Four Ruined Realms

Four Ruined Realms by Mai Corland was originally published in 2025. It is the second installment in the Broken Blades series, with the third installment, Three Shattered Souls, slated to be published in the summer of 2025. Corland’s fantasy series is inspired by Korean myth and culture, drawing from Corland’s experiences as a Korean American, and includes multiple LGBTQ+ characters. Four Ruined Realms explores the themes of Cultural Differences in Gender Roles, The Complex Morality of Killing, and The Morality of Secrets and Lies.

This guide refers to the 2025 hardcover Red Tower Books edition.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of graphic violence, illness, death, physical abuse, gender discrimination, animal cruelty and death, sexual content, and cursing. In particular, the source material interrogates indentured servitude, genocide, and colonization.

Plot Summary

The Broken Blades series takes place in a fantasy world and focuses on four kingdoms there: Yusan, Khitan, Gaya, and Wei. In the previous book, Five Broken Blades, King Joon of Yusan arranged for a test of six individuals, Mikail, Sora, Aeri, Euyn, Royo, and Tiyung, each of whom possesses useful skills, in his desire to gather the sacred relics of their world, which will make him the Dragon Lord and imbue him with godlike powers. The relics can only be wielded by those who have royal blood, and possession of more than one relic increases that individual’s powers. After they passed his test, Joon imprisoned Tiyung to pressure the other five into carrying out his next task: stealing the Golden Ring from Queen Quilimar of Khitan.

Four Ruined Realms continues where Five Broken Blades left off. Aeri, Mikail, Sora, Euyn, and Royo are journeying across the sea from Yusan to Khitan on their mission to steal the Golden Ring, which allows the wearer to turn whatever they wish into gold, from Quilimar, the queen of Khitan. Meanwhile, their compatriot Tiyung is imprisoned in the realm of Yusan, the setting of the first novel.

Once in Khitan, Mikail, the former spymaster of Yusan, meets with his ally Fallador, who is supposedly the exiled prince of Gaya, where he and Mikail were born. Ambassador Zeolin, a supposed ally of Quilimar, informs spies that Mikail is in Khitan. The spies attempt to capture him, but Mikail kills them and then visits Zeolin. He threatens Zeolin until the man reveals that he was part of an attempt to assassinate Quilimar with General Salosa of Yusan; now, Quilimar feels unsafe and won’t meet with any guests, using the Rule of Distance, a safety measure that keeps everyone at least 100 feet from the throne. Before Mikail leaves Zeolin, he pockets a key that he found on the other man’s desk.

Mikail directs Zeolin to obtain invitations for Sora and Aeri to attend a banquet celebrating the monsoon season at the palace in order to spy on the other attendees. Sora dances with Seok, Tiyung’s father and the man who forged her father’s signature and sold her into indentured servitude as a poison tester. Seok also sold Sora’s sister, Daysum, into indentured servitude at a brothel. (At this point, Sora doesn’t know that Seok forged her father’s signature to sell them off, but Euyn will later tell her.) Seok tries to have Sora arrested, but Aeri uses the magical Sands of Time (which the other characters don’t know she possesses) to stop time and facilitate their escape.

Meanwhile, Mikail, Euyn, and Royo travel to the Temple of Knowledge under Lake Cerome to learn about exceptions to the Rule of Distance, which prevents people from approaching the throne. After escaping from the palace, Aeri and Sora join the men at the lake. Royo is the only one who can open the door to the temple, using a key that Mikail found in Zeolin’s office. Most of the temple’s priests have been killed, but they are able to get information from a priest named Luhk about the exceptions to the Rule of Distance and the four magical relics: the Sands of Time, the Immortal Crown, the Flaming Sword, and the Water Scepter.

Euyn, Mikail, and Sora decide to travel to the caves where the Marnan people bury their dead to retrieve one exception to the rule: the head of a dead Marnan king. Before they go, Mikail meets with Gambria, an ally from his home kingdom of Gaya, to get information about the caves where the king is buried. Inside the caves, Mikail and Euyn get trapped in a net, and Mikail reflects that the information he got from Gambria is outdated. Sora frees them, and they narrowly escape without the king’s head.

