Cover Art: The Walled City

As readers of the Triempery Series know, each book's cover presents a microcosm of the story within. The elements may be concrete or symbolic... but major story elements are embedded in the image.

The Walled City was a challenging cover to visualize. For one thing: Where to start? The story covers a lot of ground! So the artist started with...

The Lone Figure. In this cover we see Dorilian again... for the first time since the cover of Sordaneon. He looks a lot the same—which isn’t a great surprise since he’s still showing readers his back.

The season. All that white and the frosty blue colors tell us that the story of The Walled City will take place in winter. Considering that the preceding book, The God Spear, took place in autumn, the season chronologically makes sense. Also, readers may remember that Dorilian hightailed north out of Amallar at the end of that book. So readers can expect a northern, wintry setting.

Isolation. That Dorilian looks rather isolated is also intentional. He’s been a brooding, leave-me-alone sort of presence from the start of the series. He has allies but now he’s in a place where only he can be. Facing something only he can face. I hope readers get that feeling about him.

War. Notice also that Dorilian is wearing armor and holding a sword. Indeed, if you look closely you will see an army amassed in the distance in front of the city. Battle scenes perhaps?

Stauberg. The city is Stauberg, of course. Capital city of mighty Essera. Home of the Wall Entity. Stauberg was featured, rather gloomily and atop cliffs while Stefan looked from sea level, on the cover of The Kheld King. Then the atmosphere of the cover was stormy, all dark blues and grays. Now the blues are but shadows, the grays are subtle and there’s a lot of white. Snow covers the field. Stauberg is frozen. So is the Rill, hunkering rather obviously above the city and looking dormant. As for the Wall...

Where is it?

There’s a reason for that.

Which of course readers must read the book to find out!

[Cover art by Larry Rostant]