This lore breakdown for A Court of Thorns and Roses is a helpful resource for understanding Book 1 of the ACOTAR series! This lore guide includes spoilers, so please read AFTER you’ve finished Book 1 of the ACOTAR series.
If you would like to listen to this lore breakdown, check out our recap video
Or if you’d prefer to hear our complete beat-by-beat coverage of Under the Mountain please check out ACOTAR episode 6 & ACOTAR episode 7.
You can listen to Fantasy Fangirls coverage on your favorite podcast platform, including Youtube and Spotify.
Who is Amarantha and where did she come from?
Amarantha is a High Fae from Hybern, which is the island kingdom west of Prythian. She is the King of Hybern’s greatest and most lethal general, and is known as a legend and a nightmare.
Remember that the King of Hybern rules Hybern and he hates that he was forced to sign a Treaty with the mortals.
Amarantha used to be a close ally with Tamlin’s father, when he was High Lord of the Spring Court. They were all buddy-buddy because they favored human enslavement and being evil pieces of shit. This is how she and Tamlin met – later on, once he grew up, Amarantha desired him and wanted him to be her lover, but Tamlin always refused.
Amarantha during the War
Amarantha had a sister named Clythia, equally as terrible as her, but during the war 500 years ago, Clythia fell in love with Jurian, a mortal and the general of the mortal armies during the War between faeries and mortals.
Jurian used Clythia to get information about his enemy, the Fae. Amarantha saw through him, but couldn’t convince her sister who was head over heels in love with him. Amarantha couldn’t bring herself to kill Jurian, knowing the pain it would cause her sister.
After months of pretending to love her, Jurian brutally murdered Clythia. Amarantha was PISSED – it’s said that her wrath could have brought the skies down, but the King of Hybern ordered her to stand down.
Because of Jurian and his actions, Amarantha despised humans even more. Soon enough, she got her revenge on Jurian, this mortal warrior who killed her sister. Amarantha faced off with him on the battlefield and it was a long fight to the death.
Which side note, shout out to Jurian for holding his own in any kind of battle with Amarantha!
… But then Amarantha won. She tortured Jurian for weeks and weeks, ignoring the King of Hybern’s orders to march to his aid until after she killed him. Her army’s absence cost the King of Hybern the war.
ACOMAF Spoilers
She was so focused on torturing Jurian that she didn’t notice the High Lord of the Night Court, Rhysand’s dad, infiltrating their camp. To ensure there was no possibility of Jurian being freed (the Night Court was on his side, after all), Amarantha killed Jurian and fled.
She kept his finger bone to make a necklace and one of his eyes to make a ring. Then did some hocus pocus from the King of Hybern’s unholy book, so that Jurian’s life force was trapped within his existing body parts. He was unable to move on into death, and instead was stuck in limbo, observing everything from that eye ring.
Last thing to note about Amarantha around the war is that afterward, when the Treaty was signed and mortals were freed from slavery, Amarantha had all of her mortals butchered instead of let go.
100 Years Before ACOTAR
Fast forward 400 years to Amarantha’s return to Prythian. She returned as an emissary of the King of Hybern, going from Court to Court and charming the High Lords with talk of more trade between Prythian and Hybern. All the while, Amarantha was pretending to make amends for her and Hybern’s actions during the War.
See, it’d been 400 years since the war and the High Lords fell for her story about her sister’s death changing her. Except for Tamlin, who didn’t fall for her facade, and…
ACOMAF Spoilers
Rhysand, who trusted Tamlin’s judgment of Amarantha despite his own hatred for Tamlin.
Her actions re-opened trade between the two fae country, but unbeknownst to anyone, including the King of Hybern, the ships that brought Hybern goods also brought Amarantha’s own personal forces.
Amarantha intended to take Prythian for her own and use it as a staging ground to destroy the mortal lands, with or without the king’s blessing. After fifty years of relationship building with the courts, Amarantha invited the High Lords and their courts to a ball in her honor. Little did everyone know that she drugged their drinks with a potion to take the majority of their powers, using a spell from the King of Hybern’s unholy book, that she stole.
