Since you’re reading this, I must assume you fall into one of three categories: You’ve read Nolyn and enjoyed it enough to come back for more; or you’re a completionist and insist on finishing all the books of a series, regardless of how you feel about them; or it could also be that you just picked this book off a shelf because you liked the cover but know nothing about me or the world of Elan. Given these three options, I’d like to say thank you for coming back, or for sticking with me, or welcome to my world.

The book you’re about to read is the second in a trilogy, but don’t fret, newcomer, because it’s not necessary to start at the beginning. Like the previous book, Nolyn, this one can be read as a stand-alone story. The reason why has to do with how I structured the trilogy. Most of my other series tend to be a continuous story divided into complete episodes. They feature the same characters that develop and grow over the course of a multi-book plot. For this series, The Rise and Fall, I went a different way.

My desire was to tell the two-thousand-year history of the Novronian Empire, something that features prominently in my two other series. Legends of the First Empire shows the empire coming into existence. The other, the Riyria Revelations series, takes place long after the empire is gone. This left a glaring hole between the two, where readers could almost connect the dots, but not quite.

I was faced with the dilemma of covering a lot of ground. To do this in the same manner as I had with Legends and Riyria would require hundreds of novels. I’m not a young man, and I don’t have that kind of time.

My solution was to create a trilogy of “one-and-done” novels that focus on the lives of three significant individuals who alter the course of history and highlight the most distinct periods in that era—hence Nolyn, Farilane, and Esrahaddon. These books are separated by significant gaps in time. Nolyn starts eight hundred and fifty years after Legends. Farilane picks up a bit over one thousand years later. Esrahaddon will take place two hundred years after that. As a result, there isn’t much opportunity for long-term character development—unless you realize that the main character in each book is the empire itself.

Farilane is the second novel in this series, forming the keystone that joins the eras. As such, Princess Farilane has a foot in both worlds, so the novel blends the elements and styles of both Legends and Riyria.