Winter Court
A spoiler-free guide to A Court of Thorns and Roses (ACOTAR).
Only showing what’s been revealed up to your current progress. Future events, identities, and relationships are hidden.
Overview
Winter suffers catastrophic losses when a blight attack kills two dozen younglings. The court cannot stop the slaughter once it begins.
Winter’s suffering is not new: a generation earlier its ruling line paid for defying Amarantha in a failed resistance that cost the rebel High Lord and most of his family their lives.
The Winter Court is an icebound faerie territory characterized by mountains, deep snow, and frozen lakes.
The court’s tragedies prove to have been political: the massacre of its younglings is finally understood as Amarantha’s reprisal for Winter’s defiance and a move to keep it from allying with Night.
Long defined by its isolation from outsiders, Winter turns outward after the war, cautiously reopening under the rule Kallias and Viviane now share.
Important Events
A devastating blight attack kills two dozen of the court's younglings, leaving Winter unable to stop the slaughter once it begins.
About forty years earlier, Winter joined two other courts in an attempted alliance against Amarantha. The resistance failed before open rebellion, and Winter's rebel High Lord and most of his family were executed.
During Kallias's captivity under Amarantha, Viviane veiled and defended a small Winter city, offering sanctuary to those who reached it.
Rhys explains that Amarantha's slaughter of Winter's younglings was retaliation for the court's rebellion and an attempt to prevent an alliance between Winter and Night.
Location and Access
The Winter Court borders Autumn along a gray, snowcapped mountain range.
Winter traditionally keeps even friendly outsiders beyond its borders, though the court begins opening again under Kallias and Viviane.
Layout and Features
Mountains, ice, snow, and clear frozen lakes dominate the terrain. Shelter is scarce across its exposed ice plains.
Kallias and Viviane maintain a home in Winter's mountains.
Function and Rules
Winter Solstice is the court's holiest holiday. Winter claims the disputed festival as its own, although the Day Court makes the same claim and its true origin is debated.
The court celebrates the Solstice season with a week of feasting, fires, singing, sleigh bells, and white bears.
Residents and Affiliations
Kallias controls access to the Winter Court and refuses to admit the gathering into his territory.
Winter's highly organized army includes numerous lesser faeries, long-limbed beings resembling ice, armored white bears, white fox messengers, and reindeer-drawn wagons.
Kallias rules the Winter Court, with Viviane at his side.