How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories

How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories is considered volume 3.5 of Holly Black’s Folk of the Air series. Told from Cardan’s perspective, this companion novel fleshes out events referenced in the main trilogy, adding to the canonical plot and details of the first three books.

The main trilogy is told from the perspective of Jude, a girl who will later become Cardan’s love interest, wife, and the High Queen of Elfhame. Jude is a human raised by the bloodthirsty faerie Madoc, who once loved—and later killed—Jude’s human mother. Although born in the mortal world, Jude grows up primarily in Elfhame with her identical human twin sister, Taryn; her half-sister, Vivienne (Madoc’s biological fairy daughter); and her adoptive faerie brother, Oak. 

As a young adult, Jude has a contentious relationship with Prince Cardan and his posse, who, like most faeries in Elfhame, bully and condescend to Jude and Taryn because of their mortal blood. Jude and Taryn both fall for Cardan’s friend Locke, which exacerbates the growing tension in their sibling relationship. Jude, who seeks a martial court position like Madoc’s, gets pulled into royal court intrigue when she becomes a spy for Cardan’s older brother Dain.

Jude’s spying results in a deepening, if still fraught, relationship with Cardan. She learns that his older brother Balekin, who raised him, abuses him. She inadvertently rescues Cardan during a coronation massacre instigated by Balekin and Madoc, who hope to seize power when the previous High King (Cardan, Balekin, and Dain’s father) abdicates. This bloodbath ends with the previous High King and Dain both slain. 

Cardan joins Jude’s band of spies, and the narrative illuminates his hidden feelings for Jude and tense relationship with Balekin. The massacre sets Jude against Madoc. Jude’s solution to the succession problem is to pretend to crown her brother, Oak—a secret descendant of the royal line—as the next High King. She tricks Cardan into becoming a very unwilling monarch until Oak comes of age, simultaneously bringing Cardan under her very literal command for a year and a day. 

Jude views her relationship with Cardan as tense and political for most of the series. She also struggles against both Madoc’s constant power plays and increasingly dangerous politics with neighboring faerie realms. Elfhame’s own Living Council of faerie advisors resist her ruling as Court Seneschal because they dislike her human identity. Complications with her family and with Locke worsen her relationship with Taryn.

Cardan’s genuine feelings for Jude become clearer when Jude is captured by the Undersea Court. The Undersea, a power-hungry realm previously held in check, sides with Balekin and tries to marry Nicasia to Cardan to make her queen of both land and sea. Cardan refutes this by marrying Jude, making her the first human High Queen of Elfhame. However, Jude is banished from Elfhame to the mortal world. This is due to her murder of Balekin—committed out of self-defense and as a tactical move to cement her alliance with Roiben, leader of another important fairy realm.

Jude works for the solitary fey who live in the mortal world. She is eventually pulled back to Elfhame by Taryn, who murders Locke—now her faerie husband—in a crime of passion. By this time, Jude has realized her romantic feelings for Cardan. Before they can communicate their love properly, Jude—confused for Taryn—is taken by Madoc’s army, who openly revolt against Cardan’s rule. Jude, once again a spy, tries to stop Madoc’s plan to take power. The struggle inadvertently brings to fruition the feared prophecy proclaimed at Cardan’s birth: that he will bring about “the destruction of the crown and the ruination of the throne” (62)—quite literally. 

Upon breaking the crown, Cardan is cursed to transform into a giant, destructive serpent. As High Queen of Elfhame, Jude uses the power of the land—as well as a magic sword borrowed from her allies—to save Cardan and change him back to his normal faerie self. They finally confess their feelings for each other. Madoc is banished, Jude’s family ties are repaired, and Vivienne and Oak move to the mortal world to give Oak a proper childhood. Cardan and Jude rule as equals.

In How the High King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories, various scenes from the main trilogy are retold, this time from Cardan’s perspective. The novel fleshes out Cardan’s past as the neglected, despised youngest prince; how his reputation came about; and his mother’s disdain for him. The novel also explores Cardan’s impressions of the human world when he travels there with Jude to visit her family. His perspective adds context to his posse’s bullying of Jude and Taryn at school and to his past relationship with Nicasia, including his reaction to Locke and Nicasia’s subsequent relationship and betrayal, all of which are only briefly referenced in the main trilogy. Since Jude is an outsider at the time that these incidents occur, she would not have known the full details provided by Cardan’s point of view.

These glimpses into Cardan’s past flesh him out as a protagonist and develop his misunderstood antihero and minor villain characterization throughout the series. They also depict his maturation and character development as he grows up, particularly through his interactions with Aslog the troll and the repeated, changing tale they tell each other. This tale reflects how Cardan’s worldview changes as he grows and as his understanding of the world—and his place in it—shifts accordingly. Cardan initially resists his role as High King, mirroring the realm’s prejudices against him. By the end of the series, he comes into his own, seizing his fate and upending everyone’s expectations of him, including his own.