The Series So Far: A Sordaneon Recap

Art by Larry Rostant

This is a recap of the first book in the Triempery Revelations series. It's also an experiment to see if there's interest or any benefit to me in creating recaps.

It SPOILS the ending, which most readers consider amazing, and also the rest of the book. This recap is intended for readers who have already read Sordaneon and wish to refresh their memory of events.

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Seven-year-old Dorilian Sordaneon witnesses his mother’s murder and rescues the fetus she delivers prematurely, his little brother. Dorilian and his brother are taken into protection by their mother’s father, Sebbord, who whisks the boys off to his domain of Teremar. We learn Dorilian is heir to a great legacy: he is a blood-bound descendant of the Rill Entity, a god-machine that stands at the core of the Triempery union of three godborn empires. Mighty Essera, northernmost of those empires, seeks to control the Rill by weakening Dorilian’s family and occupying their empire of Sordan.

Eight years later Dorilian and his fragile brother, Lev, have been sent under pressure to attend school in Essera. Angry and resentful, teenage Dorilian provokes and is attacked by Stefan Stauberg-Randolph, the Kheld grandson of Marc Frederick—a half-breed Kheld who Dorilian’s family believes usurped Essera’s throne. The attack hardens the enmity between the two families. Dorilian schemes a way out of Essera but in doing so contacts Essera’s Entity, the Wall—a Time-spanning source of Essera’s power—and receives visions of possible futures. He is now of interest to the Malyrdeons, the Wall Entity’s descendants who, like him, are bound to godborn abilities.

The following year an uninvited Dorilian attends the Esseran King’s jubilee and insists on being allowed to see the captive Sordaneon Hierarch, who Marc Frederick has held hostage since the day he seized Essera’s throne. Though Stefan remains hostile, Dorilian is surprised when Marc Frederick is not at all what he expected. Thus begins a relationship of twists and turns. During a visit with the captive Hierarch, Dorilian secretly becomes body-bound to the Rill.

Upon his return to Sordan Dorilian is forced to marry for political reasons. He does not like his bride Daimonaeris, and she doesn’t like him. Worse than that, though, is her brother, Nammuor—the Regent of the third empire, Mormantalorus—who has his sights on Sordan’s throne. Refusing to play husband, Dorilian retreats with his grandfather Sebbord—a Rill Archmage—and Lev to the economically depressed town of Hestya where Dorilian uses his ancestry and Sebbord’s knowledge of the Rill to awaken a forgotten Rill mount, bringing the bounty of the Rill to a new region for the first time in centuries. Meanwhile Stefan sows ill will against Dorilian and Sordan in the Kheld settlements of Neuberland.

The awakening of a new Rill mount angers Essera’s nobles and the powerful Seven Houses merchant cartel, which demand that Marc Frederick tighten his grasp on Sordan—and Dorilian—but the King refuses. When Dorilian and Sebbord attend a wedding in the Esseran city of Merath, Sebbord is assassinated. Marc Frederick attempts to console Dorilian but fails. Dorilian later launches his revenge against settlements of the Kheld people in a region bordering Sordan. To stop him, Marc Frederick captures Dorilian, only to insist that the young rebel spend a full year at his court.

Marc Frederick keeps Dorilian under close guard at his personal estate of Gustan. There Dorilian meets and befriends Marc Frederick’s son Jonthan. During a visit with Lev, Dorilian shares his brother’s vision of the vast dimension-spanning shapes of Entities—and the supernatural tendrils that attach Dorilian to the Rill.

An unexpected death for which Dorilian is partly responsible triggers a change in his relationship with Marc Frederick. He accompanies the King on a mysterious mission to the Dog Men in a rough and isolated region, where they discuss the Rill’s origins and possibilities. Nammuor reveals to Daimonaeris that a Diadem he found in a volcano can be revived—and fueled—by captive lifeforces... but merely human lifeforces may not be enough.

Having fulfilled his year at Marc Frederick’s court, Dorilian returns to Sordan—and his wife Daimonaeris. She and Nammuor are scheming to take Sordan through having her becoming pregnant with a child, even though Dorilian refuses to sleep with her. Lev’s tragic death during a sacred celebration brings terrible consequences. Daimonaeris conceives, and Lev may not be truly gone. Daimonaeris seduces Dorilian so she can present him as the father.

Having seen through Nammuor and Daimonaeris’s plan, Dorilian seeks out Marc Frederick and together they craft a daring way to outmaneuver their enemies—Dorilian will attempt another awakening of the Rill, this time in the Kheld homeland of Amallar. Marc Frederick does not tell Stefan of this plan because Stefan opposes working closely with Sordan. The Triempery’s remaining godborn agree to back Marc Frederick’s plan and Dorilian persuades his father, now Hierarch, to sign the treaty.

Nammuor and Daimonaeris hatch their plan. Daimonaeris, due to deliver her child any day, sets in motion the demise of those gathered for the official signing of the treaty. Nammuor uses his revived Diadem to enter the warded sanctuary where the godborn and human delegates are meeting, where he proceeds to kill the godborn and collect their powerful lifeforces by binding them to crystals using their immortal blood. Dorilian, who did not drink the poison purely by chance, and Marc Frederick as wearer of a powerful god-artifact, survive the assault and fight back but do not escape unscathed.

Marc Frederick perishes in the destruction. Dorilian flees to Sordan, using the Rill in a wholly unprecedented way that makes it part of him. He seeks out Daimonaeris, who is not expecting to see him. When she attempts to use an arcane circlet to flee to Nammuor along with her unborn child, Dorilian kills her to put a stop to her flight. He cuts the child from her womb and the newborn recognizes him by calling his name.

Nammuor is horrified by his sister's grisly death.

Marc Frederick’s daughter, Emyli, who is also Stefan’s mother, goes to Sordan to petition Dorilian for two things: to make peace with Stefan, who has accused him of murder, and for Marc Frederick to be interred among the godborn. Dorilian grants the latter boon but holds out little hope for making nice with Stefan.

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I've been toying with including recaps in the published books. The reason I have not included them is, quite frankly, I'm not at all sure the books have enough readers to justify the extra work. Also, I tend to write long. Novels. Maybe short stories. I get snarky at shorter lengths. My idea of a recap inserted at the front of a book would be something more like this:

In our last episode, Dorilian, a godborn prince blood tied to a god-machine , saved his prematurely born brother, got his face kicked in by Stefan, promised to hate Essera forever but went to meet the Esseran king anyway just to cause trouble, got married against his will, and opened the Rill to Teremar with a little help. Chaos ensued. The Esseran king, Marc Frederick, who was actually not a bad guy, captured Dorilian and they came to respect each other. But then Dorilian's brother-in-law Nammuor turned out to be a sorcerer and killed all of Dorilian's godborn race and also Marc Frederick. Dorilian, in a fit of madness, beheaded his wife but gets her newborn son. The kid isn't his, but who's keeping track? And Stefan is still out there to cause trouble 

And there's also my personal favorite way to summarize a novel: