The Founding of Valdemar

About The Founding of Valdemar

More than three decades after introducing Valdemar in Arrows of the Queen, Lackey went all the way back to the very beginning: the founding of the kingdom itself, centuries before any Herald, Companion, or Collegium existed. The trilogy follows Kordas Valdemar, a minor duke leading his people in a desperate exodus away from a tyrannical, expansionist empire, in search of a place his community can settle safely and build a fairer, freer society — the founding act that eventually becomes the kingdom every other Valdemar book is set in.

Beyond, Into the West, and Valdemar trace that journey and settlement, showing readers the political ideals, the earliest magic, and the founding generation's hard choices that shape everything the Heralds and Companions later inherit — origin-story material that reframes the entire series' founding myth for longtime readers while remaining fully accessible to newcomers with no prior Valdemar knowledge at all.

How to read this series

Read in publication order: Beyond (2021), Into the West (2022), Valdemar (2023). Because it's set centuries before every other Valdemar sub-series, this trilogy requires no prior knowledge of the series and works as a genuine starting point for new readers — though longtime fans get an extra layer of enjoyment seeing the origins of institutions and ideas (Companions, the Heralds' founding philosophy) that the rest of the series takes for granted. It's a self-contained trilogy that doesn't require reading any other Valdemar books first or after.