Evander

Prythian is an island that is famously divided into seven territories known as Courts, each ruled by a powerful High Lord:

Seasonal Courts: These four courts are permanently locked in a single season.
o Spring Court: A land of eternal spring, lush forests, and rolling green hills; ruled by Tamlin.
o Summer Court: A coastal realm of sparkling seas and perpetual warmth; ruled by Tarquin.
o Autumn Court: Known for its forests of red and gold; ruled by Bereron.
o Winter Court: A frozen landscape of ice and snow; ruled by Kallias.
Solar Courts: These three courts are themed after times of day.
o Dawn Court: A realm of perpetual sunrise, known for its beauty and healing; ruled by Thesan.
o Day Court: A land of light, knowledge, and ancient libraries; ruled by Helion.
o Night Court: The largest and northernmost territory, famous for its mountains and starlight; ruled by Rhysand.
• The Wall: A magical barrier located at the southern border of the Spring Court that separates Prythian from the Mortal Lands where humans live.

The Spring Court is a breathtaking expanse of dense forests, vibrant meadows, and clear, winding rivers, kept in a state of perpetual, idyllic bloom.
On the surface, the court feels like a peaceful, romanticized fairytale full of warm breezes, birdsong, and intoxicating floral scents. But beneath the beautiful exterior, the court harbors a strict, traditional hierarchy and a history of deep-seated secrets and trauma.

Unlike the heavily populated cities found in some other courts, the Spring Court is highly agrarian, featuring small, scattered villages and grand feudal-style estates.
The court is also known for rigid ceremonies, including the violent and magical Great Rite which takes place amidst a wild, highly chaotic festival filled with roaring bonfires, pounding drums, and drinking to further bolster the land's magic - hundreds of other attending faeries participate by pairing off and engaging in their own dalliances throughout the night, and the enforcement of the Tithe, which is a mandatory tax paid by its citizens.

The High Fae

The ruling class of all the courts consists of the High Fae, who are physically distinguishable by their striking, idealized human appearances and pointed ears. They are exceptionally tall, lithe, and supernaturally beautiful, often embodying the bright aesthetic of each of the different courts. For the Spring Court, the High Fae would have warm features, golden or brown hair, and green or hazel eyes. High Fae possess an abundance of diverse, powerful magical faculties and are considered "born to rule" over the other denizens of the territory. While the nobility and the High Lord command the court, there are also average, everyday High Fae who work and live as commoners or merchants in the scattered agrarian villages.

The Lesser Faeries

Separated from the High Faes' nobility are the Lesser Faeries, a massive umbrella term for a vast array of unique species that do not strictly possess the idealized, human-like appearance of the High Fae. Many are peaceful and deeply tied to the ecosystem, such as the wood-dwelling Urisk, who has tree-bark skin, and river nymphs or water wraiths residing in the territory's crystal-clear streams. Small, floating will-o'-the-wisps drift through the gardens, contributing to the court's whimsical, fairytale-like atmosphere. Other species of lesser fae are intensely dangerous and predatory. Terrifying, dark-scaled serpentine humanoids known as the Naga hunt and torture prey for sport, while psychological horrors like the Bogge and the deceptive, mimicking Puca stalk the dense woods, making the beautiful landscape as lethal as it is lovely.

Amarantha, a ruthless High Fae general from the Kingdom of Hybern, conquered Prythian, declared herself its High Queen, and established a tyrannical regime in her fortress called Under the Mountain. Her obsession with the Spring Court centered entirely around its High Lord and her fury over his refusal to become her lover. When the High Lord rejected her advancements, she retaliated with a psychological curse on him and his entire court. Every resident was forced to permanently wear the decorative masks they had been wearing to a masquerade ball to wound their vanity, and a secondary spell prevented them from ever speaking about the curse or how to break it. To break the spell the High Lord was given forty-nine years to find a human girl who hated the Fae, bring her to his court, and have her fall in love with him, provided she had first killed one of the High Lord's sentinels out of pure hatred. While other courts were physically forced to live Under the Mountain, the Spring Court was allowed to stay on their land to give the High Lord a chance to fulfill the curse's conditions, but they lived in a state of isolated terror. Amarantha stripped the High Lords of most of their magic, forcing the High Lord of the Spring to blame a mysterious "blight" for his inability to protect his borders from the bloodthirsty monsters, like the Naga, that she frequently sent to slaughter his people and test his dwindling defenses.

Less than a year later, the Spring Court's High Lord went and sold his court out again to Hybern. Only this time it wasn't to a conquering High Queen, but to the King who used the High Lord's own vanity to manipulate him and destroy an entire court.

The High Lord's desperate choice to ally with the King of Hybern to retrieve the love he had lost resulted in the Spring Court being utilized as a military staging ground and ultimately abandoned by its own people, who were forced out of their homes and villages to make room for the foreign army. To secure Hybern's assistance in breaking his ex's bargain with the Night Court, the High Lord allowed the enemy forces free entry into his lands, which Hybern promptly used as a direct corridor to reach and shatter the protective Wall separating the Fae and human realms.

During this occupation, the King's commanders stayed at the manor under the guise of inspecting the Wall but secretly laced the residents' food with faebane to suppress their magic, which fractured the trust of his people, Hybern's massive army simply overran the destabilized Spring Court without any resistance, forcing the remaining citizens to flee their homes in terror. This chain of events caused the citizens and sentinels to deeply resent the High Lord, as they realized he was willing to risk the safety of a kingdom that had just survived fifty years of Amarantha's curse just to drag his ex-lover back to his side. The people were horrified to see their own leader willingly hand over their borders to a foreign tyrant, and they grew to despise his refusal to listen to trusted advisors as his explosive temper and possessiveness dictated a military strategy that let their borders completely collapse.