It’s described that their magic was laid bare and she stole their powers from where they originated inside their bodies, leaving them with only the basest elements of their magic. She was able to take control of Prythian within days and proclaimed herself High Queen of Prythian. She then set up her court in Under the Mountain, located in the sacred The Middle in Prythian, and fashioned it after the Night Court’s Court of Nightmares.
Life under the High Queen of Prythian
ACOMAF Spoilers
As punishment for Rhysand’s father having killed her closest ally, the then High Lord of the Spring Court, Amarantha made Rhys her sex slave. Rhysand complied but secretly hated her.
Despite Amarantha’s attempts to win over Tamlin these past 50 years, like the other courts, He rejected her. He didn’t believe she changed, he knew who she was at her core.
Now weakened and wanting to improve things, Tamlin sent his friend and emissary, Lucien, to try to negotiate for peace between them. Amarantha refused and when Lucien told her to return to the shit-hole she’d crawled out of, she was so enraged she gouged out one of Lucien’s eyes with her fingernail and scarred his face, leaving him a bloody mess.
Under the Mountain & what the court looks likes
49 years ago, Amarantha took control of Prythian and crowned herself High Queen after she tricked the seven High Lords out of most of their power. She set up court in what’s called Under the Mountain, which is, unsurprisingly, under a mountain.
This location is important though. Under the Mountain is nestled in what’s called the Middle, dividing the seasonal courts and solar courts in Prythian. The southern border of the Middle is the Winter Court and the northern border is the Dawn Court.
The Middle and especially this mountain is sacred, and purposefully unclaimed territory and considered neutral land in Prythian. This is the location on the mural that Feyre saw in the study, where the Cauldron poured its contents out onto the map. The source of these contents spreading into lands was this mountain in the Middle. The fact that Amarantha “tainted” it with her reign is a big deal.
There is an ancient shortcut from the Spring Court to Under the Mountain that used to be considered sacred, but not anymore. This cave entrance shrinks distances, making weeks of travel less than a day of walking.
Amarantha fashioned and modeled Under the Mountain after the Night Court, or rather, the Court of Nightmares – also known as the Hewn City. This is the Night Court front, hiding the real beauty and culture of the Night Court in Velaris.
The throne room is described as being a giant chamber carved from pale rock, upheld by countless carved pillars. Upon closer look, these pillar carvings depict stories of Prythian. There are chandeliers of jewels hung between the pillars, staining the red marble floor with color. On the dais is Amarantha’s black throne, plus another black throne for Tamlin and given this is all underground there are no windows.
Amarantha’s cronies are either from Hybern, who secretly traveled to Prythian on the trade ships as part of her takeover force, or they are the dreadful faeries already in Prythian, without an evil villain to flock to until she came along and granted them the atrocities they wanted
Some of her cronies include the dungeon guards, who love to tournament prisoners and they have red-colored skin, and the Attor, who seems to be Amarantha’s #1 cronnie
While we don’t have a lot of information about the other faeries in her court, we get a few descriptions to paint a picture – Feyre saw leering faces that were cruel and harsh in the crowd Under the Mountain, with the high fae primarily located in the more esteemed area like the throne room
The dynamics with the High Lords
Forty years ago (about 9 years after her reign), three of the High Lords attempted to overthrow her, Day, Summer, and Winter.
They did not even get to the point of open rebellion before Amarantha learned of it and killed them and most of their families. To prevent them from doing this again, she used the High Lords’ stolen powers to bind the faeries of the court to their land, so they could not travel to other Fae territories to organize. They started using foolish humans that crossed the Wall to serve as messengers – in other words, the Children of the Blessed.
The High Lords tried to send the mortals, mostly young women, to other faerie territories to ask for help and rally forces, but Amarantha caught these messengers before they left Prythian’s shores and tortured them to death.
Amarantha keeps most courts trapped Under the Mountain, tormenting them as she pleases. However, some courts swear allegiance and serve Amarantha, so she allows them a little more freedom to come and go Under the Mountain as they please. Rhys is one example of this, as well as possibly Baron and his family as well.
