The lost craft of Tyrrendor · power woven and tempered into stone and steel · banned by Navarre for working too well
Runes
“It's beautiful, with a solid black hilt engraved with Tyrrish knots, old, mythical runes of intricate swirls and ties.”
Iron Flame — Rebecca Yarros
Navarre didn't ban runes because they don't work. It banned them because they work on anyone — signet or not.
Tyrrish rune-craft: a wielder's own power pulled into a knot, tempered into an object, and left to hum until it's needed — the old written magic that arms a dagger, masks a rebel city, and holds up a wardstone.
How a rune works
Pull the power out. Tie the knot. Set it and wait.
A rune isn't a symbol you draw and hope over — it's a working. The rune-worker pulls strands of their own power out, weaves them into a knot-like geometric pattern built for one specific purpose, and tempers it into an object so the effect holds. Some fire the instant they're set; some lie dormant until something triggers them. The dagger Xaden hands Violet — black hilt, old Tyrrish knots — isn't jewellery. It's a spell someone tied and left ready.
A banned language
A written magic that reads like a threat.
The runes are a whole logo-syllabic script — every shape means something, the way a letter does, comparable to the dead tongues Violet reads in the Archives. And because a rune is only limited by how much power you temper into it, a good one can stand against any signet in Navarre. That's the real reason the crown outlawed the craft: not superstition, math. Tyrrendor kept teaching it anyway, quietly, which is most of why Tyrrendor had to be erased.
What it holds up
From a single hilt to a kingdom's wards.
Scale the same craft up and you get the load-bearing magic of the whole world: masking runes that hide a rebuilt city from anything flying overhead, and the seven nested rune-circles carved down a wardstone that shield almost all of Navarre. The rebellion doesn't just fight with runes — it survives on them. Navarre banned the tools, then wondered why its own wards started to fail.
Who works the craft
The hands that still carve it.
Swipe to meet them all
The File
- What it is
- Strands of a wielder's power woven into a geometric knot and 'tempered' into an object — held ready, or dormant until it's triggered.
- Where it's from
- Tyrrendor. The last province to kneel, and the only one that kept the craft.
- It's a language
- Logo-syllabic — every shape carries meaning, like a written tongue. Not decoration. Grammar.
- Its only limit
- How much power you choose to pour in. Temper enough and a rune can level the field against any signet.
- Why it's banned
- Exactly because of that. Navarre outlawed the craft a couple of hundred years after unification.
- What it powers
- A single warded dagger, the masking runes hiding Aretia from the sky, the seven-circle wardstones that shield the Vale.
- Who still works it
- The marked ones. Xaden carves them; Violet's blades and the rebellion's defences run on them.
We're Caffeine and Curses. The Library started as my design research — I can't put a Tyrrish rune on a shirt without knowing it's knotwork — intricate swirls and ties — 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.
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The Empyrean, ©2023-2025, Rebecca Yarros.