Broken Throne

Broken Throne is a companion collection to Victoria Aveyard's four-book Red Queen series, set in a future where humanity has split into two races: Silvers, who possess superhuman abilities and silver-colored blood, and Reds, who have no abilities and red blood. Silvers rule as an aristocratic elite while Reds serve as conscripted soldiers and laborers. The collection includes novellas, short stories, and worldbuilding material spanning the full history of the series.

The book opens with journal entries by Julian Jacos, a Silver scholar and uncle to the series protagonist Cal (Tiberias Calore VII). Writing from the Free Republic of Montfort, a blood-equal democracy, Julian reconstructs the Calamities, catastrophic events including climate change, nuclear warfare, and societal collapse that destroyed the civilization preceding the Silver kingdoms. Drawing on ancient texts from Horn Mountain, a remote archive, he attempts to correlate the old world's calendar with that of the Kingdom of Norta, the Silver-ruled state where the series takes place, and warns that history could repeat itself.

Julian also chronicles every Calore monarch, tracing a dynasty marked by assassinations, succession crises, and a century-long war with the neighboring Kingdom of the Lakelands. The chronicle ends with King Tiberias VI, who shocked his court by refusing Queenstrial, a rite in which the strongest Silver suitor competes to marry the heir, and instead married Coriane Jacos, a noblewoman from a poor and fading house.

The novella "Queen Song" tells Coriane's story. Isolated on a decaying estate with her brother Julian and their father Harrus, she secretly loves tinkering with machines. After her uncle dies, the family moves to the capital. At a court banquet, Elara Merandus, a whisper (mind reader), secretly invades Coriane's thoughts, and Coriane flees to a garden where Crown Prince Tiberias finds her. Over months, they develop a deep bond. Sara Skonos, her healer friend, warns that Tibe's attention makes her a target. Despite mounting nightmares and inner emptiness, Coriane accepts his proposal. King Tiberias V dies of cancer, and Coriane endures three miscarriages preceded by violent nightmares she suspects Elara is causing. Pregnant a fourth time, she uses her singer ability, a form of mental influence, to compel Elara to speak truthfully and learns Elara has not entered her mind since the wedding. Devastated to discover the nightmares are her own, she gives birth to Cal but spirals into despair. She dies by suicide. The closing lines reveal that Elara found and destroyed the diary and had been the one to destroy Coriane, implying a longer campaign of psychological manipulation than she admitted under compulsion.

Julian's second journal section compiles Red perspectives on Nortan history. He interviews Colonel Farley (code name Ram), a founding leader of the Scarlet Guard, a Red rebel organization born from acts of military sabotage in the Lakelands, and the Colonel's daughter, General Diana Farley (code name Lamb). Both refuse to discuss the Drowning of the Northlands, in which the Lakelander king flooded a rebel village, killing hundreds.

The novella "Steel Scars" follows Captain Diana Farley as she leads Operation Red Web, the Scarlet Guard's infiltration of Norta. Inside the fortress city of Corvium, she meets Shade Barrow, a soldier's aide who provides critical intelligence. When Silver patrols discover their safe house, Shade teleports them to safety, revealing a Silver-like ability despite his red blood. Farley cuts his arm to confirm he is Red, making him a newblood—a Red person who manifests Silver-like abilities. Later, Farley encounters Shade's sister Mare Barrow at a smuggler's wagon; Mare begs for help escaping conscription, and Farley agrees. When Mare falls into the Queenstrial arena and survives electrocution on live broadcast, Shade and Farley recognize her as another newblood and pledge to protect her, setting the main series into motion.

The short story "World Behind" is set in the Disputed Lands, a lawless region between the Silver kingdoms. Ashe, a Red keelboat captain, takes on a Silver passenger: Lyrisa, a Piedmont princess with strongarm abilities (superhuman strength). Lyrisa is fleeing a forced betrothal to Prince Orrian Cygnet, a Lakelander nymph (a Silver with water-manipulation powers). Orrian pursues them, attacking the boat and dragging a Red child underwater. Lyrisa leaps in to save the boy. In a final confrontation, Ashe ignites the cargo hold while Lyrisa kills Orrian. The keel is destroyed, but Ashe's crew and Lyrisa survive. She later finds them at a riverside market, choosing to continue the journey toward Montfort.

"Iron Heart" takes place after the Nortan Civil War. Evangeline Samos, a magnetron (a Silver who manipulates metal) and former princess of the breakaway Kingdom of the Rift, lives in Montfort with her partner Elane Haven. She resists attending her brother Ptolemus's abdication of the Rift's throne; if she does not also abdicate, her cousins could use her name to maintain Silver supremacy. After confronting her grief over their father Volo's death, she decides to attend. She gives Ptolemus a letter for Princess Iris of the Lakelands, advising Iris to pursue blood equality reforms. At Ridge House, Evangeline delivers her own abdication on live broadcast, declaring herself "Evangeline Samos of Montfort" and pledging allegiance to the Republic. Her mother Larentia confronts her afterward and disowns both children.

"Fire Light" follows Mare and Cal's tentative reunion at a diplomatic gala in Ascendant, Montfort's capital. Mare returns from months of healing, haunted by having killed Maven, Cal's younger brother and the deposed king. Cal, now helping to stabilize the Nortan States, Norta's post-monarchy government, is equally grief-stricken. They clash at a delegation meeting over protections for Silver wealth. Evangeline, now Mare's bodyguard, steers her to a tavern where Cal sits alone. They finally speak, admitting their fear and grief. Cal reveals he has been waiting for her. Mare cuts the electricity, plunging the room into darkness, and kisses him. At the gala, Julian tells Cal he would have made a good king but never a great one, and that he is greater now without a crown. Evangeline reveals to the delegations that she has been corresponding with Princess Iris, a diplomatic gambit that may offer a path to peace.

The final piece, "Fare Well," gives Maven's perspective before his execution. Imprisoned in Silent Stone, which nullifies Silver abilities, Maven grieves for Thomas, a boy he loved who died in Maven's fire, and reflects on how his mother Elara stripped away his capacity for love. When Cal visits for a final conversation, Maven faces a choice: reveal that a piece of his true self survives, tormenting Cal forever, or lie and free his brother. Maven chooses the lie, telling Cal he would do it all again. Cal's journal entries document his healing; months later, he flies alone to Tuck Island to visit Maven's grave. The headstone reads: "Beloved son, beloved brother. Let no one follow." Cal kneels, unable to speak, still believing he should have found another way.

An epilogue by Jon, a seer, summarizes the decades that follow: the standoff called the Dancing War, the War of Red Thunder in which Mare and fellow electricons (people with electrical abilities) destroy the Lakelands' largest fortress, the spread of blood-equal governments across the continent, and the election of Kilorn Warren, Mare's childhood friend, as Montfort's premier. Jon closes by observing that humanity destroys, rebuilds, and destroys again, calling all people both chosen and cursed.