional novellas to be (re)published in the Flame of Aeterna anthology:

• Flame of Aeterna (2004). A distant prequel to the novels, set before and around the fall of Galtara. Spoils a lot of reveals of the later books.
• Taligoian Ballad (2005). A less distant prequel (published as the prologue to FWTW), set during Francis Ollar's coup to take the Taligoian crown, 400 years before the novels.
• White Spruce (2006). A novella taking place in Black Alati about four and a half centuries before the main cycle, relating the supernatural events that left the eponymous mystical tree (which Robert visits in Face of Victory) in its permanently desiccated state.
• The Sketch-Book of Maestro Shabli (ca. 2014). A short story, framed as the diary of the eponymous Laik teacher, recounting the events of Egmont Oakdell's failed rebellion.
• Life of Saint Adrian (previously unpublished) will presumably give some long-needed insight into this most mysterious of the Esperatian saints (born Cesare Marichiare).
• Imperatrix (previously unpublished).

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