The City of Pearl · The Summer Court of Prythian
Summer Court
“Tarquin was summer incarnate in turquoise and gold, bits of emerald shining at his buttons and fingers. A crown of sapphire and white gold fashioned like cresting waves sat atop his seafoam-coloured hair—so exquisite that I often caught myself staring at it.”
A Court of Mist and Fury
Beauty rebuilt from devastation — a sun-and-sea paradise of pearl, sapphire and aquamarine, ruled by the youngest High Lord and his dream of a fairer Prythian.
Adriata rises around a half-moon bay, its palace on a mountain-island, its waters guarding a half of the Book of Breathings — and the betrayal that broke a friendship.
At a Glance
The Summer Court
The Court
Summer incarnate
The Summer Court is the most overtly coastal and tropical of the seven courts of Prythian — turquoise seas kissed by the sun, a dry suffocating heat softened only by the breeze off the water, pearl-white stone the colour of coral, sea glass, shell and a bay crowded with ships. Its capital, Adriata, the city of pearl, spreads around and below the High Lord's palace, which crowns a mountain-island at the heart of a half-moon bay: tan stone walls and red roofs threaded with canals, sea-spray and open, airy streets. Once devastated under Amarantha — its former High Lord Nostrus and his whole line slaughtered for resisting her — the court was rebuilt by Tarquin, who rose from prince and admiral to become the youngest High Lord, and who dreams aloud of a fairer Prythian where the lower-caste fae are no longer servants and slaves.
What Happens Here
Trust, theft, and the long way back
Adriata is the stage for one of A Court of Mist and Fury's pivotal moral fractures. Tarquin receives Feyre, Rhysand and Amren as honoured guests — dining them aboard a pleasure barge beneath his wave-crested crown, offering genuine friendship and an alliance — while their true purpose is to steal his half of the Book of Breathings. Feyre traces it to a temple submerged by the tide and, carrying a drop of Tarquin's own Made water-power, reaches the lead box on its dais; but when she lies to the sentient Book it names her a liar and floods the chamber to drown them, until water-wraiths tear the door away to repay an old debt, the Book yielding only after it calls her 'Cursebreaker.' The betrayal exposed, Tarquin answers with three blood rubies — one each for the thieves, a formal declaration of blood feud. The wound is mended only in A Court of Wings and Ruin: when Hybern besieges Adriata and the Night Court comes to its defence, Tarquin rescinds the rubies, declares no debts remain between them, and commits the Summer Court's fleet to the war.
Landmarks & Relics
Of pearl and the deep
From the Page
Summer Court
“Tarquin was summer incarnate in turquoise and gold, bits of emerald shining at his buttons and fingers. A crown of sapphire and white gold fashioned like cresting waves sat atop his seafoam-coloured hair—so exquisite that I often caught myself staring at it.”
A Court of Mist and Fury