Predictions after finishing Stormed Fortress

thedashdude · February 10, 2026, 2:57am

For full disclosure - I have read Books 1 to 8, followed by all the short stories + The Gallant, and glanced at the first page of Initiates Trial. That’s all the information I have to go off of, and all I’m capable of spoiling. The glancing at the first page of Initiates Trial was very informative but did not help me theorize as much I originally expected. Knowing what year the book starts in doesn’t actually tell me much about the story of the book, or what happened in the interim.

For starters, here’s how my predictions after Traitor’s Knot fared:

Arithon did not strike a deal with the Koriathain to save the people of Alestron, but the outcome is almost the same. I’m not entirely sure why he is going to the Koriathain with Elaira. I guess he loves her enough to put up with the inevitable disaster, but I’m not totally sure what changed for him to be okay with that. I guess he’s less dangerous to the world after curing the curse and doesn’t particularly value his life.
Jeynsa did become Caithdein after seeing what Arithon tried to do for Alestron.
Fionn Areth did die in defense of Alestron, and a bit like an idiot, but he does win my heart more and more as I reflect on his story. His presence seems to bring out the worst in the people. No one seems to be able to answer his questions about motivations and greater purpose other than to show they are acting only in self interest or in defense of loved ones. Not a condemnation of any of the other characters exactly, but I liked showing that despite a lot of posturing the people on both sides of the conflict didn’t generally have grand motivations.
Sulfin Evend lived, and Lysaer worked to overcome his curse more than ever. Very shocking. As was Arithon simply overcoming the curse with the help of the Sun Children. Odd that they didn’t do that earlier, but one can’t judge the mysterious magic races with as little information as we have. I don’t much like them though. Lysaer getting better at managing his curse throws a wrench in my future predictions, although it does raise the odds of a touching brotherly reunion.
Davien destroying Avenor with a dragon was surprising, and I feel like I needed to see the ramifications of that more…

In total, I really had no good predictions outside of what I would consider some pretty obvious character arcs. Predicting what comes next was never about accuracy, though, just making sure I was engaging with the text as much as I could be.

Next, my Sword of the Canon Predictions:

Because of the time gap between books, all of these predictions are really more “predictions of what happens after Stormed Fortress” than what actually happens in Sword of the Canon. The book could start with any of the events I predict.

To start with, my thoughts on the major forces as of the end of Stormed Fortress:

Mistwraiths are inbound and the Fellowship won’t be able to deal with them forever. I don’t think they can delay long based on their historical performance. Doesn’t feel right that they’d only have to call on Arithon at the start of Initiate’s Trial. Can Arithon spend the whole interim fighting them off? Then Sword of the Canon is the fallout of finishing them off? Maybe. Feels too significant of an event to have off screen and not show how it starts, but I think something big has to happen off screen, the time jump is too big.
Lysaer, despite his improving temperament, is still the leader of an aggressive and fanatical religion. It will only get more so as he lives longer than any other human. He might not have it in him to hold it back and keep them acting peaceful.
The Necromancer cults were introduced pretty out of nowhere to me, and although the short stories give you a little more, it’s not much. Not really sure how they even exist what with the Fellowship having near perfect surveillance of Athera and necromancy explicitly violating the compact. My lack of understanding means I can’t predict much. Apparently theres more than just the Grey Kralovir, so they could show up. But rerunning the “Lysaer gets corrupted by necromancers” storyline doesn’t seem likely. No predictions on them, I don’t really get it.
Dragons! Again, I don’t have enough information, although the dragon doesn’t come out of nowhere quite so much for me. Where are the dragons? What are they doing? Will they get involved more or was Seshkrozchiel waking up a once-off surprise due only to the dragonet skulls? Unclear.
Arithon has a child. The Fellowship don’t want him to know that. Why? How can they hide it if they ever hope to have the child assume the crown? Surely the child has to pass away by the time Book 9 starts. No clues here.
The Koriathain, with the Fellowship now under less strain, probably don’t have much freedom to scheme. Luckily for them, Arithon is being stupid and allowing them to trap him (maybe).

Also, the name of the next book is “Initiate’s Trial”. Initiate in what? No returning character is young enough to be an initiate in anything. I wonder if we’ll follow an initiate in Lysaer’s church? Very curious to see how it’s structured after all this time.

