The Illyrians

Wings, Siphons, and customs that cut to the bone.

The winged warrior race of the Night Court's mountains. Unmatched in the air, obsessed with lineage, brutal to their own females. They made Rhys, Cassian and Azriel and tried to break all three first.

Who they are

Neither High Fae nor lesser faerie.

A warrior race in the mountains of the Night Court's north, in war-camps like Windhaven, under their own lords. Not High Fae. Not lesser faeries either, though the High Fae mostly treat them as expendable aerial cavalry. They don't like outsiders, especially High Fae telling them what to do, and lineage is everything. Unparalleled warriors with a culture full of stories. Also brutal and backward, most of all to their own females.

Wings and Siphons

Protect the wings. Everything else is negotiable.

Bat-like wings they are trained to guard above all else. Tattoos inked at initiation, for luck and glory, across the arms and down the spine between the wings. And for a gifted few, Siphons: the stones that take raw killing power and turn it into something subtler and more varied. Cassian and Azriel wear seven each.

The Blood Rite

A week in the mountains. Touch the stone.

When a warrior comes into his full power, usually in his twenties, he goes into the Blood Rite: scattered across the Illyrian Mountains with the others, wings bound, no Siphons, no magic, no weapons, a week to survive and reach Ramiel. Survive without reaching the mountain and you're Arktosian. Reach it, Oristian. Climb it and touch the stone, Carynthian. The whole thing is held for Enalius, who held the Pass for three days and died at the stone. Rhys, Cassian and Azriel ran it as a half-breed and two bastards, found each other, and touched it. Naturally.

The clipping

The custom Rhys banned and can't kill.

The camps clip their females: the wings cut so they can never fly, so the females can be kept. Rhys's mother was a day from it when the bond saved her. Emerie's father did it himself. Rhys has forbidden it as High Lord. Lords like Devlon cling to it anyway, along with every other old cruelty. The women of the camps only started training with a sword because the High Lord kept pushing, and then three women made the point on Ramiel.

Their own

The country, the trial, and the ones who came out of it.

Swipe to meet them all

The File

Where: Illyria, the war-camps of the Night Court's north
Wings: bat-like, guarded above all else
Siphons: for a gifted few; they turn raw power into something subtler
Marked: tattoos at initiation, for luck and glory
Trial: the Blood Rite, a week in the mountains to Ramiel
Lords: camp lords like Devlon of Windhaven, under the High Lord in name
Custom: clipping: females' wings cut so they can't fly

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