In ACOMAF and ACOWAR, our favorite characters are dealing with a mysterious substance that renders them incapable of performing magic: faebane.
I found this plotline interesting, but didn’t think much more about it until I came across this scene, early on in ACOWAR:
Lucien stood, back against a tree—twin bands of blue stone shackled around his wrists.
I’d seen them before. On Rhys, to immobilize his power. Stone hewn from Hybern’s rotted land, capable of nullifying magic. And in this case...holding Lucien against that tree as Ianthe surveyed him like a snake before a meal (ACOWAR, 85).
Aside from being completely grossed out by Ianthe (she gets worse every time I reread this series), I was struck by the description of that stone. The fact that it’s blue. It reminded me of another stone in another SJM series: gorsian stone, from Crescent City.
Sure enough, I found this description when Bryce and company are in Ydra:
Hunt went on, “This metal... The Asteri have been researching a way to make the gorsian ore absorb magic, not suppress it.”
Ruhn said, “Seems like ordinary titanium to me.”
“Look closer,” Hunt said. “There are slight purple veins in it. That’s the gorsian stone. I’d know it anywhere.”
“So what can it do?” Bryce asked.
“If I’m right,” Hunt said hoarsely, “it can draw the firstlight from the ground. From all the pipes of it crisscrossing the land. These suits would draw up the firstlight and turn it into weapons... The suit would never run out of ammo, never run out of battery life. Simply find the underground power lines, and it’d be charged up and ready to kill” (HOSAB, 473).
Now, I know that these stones are blue in ACOTAR and purple in HOSAB, but apparently Rhys and Ruhn have the same eye color, which is purple in ACOTAR and blue in HOSAB, so I’m going to assume that this stone is a similar color (which might have interesting implications).
Going back to the stone itself, gorsian stone/faebane is a huge problem for these characters. The good news? In ACOTAR, they have solved the problem of faebane:
“And what has this to do with the faebane?” Helion demanded. Thesan’s lover seethed at the High Lord of Day’s tone, but one glance from Thesan had the male relaxing.
Nuan turned, her dark hair slipping over a shoulder as she studied Helion. And did not seem impressed. “Because I have found a solution for it.”
Thesan waved a hand. “We heard rumors of faebane being used in this war... We thought to look into the issue before it became a deadly weakness for all of us.” He nodded at Nuan. “Beyond her unparalleled tinkering, she is a skilled alchemist.”
Nuan crossed her arms, the sun glinting off her metal hand. “Thanks to the samples attained after the attack in Velaris, I was able to create an...antidote, of sorts.” (ACOWAR, 431-432)
Prythian has already found an antidote to the effects of faebane/gorsian stone. It’s a powder that they can ingest in food or drink and Thesan, Nuan, and the Dawn Court of Geniuses have already figured out how to mass produce it. This makes their victory against Hybern possible, removing one of their most powerful weapons.
I have to believe that this antidote could also be effective in Crescent City, and now that Bryce is in Prythian, she might be able to reverse the tide of her own war by coming back with the antidote.
Later in the scene, Nuan goes on to say that: “The Mother has provided us with everything we need on this earth. So it has been a matter of finding what, exactly, she gave us in Prythian to combat a material from Hybern capable of wiping out our powers” (433).
Given the significance of Prythian to the Asteri and the Fae of Midgard, I think it’s interesting that the material for this antidote is specifically from Prythian.
We do know that SJM didn’t start planning the crossover until a year after ACOWAR’s release, but even so, I’m realizing that there are more of these significant objects and overlapping plots than I originally thought. Plus, I think this kind of save would be really satisfying to the members of the Court of Dreams—though I’ve got to be honest, I think that somewhere in the Dawn Court, Nuan is probably on to bigger and better things already.
But I definitely wouldn’t mind if she made an appearance in CC3, especially if everyone’s favorite tinkerer and alchemist had a grand reveal up her sleeve once again.