Royo and Aeri travel in the other direction to retrieve another exception: an egg of an amarth, a cross between a human and a bird. On the way, they visit a hot spring, where Royo saves Aeri from nearly drowning. When they reach the amarths’ nests the next day, Aeri is able to use the Sands of Time to take an egg, but before they can leave, they are stopped by an amarth. The creature allows them to take the egg after talking with Dia, a moon owl that Aeri previously rescued. Later, Aeri and Royo have sex.

Meanwhile, Zahara, the acting spymaster of Yusan, aids Tiyung in prison, bringing him food, light, and information because Tiyung freed Zahara’s brother from indentured servitude. Tiyung learns that Sora’s sister, Daysum, is dead (Mikail has learned this as well, but he has not told Sora); that soldiers are on the march; and that he is condemned to die in prison in a way that looks accidental. He becomes suspicious when he gets a cellmate, but the cellmate turns out to be Mikail’s adoptive father, Ailor, who sacrifices himself to save Tiyung.

Aeri, Sora, Royo, Mikail, and Euyn convene at an inn and bring the amarth egg to the Khitan palace. Quilimar’s lover, General Vikal, tries to deny them entrance, and Aeri threatens to break the amarth egg. Vikal changes her mind and allows them to meet with Quilimar, but she insists that they come unarmed. Sora tells Quilimar that King Joon wants her Golden Ring, but Quilimar refuses to part with it. She commands her palace guards to take Sora and her friends.

Euyn, whose mother told him that he isn’t royalty, gambles with Quilimar. If he can wield the ring, which would indicate that he is royalty, he can keep it, and his friends will go free. Euyn thinks that he will die but is trying to buy time for the others to steal weapons from the guards and get out of the palace. However, to his surprise, Euyn can wield the ring. A guard claims that Euyn has a weapon, and Quilimar kills him with a saber that she had hidden in her sleeve. He turns part of her chest into gold with the Golden Ring before he dies. She and Vikal leave, ordering the guards to kill the others. War drums begin to sound.

Mikail takes the ring, Aeri gives him a small dagger that she hid in her hair clip, and Sora blows poison over the guards, weakening them. Royo and Mikail kill the guards. The group burns Euyn’s corpse to free his soul and stop Quilimar from displaying his body. They escape from the palace and see that the other realms have come to declare war on Khitan. Quilimar asks for an alliance with Aeri and her friends—she doesn’t have royal blood and so cannot wield the Golden Ring, but Aeri, who is actually Joon’s daughter and a princess of Yusan, can. Mikail agrees.

Meanwhile, in Yusan, Tiyung escapes from prison with the help of Zahara and her brother. When they are free and far from the prison, Zahara gets a message that Seok has taken over Yusan’s Qali Palace, and they have to return.

Aeri, Royo, Mikai, and Vikal go to a parlay with the realms of Yusan and another kingdom, Wei. It is taking place on an island that was created by the Water Scepter bearer from Wei, who parted the waters of the Khitan harbor. At the parlay, Bay Chin, another Yusan count and an enemy of Royo’s, orders General Salosa to kill Royo. To save Royo’s life, Aeri uses the Golden Ring to turn both Bay Chin and Salosa into gold. Then, she uses it to turn Joon’s ship and the Weian king’s ship into gold. Her ability to use the Golden Ring from a distance reveals that she has the Sands of Time—only someone in possession of two relics can be this powerful.

Mikail takes relics from Yusan’s and Wei’s ships: the Flaming Sword from Yusan, who stole it during their Gayan massacre, and the Water Scepter from Wei. Mikail and his friends gather back together and narrowly escape the harbor waters on a small skiff. His ability to wield the relics that he stole reveals that he, not Fallador, is the exiled prince of Gaya. The group sails to Gaya, where Royo walks away from his romance with Aeri because she lied about possessing the Sands of Time.