The Sacred Mountain · The Illyrian Mountains, Night Court
Ramiel
“A towering, barren mountain, void of life yet somehow thrumming with presence. Snow and pines crusted the smaller peaks around it, but this strange, bald mountain — only a black stone jutted from its top. A monolith.”
A Court of Silver Flames
A bald, primordial peak crowned by a single onyx monolith — older than the Night Court itself, and the end-point of the Blood Rite.
Off-limits to all but the Illyrians, and only once a year, when three holy stars rise to align above its summit.
At a glance
The mountain crowned by three stars
The place
A monolith older than the court it crowns
Ramiel rises out of the conifer forests and ravines of the Illyrian Mountains as a strange, bald thing — snow and pines crust the smaller peaks around it, but its own slopes are barren rock and its summit is bare but for one black stone jutting from the top. A monolith. The onyx megalith predates the Night Court itself, and it is from this image — a single mountain crowned by three stars — that the first ruler of the Night Court took his court's insignia. The same mountain-and-three-stars is inked on Rhysand's knees: the mark of one who will bow before no one and nothing but his crown. None are permitted on Ramiel's barren slopes save the Illyrians, and only once a year.
What happens here
Survive the week, climb the mountain, touch the stone
Each early spring the Blood Rite is run in Ramiel's shadow. Illyrian warriors are stripped of their magic, scattered into the wilderness, and given roughly a week to survive and fight their way to the mountain — then to scale it by hand and touch the onyx monolith at its peak. To touch the stone is to win: it heals the warrior, returns their stolen magic, and winnows them away to wherever they are needed most. Three paths lead up; the hardest, the Breaking, runs through the Pass of Enalius — the natural stone archway where the first Illyrian once drew a line in the dirt and held the line for three days until he died. The Rite is run in his honour. In A Court of Silver Flames, Nesta re-enacts that stand at the same Pass so Gwyn and Emerie can reach the summit — they touch the stone and rise as Carynthians, while Nesta, who held the line instead of climbing, becomes Oristian.
Of the mountain
Landmarks & sacred features
The features that make Ramiel more shrine than mountain.
Doorways
People & places bound to the mountain
From the page
Canon
“A towering, barren mountain, void of life yet somehow thrumming with presence. Snow and pines crusted the smaller peaks around it, but this strange, bald mountain — only a black stone jutted from its top. A monolith.”
A Court of Silver Flames