Setting

As described by Mercedes Lackey herself regarding post-Storms Valdemar and beyond:

Valdemar is not doing well at the moment. The border wars, the attacks in Haven and on the Traderoads, and the Storms, plus lesser-known troubles, have resulted in the Heralds, Guard, and no small amount of the Valdemaran population supporting them being far away from the center of the country. The Crown could only assist so much with the bad times deep inside their borders and could spare only so many Heralds. In short, the small keeps, holders, barons, trade leaders, and so on have fallen back upon their own troops and tightened their local control. They are infighting, in the absence of the system that stabilized Valdemar before.

For most people in Valdemar, until the Storms, they tended crops, built roads, milled grain, and were ordinary soldiers at most. The ongoing border wars were distant. Magic was just something in old legends, not something that was in their lives every day, affecting them personally. And then came the Storms. Instead of being something good, something that made roads that never needed repaving or built walls so strong that nothing could knock them down—something that helped and protected them—it was something horrible that brought strange beasts and diseases, ripped their ordered lives up, and scattered the pieces.

Now every demonstration of magic is looked at as something to be feared until it can be proved it isn’t going to hurt them. And there are a thousand minds like that, versus every one Valdemaran who understands

Our take on post-Storms Velgarth

In the lands beyond Valdemar, the Reformers in Karse are embroiled in a fight for power to maintain the Enlightenment founded by Solaris and the fragile peace with their ancient enemy. Rethwellan has troubles of it's own, with the Monarchy struggling much as Valdemar is to maintain the status-quo and peace that it's people are accustomed. Ambitious lordlings are maneuvering to take advantage of every weakness, and it is only a matter of time until they succeed.

Hardorn has shown uncommon resilience - perhaps because it has already gone through so much, and her people have so little left to give. Grand Duke Tremane, now King Tremane, has succeeded in stabilizing the country with his vast army of Eastern Empire soldiers. But the succession is uncertain. Tremane has no heir, and the culture of meritocracy within the Empire is clashing with the traditions of inheritance the surviving Hardornen Lords are accustomed.

The Vales are rebuilding after the devastation of the Storms and the depletion of their Heartstones. Some, such as K'Treva Vale, have emerged largely unscathed. Others have disappeared forever; lost to the changeling monsters of the Pelagirs when their protections failed. On the Plains, the Shin'a'in have taken their mission beyond their ancestral borders now that the ancient weapons beneath Plains have been rendered impotent. Or so they think - there is a recurring dream among the Shamans of Kata'shin'a'in that their thousand year job as sentries is not yet done. But not even the most Gifted among their Tayledras brethren have been able to locate active weaponry. So the Clans have cautiously moved on, with only the most die-hard members of Clan For'a'hier and others remaining to safeguard the Plains.

Still further south and beyond; the lands of Jkatha, Ruvan and Seejay have seen their own problems from the Mage Storms. Entire monarchies have been overthrown, and a new age of Mage-Craft and Strong Man principles has taken root. Jkatha in particular has seen the rise of a new government that seems based entirely on fear.

To the east, the great sprawling mass of the Eastern Empire is in shambles. The Emperor Melles is struggling to maintain what control he can, and has consolidated power in the capital of Jacona. Some rumors exist of a rebel faction seeking to unseat Melles, but nothing has been substantiated