From a broader storytelling lens, while Wurts will probably fill in the gap some, clearly the most interesting story is 250 years after Stormed Fortress. I think I disagree, Stormed Fortress did not feel like a time for the story to pause, if anything it felt like the most interesting part was just starting. Clearly I’m wrong. But that time gap does mean we can make predictions based on what activities could occupy our characters for 250 years. Lysaer has church/governing duties, but Arithon has nothing explicitly on his plate. I have several theories:

Fighting the wraiths
Establishing + upkeeping more safehavens like we saw in Selkwood and Atwood - the clans are fully on the defensive
The Koriathain put him in a box

Arithon has had it too good since Peril’s Gate, so probably he needs to be suffering at the start of Book 9. Ergo 1 or 2 most likely. Also, we need an inciting incident for Book 9. The wraiths showing up is pretty inciting.

So, if forced to make concrete predictions:

Arithon spends ~250 years in magic prison because he walks right into the lap of the Koriathain. Then at the start of Initiate’s Trial the wraiths finally break through Fellowship defenses, and the Koriathain lease him out to the Fellowship to fight them off again in exchange for something. Lysaer is still trying to improve the world by peacefully leading his religion, but events will conspire to lead him down a darker path.

thedashdude · February 10, 2026, 2:58am

Once again I don’t have anything solid for Song of the Mysteries. Every faction is still in the game, and they’re all playing different games. So, instead of making baseless vague predictions, I figured this time it might be more valuable to imagine what I would like the ending to be like. I’ll be satisfied with any story well told and well written, and Wurts hasn’t let me down on that front yet, so I’m not really worried about enjoying it, but I’m curious about directionality.

For starters, although the series is called Wars of Light and Shadow, I don’t think considering “who wins the war” is a valuable line of inquiry, or even an interesting question. I need only look at the ending of Stormed Fortress, in which no one won, but kind of Lysaer from a military perspective, but Arithon saved lots of people, which was all he wanted, really, and the only real losers were the civilians and innocents in and around Alestron. I don’t think the townborn or the clans either get completely exterminated, and given that, a victory of either side is largely just regime change unless accompanied by larger changes in the world.
The Paravians upset me just a little. Much ado is made of their survival, but they don’t seem much interested in their own survival and I struggle to care about their lives more than they do. Perhaps I will feel more strongly as we learn more, but if they aren’t trying to survive or preserve their planet, then I can’t care too much about their survival or their planet. With no Paravians to be seen, the clans are largely fighting just to prevent the Fellowship from exterminating humanity, or more mildly just stunt humanity’s progress on the planet. I find that although the Fellowship sorcerors are more personable people, the Koriathain have a stronger claim to my allegiance. I don’t like the threat of human extermination, whether or not the Fellowship would feel bad doing it. I too want humanity off this one planet.
Here, I run into issues of knowledge. It sure looks like there are only two inhabited planets left: Dascen Elur and Athera. The scale of that tragedy is immense, and the mechanics of it feel very important, but I truly don’t have much of a handle on it. Where do the other world gates go? Why? How? Are other planets recoverable?
My understanding is humanity took refuge on a planet to escape some disaster. They struck a deal with the local inhabitants for rules regarding their stay, and were allowed access to one planet without rules. There was no end date to this agreement, nor any suggestion of how humanity could return to where they originated. For some reason lots of people stayed on the Athera, a planet without technology surrounded my magical energies that made them uncomfortable, instead of moving to the planet where they could continue life as they were familiar with, without any magical energy driving them insane. For the clanborn, I understand. For the rest, I don’t get it. The townborn and the mayors don’t seem to act like similar groups from reality in voluntary isolation from technology (e.g. The Amish). I feel like I’m missing lots of crucial information to understand the history of these people and the world they inhabit, so while my gut says there’s an explanation, with no explanation in sight, my desire is for the refugee period of humanity to end and for them to begin to travel the stars again. This might require the death of the Paravians, which either requires the death of the Fellowship, or their responsibilities removed. The Fellowship seems to have a tragic history, and view their service as something of penance. I’d like to see them be relieved of their penance, and act for what they believe in. I think Davien agrees with me. I’m cheering for him and the Koriathain, although I don’t quite know why he’s so antagonistic towards them. Surely he could find some use for them in his scheming.
If the series ends with Humanity still locked on Athera, I will read it as a tragedy. I don’t like tragedy. So, hopefully humanity is free to pursue their own interests without oversight, or at least without the strict constraining guidance on Athera.
The presence of Ath as manifested on Athera and in the hostels of Ath’s Brotherhood makes me long for some sort of conclusive doctrine, some proof of divine will, some sort of structured religion for a God who seems very present. But I am very confident I won’t get any strong answers there. Too easy, and not the sort of story I’m reading.
I supppose my big wishlist for the ending is for Arithon and Elaira to have some nice time together not overshadowed by the forces at work over them, and for Lysaer to live a little without the curse and do some good for the world again.