The Spring Court has been the only court allowed to live “freely”. It is confirmed that Amarantha is planning to take Prythian’s armies fully under her control, and how the King of Hybern is not pleased with this “fool’s bargain” Amarantha has entered with Feyre.
The King of Hybern is keeping a close eye on her so she doesn’t ruin everything over her obsessive focus on Tamlin, like what happened with her obsessive torturing of Jurian in the war 500 years ago.
At least during the months that Feyre is Under the Mountain, Amarantha hosts parties and gatherings most nights with lots of strong faerie wine and dancing and bad music.
How does Under the Mountain contain all the faeries from these seven courts? Unfortunately, while the nobles and favored faeries are allowed to dwell Under the Mountain, if they aren’t working to bring in goods and food, they are locked in camps in a network of tunnels beneath the Mountain.
Thousands of lesser faeries are crammed into chambers and tunnels with no light and no air, for 50 years. Some went mad and began preying on others when Amarantha’s guards forgot to feed them. Some banded together and prowled the camps, doing unspeakable things to the weaker faeries.
The curse on the Spring Court
After the incident with Lucien, Amarantha hosted a masquerade Under the Mountain, supposedly a party to make amends for what she did to Lucien. It was a masquerade so he wouldn’t have to reveal the scarring on his face and the entire Spring Court was to attend, even servants, and wear masks to represent Tamlin’s shapeshifting powers.
For… Tamlin reasons, he agreed to go because again, he wanted to end this conflict without more slaughter.
Once everyone was assembled, Amarantha claimed they could have peace if, and only if, Tamlin became her lover and consort. After what she did to Lucien, Tamlin refused to ever let her touch him, and said he’d sooner take a human to his bed, to marry a human, than touch her. Tamlin went on to say that her own sister had even preferred a human’s company to hers because she chose Jurian over Amarantha.
So, Amarantha cursed Tamlin for this, saying she was in a generous mood and would give him a chance to break the spell that she used to steal his power.
Tamlin has 49 years, seven times seven years, to complete Amarantha’s challenge or else he has to join Amarantha as her consort and lover.
Amarantha’s challenge – Tamlin is to find a human girl who truly, deeply hates faeries. She has to kill one of his own men in an unprovoked attack, driven by hatred as Jurian had done to Amarantha’s sister. This same human girl then has to fall in love with Tamlin and say to his face that she loves him, and she has to mean it with her entire heart. This is why Tamlin has to shapeshift his sentinels into wolves to go across the Wall to be killed.
Amarantha was certain that it would be impossible for the same girl who slaughtered a faerie in cold blood to fall in love with one, and so this was, to her, a guaranteed way to force Tamlin to be with her.
Knowing humans were preoccupied with beauty, Amarantha went a step further and bound the masks the Spring Court wore to their faces. And while she was at it she turned Tamlin’s heart to stone.
The masks are here to make it that much more difficult for this human to look beneath Tamlin’s mask and fall in love with his soul, not that handsome Fae face. The faeries are also banned from telling this girl anything about the curse and the current state of Prythian, leading the Spring Court to lie about a “blight” that has been a looming and spreading danger.
During these 49 years, the Spring Court is the only Court allowed to remain in their territory full-time until the deadline of Tamlin’s curse. However, Amarantha delights in sending monstrous faeries into his borders to test his strength and taunt him.
What happens to Under the Mountain after Amarantha’s fall?
Once the High Lords regain control of Prythian following the death of Amarantha, her court Under the Mountain is destroyed and sealed off, and the Middle is no longer used as a neutral place.
Nobody wants to touch this area with a ten foot pool, after the trauma and horrors Amarantha inflicted on all of them.
Need More?
We’ve got 100+ hours of podcast episodes deep diving the entire ACOTAR series with a segment at the end of episode where we dive into EVERY Maasverse connection but don’t worry we give a massive spoiler warning before this segment so if you haven’t read Throne of Glass or Crescent City you can still listen to our ACOTAR coverage!
