The Crochans · The full story
Five hundred years of grievance
The good witches lost their kingdom five hundred years ago. They spent every year since waiting to be proven right — and a half-Ironteeth queen finally proved them.
The Witch Kingdom
The Crochans were the good witches, given the Western Wastes by King Brannon and ruling the Witch Kingdom in peace for centuries. Five hundred years before the series, the three Ironteeth clans — Blackbeak, Blueblood and Yellowlegs — allied and made war on them, and sacked the kingdom. The last Crochan Queen, Rhiannon Crochan, held the gates of her city for three days and three nights against the three Ironteeth Matrons, her sisters dead around her and her children slaughtered, and fell at dawn on the fourth day. Everything the Crochans are for the next five hundred years begins in that one lost siege.
The curse
As she died, Rhiannon cursed the clans who beat her: the Ironteeth would win the war but never the land — they would inherit the Witch Kingdom only to watch it wither in their hands — and she stripped them of true magic, leaving them a single power, the Yielding, a one-time death-spell. But the curse was also a key. It named the way home: be the bridge, be the light; when iron melts and flowers spring from fields of blood, let the land be witness and return. For five hundred years that was a riddle nobody could solve. The Crochans scattered into nomadic exile, carrying their hearth-flames from camp to camp, and waited.
The bridge is a Blackbeak
The answer was blood. Manon Blackbeak, the Ironteeth heir raised to hunt Crochans, is secretly half-Crochan — her father a Crochan prince, her mother a Blackbeak who believed a mixed-blood child could break the curse. The Blackbeak Matron killed both, told Manon her mother died in childbirth, and years later forced Manon to execute a captured Crochan in the Ferian Gap who turned out to be her own half-sister. When the Matron finally reveals all of it, she opens Manon's stomach with rusted iron nails. Manon survives, defects with the Thirteen, and goes looking for the very people she was built to destroy.
Iron melts, flowers spring
Manon finds a hidden camp of Crochans led by Glennis, her own great-grandmother, and is eventually claimed as their queen — half of each people, the bridge the curse named. At Orynth the Crochans ride to open war for the first time in five hundred years: five thousand witches on brooms against the Ironteeth host. And when the Thirteen spend their lives in the Yielding and white flowers push up through the scorched, bloodied field, the curse's exact terms are finally met — iron melted, flowers from fields of blood. The witches, both kinds, are free to go home to the Western Wastes at last.
Five hundred years of grievance
A kingdom lost, a curse that was also a map home, and five centuries of exile that only end when the last of the royal line turns out to have been raised as the enemy.
The Witch Kingdom
Given the Western Wastes by King Brannon, the Crochans rule the Witch Kingdom in peace for centuries as the good witches of Erilea.
The sacking
Five hundred years back the three Ironteeth clans ally and make war, sacking the kingdom and shattering Crochan power for good.
Rhiannon holds the gates
The last Crochan Queen holds her city's gates for three days and nights against the three Matrons — her sisters dead, her children slaughtered — and falls at dawn on the fourth day.
The dying curse
With her last breath Rhiannon curses the Ironteeth: they will win the war but never the land, stripped of magic but for the Yielding — and she names the way home.
Five centuries of exile
The surviving Crochans scatter into nomadic exile, carrying their hearth-flames camp to camp, some turning rebel against Adarlan, all of them waiting.
The Ferian Gap
The Blackbeak Matron forces the young Manon to execute a captured Crochan in the Ferian Gap — hiding that the witch is Manon's own half-sister.
The bridge revealed
The Matron reveals Manon is half-Crochan, the last of the royal line — then opens her stomach with iron nails. Manon defects with the Thirteen.
Glennis's camp
Manon finds a hidden camp of Crochans led by Glennis, her great-grandmother, and slowly earns the trust of a people she was raised to hunt.
Queen of Witches
The Crochans claim Manon as their queen — half Ironteeth, half Crochan, the bridge the curse named to end the five-hundred-year war.
Five thousand brooms at Orynth
For the first time in five centuries the Crochans ride to open war — five thousand witches on brooms turning the aerial battle above Orynth.
Flowers from the field
The Thirteen spend their lives in the Yielding, white flowers rise through the bloodied ground, the curse's terms are met — and the witches, both kinds, go home.
What they carry
Red, and airborne
- The Crochan broomsThe Crochans ride brooms, not wyverns — and five thousand of them take the air over Orynth, the first time in five hundred years the witches ride to open war.
- The red cloaksRed-cloaked witches: the crimson is the whole order's signature and its grief, worn through five centuries of exile from the Western Wastes.
Blood to blood and soul to soul, together this was done, and only together can it be undone. Be the bridge, be the light. When iron melts, when flowers spring from fields of blood — let the land be witness, and return home.
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.
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