The pillar that holds up the sky · seven rune-circles, one black flame · put out its fire and the kingdom falls
The Wardstone
For six hundred years it was just there — a pillar in a chamber nobody thought about, quietly keeping the venin out of everything. Then one cadet put out its flame, and the whole kingdom found out at once what it was for.
A luminary-forged alloy pillar carved with seven nested rune-circles: the stem of the wards that shield almost all of Navarre. It runs on all seven dragon breeds and the black iron flame that crowns it — and the entire war turns on whether it's lit.
At a glance
- What it is
- A towering runed alloy pillar that projects the wards — a barrier blocking all magic inside it except a dragon's and its rider's.
- What it keeps out
- Venin and their wyverns. The enemy the wards were built to make impossible.
- How old
- The First Six raised the original at Basgiath over six hundred years ago. The wards stretch from it across nearly all of Navarre.
- How it's lit
- Two stages. Signet-wielders imbue it until it hums, then all seven dragon breeds breathe fire across it and crown it with the iron flame.
- The black flame
- What sits on top when it's working — a cold black 'iron flame.' Put it out and the wards drop everywhere at once.
- The Aretia problem
- A second wardstone under Aretia fires on only six breeds, not seven. It runs weak and slowly fails — the crisis of the whole war.
- The missing seventh
- The absent breed is the irids. Andarna is one — left behind, it turns out, precisely to breathe fire for a wardstone.
- Its weakness
- It's a single point of failure the size of a kingdom. Everyone who knows that is either guarding it or hunting it.
Tied to the stone
The ones who lit it, broke it, and are hunting to hold it.
Swipe to meet them all
We're Caffeine and Curses. The Library started as my design research — I can't put the wardstone on a shirt without knowing the flame that burns on top of it is black, not orange — 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.