Reading order should be:
1: The Dragon Beshrewed
2: The Dark in the Wood parts 1 and 2
3: The Haunts in the Hackles
4: The Unborn Realm
4.5: The Hunt For Tatterwing (original short story, written in 2014, but chronologically taking place before book 5)
5: The Hunt for Curses
Summary:
Book 4 opened with Medo and Owyn living in the castle Orchrim with Tresdayle. Outside, the Torn Realms were slowly dying from the encroaching darkness of the Haunt Trees. Over the duration of the book, Medo and Owyn strove to find the connection between Tresdayle and the Haunt trees, but answers were difficult because Tresdayle trusted no one and offered little for clues.
During the book:
-The Old Families (Tresdayle’s old supporters) were invited to stay the winter in Orchrim to escape the darkness. Over the course of the story, Tresdayle poisoned them with plague, stripped them of their riches, imprisoned them in the palace walls, and then at the end of the book, forced them on an exodus to their ransacked homes. During his speech he revealed that he believed the families had gone too soft over the centuries and he wanted them to suffer and toughen up and perhaps earn their worth once again.
-The fifth realm, known as The Spirit Crown, went mysteriously dark because the Haunt Trees overtook it much more aggressively than the rest of the land. Incidentally, this realm was the homeland of the Old Families. It was also the resting place of the Curse Relic:
-Marlin spent this whole book digging up information on the whereabouts of the Curse Relic, which is essentially a magic artifact that allows the user to create High Curses. High Curses are basically story-book-level magic, that can impact an entire population with a single verse. Marlin knew that if Medo can get her hands on this artifact, she can destroy the Haunt Trees and the dark world they are apart of. Near the end of the book, he and Rallyn left for the Spirit Crown to pursue this item.
- Medo had no time for legendary artifacts in book 4. Her aim was solely to pry out Tresdayle’s secrets and try to find out how his connection worked. But Tresdayle had his own demands of Medo, sending her on errands to prove her loyalty to him.
In order to cope with these pressures, Medo began using a new spell called “Travel by Darkness” which essentially let her travel through space instantaneously by letting herself be swallowed by darkness. Throughout the book it became clear that this means of travel wasn’t just instant, but that she was traveling through a world of darkness where memory could not survive.
In the ending of the book, she discovers memory of this world CAN in fact be retained if you carry the Eye Piece Relic that belonged to Rallyn. She winds up with this Relic in hand when she Travels by Darkness one final time, and essentially learns:
This dark world is the answer to everything:
1. The Shadow-shaped beings (Watchers) that have been haunting her every step since book 2, actually live in this world, taking 3-dimensional shape: walking in forms of flesh and blood instead of simple shadow forms.
2. Tresdayle has created a familiar bond with one of these Watchers, and is using his connection through this “Hive Queen” to impose his will of hatred and malice across every fiber of this dark world, reaching every single Haunt Tree at once. This hatred is the force that is driving the Plague and the half-born creatures that live in the Haunt Trees.
Medo knows if Tresdayle dies, then she can end the darkness here and now. Her attempt to kill Tresdayle in his own palace succeeds, but he is brought back to life by his Watcher (who has the ability not only to rip away souls, but hold them artificially in place, prolonging life).
Medo is forced to flee from the palace, Tresdayle’s trust in her shattered. She knows now that killing him may be harder than she anticipated. She also knows that killing Tresdayle won’t provide a permanent solution. After all, the Hive Queen could just move on to another hateful human and continue her work. The best solution, she decides, is to go with Marlin’s plan and Curse the dark world, wiping out all the Haunts.
The plan becomes to assemble a team and pursue Marlin and Rallyn into the Spirit Crown.
Other things of note:
-Medo’s Larkin grandfather, the Druid, was caught and tortured by Tresdayle at the end of the book. He died in their escape from Orchrim and she was forced to leave his body in the dark world as the Watchers pursued her and her companions.
-The Eye Piece relic may have allowed Medo to see and remember the dark world, but it also caused agitation and hostility from it. The trees closed in like a cage and she barely got out with her life—giving her pause to use the Travel spell from here on out.
-Sinder teamed up with an old creep named Kilredge, who was from his father’s old witch hunting order “The Cold”. Together, they’ve been rekindling the order, throwing out old rules to grow faster. In book 4 they expressed interest in bringing back the old laws of Witch burning, believing that the plague and darkness are a result of moral transgressions in society at large—in the rise of black magic use following Medo’s defeat of Migwul in book 1
