The Wyrdgate · The full story

The wound in the world

Every locked door in these books is really this one door. Somebody tore it open to run away, and everyone for a thousand years after died trying to shut it again.

A door out of hell

Tens of millennia before the series, the Valg queen Maeve found a way to tear a Wyrdgate open and slip out of the Valg realm with her handmaidens while her husband-king Orcus was away — crossing into Erilea and passing herself off among the Fae as one of three innocent sister-queens. That is the first thing to understand about the gate: it can be made, not only opened, and the most beautiful queen in the Fae world walked through one to escape something worse. Everything Valg in Erilea, Erawan included, is on this side of that door because Maeve ran.

The gods on the wrong side

The beings Erilea worships as gods are not gods; they are higher things that wandered through a Wyrdgate and got trapped, and re-opening the gate is their one road home. That is the bargain the ancient war turns on: the gods will cross back through the gate and drag Erawan into their own world with them — if someone seals the three Wyrdkeys into the doorway behind them. Mala Fire-Bringer and Brannon Galathynius struck that deal in the first Valg War. It should have ended everything, cleanly, a thousand years early. It didn't.

Elena breaks the plan

At the last moment Elena Galathynius stole the Lock her father had forged and used it to seal Erawan in a tomb under Morath instead of sending him home through the gate. The Valg lord was contained, not removed; the gods stayed stranded; the keys were never sunk back into the door. One frightened choice left the gate un-sealed and the world on a thousand years of borrowed time — and left Elena herself bound in a kind of purgatory, made to prepare the descendant who would one day have to finish the job she flinched from.

Opened, and redirected

The gate opens one last time at Orynth, so the gods can finally cross back. Aelin tries to bargain them into taking Erawan and granting Elena peace; the goddess Deanna destroys Elena instead, and the gods make to leave Erawan behind. So Aelin spends the last ember Mala gives her to change where the door lets out — flinging Erawan into the hellscape she once saw as the King's Champion rather than letting him stay loose in the world. Then the three keys go in, and the gate that everything came through closes for good.

The wound in the world

One door, torn open in a panic and never properly shut, is the reason for every war, every god, and every Valg thing in the story.

Maeve tears it open
The Valg queen Maeve rips a Wyrdgate open and flees the Valg realm and her king Orcus, crossing into Erilea disguised as an innocent Fae sister-queen.
Orcus cuts the keys
Discovering how she escaped, Orcus tears three slivers from the gate itself — the three Wyrdkeys — so the doorway can be opened and shut at will.
The gods get stranded
Higher beings pass through a Wyrdgate into Erilea and can't get back. Re-opening the gate becomes their only road home, and the reason they will bargain at all.
Mala and Brannon's bargain
In the first Valg War the gods agree to cross home and take Erawan with them if Mala Fire-Bringer and Brannon seal the keys back into the gate. Mala pours her whole life into a Lock to do it.
Elena breaks it
Elena steals the Lock and seals Erawan under Morath instead. The keys are never resealed, the gods stay trapped, and the gate is left a thousand-year wound.
A riddle left behind
Brannon hides the keys and leaves a riddle in Elena's tomb, trusting a good descendant to one day carry them back to the door.
Found again
Across the series the three keys surface one by one — in a clock tower, in Kaltain's arm, in a child's wrist at Morath — until all three are in one place again.
The door reopens at Orynth
At the final battle the gods appear and a Wyrdgate is opened so they can cross back to their own world at last.
Aelin changes the destination
Deanna destroys Elena and the gods move to abandon Erawan; with Mala's gifted ember, Aelin redirects the gate and flings Erawan into the hellscape she saw as the King's Champion.
Sealed for good
The three keys are sunk into the doorway and the Wyrdgate closes forever. No army, no Valg, nothing, will ever come through it again.

← Back to The Wyrdgate

We're Caffeine and Curses. The Library started as my design research — I can't put Manon on a shirt without knowing which way the iron teeth snap — so we keep the notes here where everyone can use them. The pages are fan-made, not official; the licensed designs are in the shop.

Officially licensed