The Kingkiller Chronicle

Kvothe, once the most famous and feared arcanist, swordsman, and musician in the world, is now living in hiding under the alias Kote, running the unassuming Waystone Inn in the rural town of Newarre. His only companion is Bast, his devoted student, who is secretly a prince of the Fae. Kvothe has agreed to tell his full life story over three days to a traveling scribe named Chronicler, whom he rescued from spider-like creatures called scrael; this book covers only the first of those three days.

Kvothe's story begins with his childhood as a member of a troupe of Edema Ruh traveling performers, led by his parents, Arliden and Netalia. His father's obsessive research into the true history behind the legendary Chandrian, undertaken while composing a ballad about the ancient hero-turned-villain Lanre, gets the entire troupe murdered by the Chandrian themselves, whose leader is Lord Haliax, once known as Lanre. Eleven-year-old Kvothe survives only because he was away gathering herbs, and narrowly escapes death himself when the Chandrian are forced to flee before some unnamed threat.

Orphaned and traumatized, Kvothe spends roughly three years as a feral beggar and thief in the slums of the city of Tarbean. A chance encounter with a storyteller named Skarpi, who is arrested by the Church mid-tale for heresy after revealing more about the Chandrian and Lanre, reignites Kvothe's old childhood dream of enrolling at the University, home to the vast Archives where he hopes to find answers about the Chandrian.

Kvothe talks his way into the University despite having almost no money, proving to be a brilliant but perpetually broke student. He studies sympathy (a discipline for linking and manipulating objects) and other arcane sciences, clashes repeatedly with the wealthy, cruel student Ambrose Jakis and the hostile Master Hemme, and is temporarily banned from the Archives due to one of Ambrose's tricks. Along the way he makes loyal friends, including Simmon and Wilem, and falls for a beautiful, elusive musician named Denna, whom he first meets on the road to the University and keeps crossing paths with throughout the book, though their relationship remains undefined and unresolved.

A major subplot involves Kvothe investigating a massacre at a rural wedding marked by blue flame, the signature of the Chandrian; he finds Denna injured at the scene, learns the killings were provoked by the discovery of an old pot depicting all seven Chandrian, and later kills a rampaging draccus (a huge lizard-like creature) that threatens to destroy a nearby town.

The University storyline culminates when Ambrose destroys Kvothe's lute, and Kvothe, in a rage, unintentionally calls the name of the wind, a feat of magic he has long sought to master, breaking Ambrose's arm. He is flogged for the outburst but not expelled, and his display of talent earns him advancement to study directly under Master Namer Elodin, the teacher most likely to help him learn true naming magic.

In the present-day frame story, the inn is attacked by a mercenary possessed by a skin dancer; Kvothe seems strangely unable or unwilling to use magic to stop it, and the creature is instead killed by a young blacksmith's apprentice named Aaron using cold iron. Afterward, Bast secretly confronts Chronicler and reveals he arranged for Chronicler to come hear Kvothe's story, pressuring him to emphasize Kvothe's heroic deeds in hopes of reviving the legendary figure Kvothe used to be. The book ends with Kvothe still withdrawn and resigned, described as a man simply waiting to die, leaving the central mysteries — the true nature and current activities of the Chandrian, the reason for Kvothe's self-imposed exile, how he supposedly became a 'kingkiller,' the unresolved war he is rumored to have caused, and his relationship with Denna — all open as the next book begins.

By the end of The Wise Man's Fear, Kvothe is telling his life story to Chronicler at the Waystone Inn, having just finished recounting his second day of adventures away from the University. Coming into book three, here is where things stand.

At the University, Kvothe's feud with the wealthy noble student Ambrose has escalated — Ambrose had him tried for illegally invoking the Name of the Wind, a capital charge Kvothe beat in court, but the fallout left him with crushing tuition debt and enemies among the masters. He took a term off and used a voyage to Severen, in Vintas, to help Maer Alveron woo and marry Meluan Lackless. During that time he foiled an assassination attempt on the Maer, earning real trust and favor, and reconnected with Denna, the elusive woman he loves, before a bitter argument (over a song touching on the true, secret history of the fall of Myr Tariniel) drove them apart again — their relationship is unresolved.

Sent by the Maer to deal with bandits preying on tax collectors in the Eld, Kvothe defeated the group but their leader escaped; the malicious, prophetic being called the Cthaeh later revealed to Kvothe that this leader was Cinder, one of the Chandrian — the same beings who massacred Kvothe's family and troupe in childhood. The Cthaeh also warned Kvothe, in typically twisted fashion, of dangers in his future, and revealed that Denna is being physically abused by her secretive, unnamed patron — information Kvothe now carries but hasn't acted on.

During this same period, Kvothe spent an extended, otherworldly interlude in the Fae realm with the seductive faerie Felurian (only three days passed back in the mortal world, though far more time passed for him there), and afterward traveled to the distant land of Ademre with the Adem mercenary Tempi, who was on trial for improperly teaching Kvothe their secret martial art, the Ketan. Kvothe completed rigorous training there, absorbed the Adem philosophy of the Lethani, and was awarded an ancient, unusually light sword named Caesura. The Adem also shared their own oral tradition about the Chandrian (whom they call the Rhinta), giving Kvothe new but still incomplete clues about their identities and signs.

Back in Severen, after avenging a troupe of murdered Edema Ruh performers by killing the impostors responsible, Kvothe publicly revealed his own Edema Ruh heritage. This enraged Meluan Lackless, who despises the Edema Ruh, and she forced the Maer to exile Kvothe from court — though the Maer, in gratitude, pardoned him, granted him a writ of patronage, and secured his University tuition permanently. Kvothe returned to the University, manipulated the bursar to boost his own finances, and began noticing distorted legends about himself spreading among strangers.

Open threads heading into the next book: the true nature and goals of the Chandrian and the Amyr remain unresolved; Kvothe still doesn't know who killed his parents or why, beyond the Chandrian's involvement; his relationship with Denna and the identity/danger of her abusive patron are unresolved; the ominous prophecies from the Cthaeh loom unaddressed; and in the present-day frame story, Kvothe is a diminished, hunted-feeling innkeeper whose true identity and fate remain mysterious, with his companion Bast anxious to draw the old hero back out of him — underscored by the book's final image of Kvothe performing a single perfect Ketan step.