The world
North is the white. South is everything else.
One wall, three hundred miles long, between a frozen wilderness and the six houses who live in its shadow.
02 · The map
Six watch posts, one gate, forty-two beacons.
Drawn by a Tarrant cartographer who swears it is accurate. It is not, quite.
03 · Three regions
What lies on each side.
North
The white
Everything north of the wall. No maps, no roads, no one who has come back with a straight story. The snow there never quite settles.
The line
The wall
Nine hundred winters of ice, grown one layer a year from the waters of Coldmere. Seven hundred feet at its highest, and it is still growing.
South
The south
Pine forest, the frozen lake, the iron hills and the towns that feed the watch. Warm by comparison. Only by comparison.
04 · Glossary
Words you will meet on the wall.
Rime
The wall itself, in the old tongue.
Also a rank: a Rime-warden commands a stretch of parapet.
Beacon
An iron brazier on the parapet, one every seven miles.
Lit only when the wall is attacked. None has been lit in living memory.
The white
The land north of the wall.
Nobody is sure how far it goes.
Sluice
A channel that sends lake water up the ice face at night.
It is how the wall grows. Coldmere controls all of them.
Blazon
The written description of a house’s arms.
Read field, division, then charge.
Moonwing
A bell signal meaning something is crossing the moon.
Until book one, nobody had rung it.
Category
Title
Excerpt
05 · Nine hundred winters
A short history of a very long wall.
winters since the first ice
gates cut, ten since sealed
wars ended at the gate
beacons lit, until now
Year 1
The first winter of the wall.
Six families agree to hold it. Nobody writes down why.
Year 212
The gates are sealed.
Ten of eleven gates are filled with rubble and ice. Varrow keeps the last.
Year 540
The bell code is written.
Tarrant’s four hundred signals, including one nobody expects to use.
Year 796
The last unanimous vote.
The council agrees on nothing again for a century.
Year 900
Book one.
A beacon is lit from the sky.
Explore further