Over a thousand years before the events of the Coming of Áed, the Gut was a collection of shanties, just inland of the coast on the east side of the Gut’s peninsula.
Though the Red Sea’s coastal waters were made toxic by naturally occurring iron and minerals, offshore fishing proved successful enough to support life--and growth. The settlement quickly swelled from huts to houses, houses to neighborhoods, and neighborhoods to districts. Soon, the Gut was a thriving city in its own right.
As the city spread west to the top of the cliffs, a monarchy took shape, whose governance kept order throughout the entire expanse of the Gut. The home of the monarchy was the Citadel, one of the Maze’s oldest and most prominent buildings.
However, the idyllic city wasn’t to last.
As the clifftop district of the Gut discovered both ore in the rock and arable, rich land to the west, its dependency on its seaside population diminished. The inhabitants of the low eastern peninsula, in fact, were becoming too numerous to be supported by fish and salty farmland, and they were increasingly reliant on goods from the western highlands.
Soon, the highlanders of the Gut declared their own independent monarchy. The Maze lacked the resources to fight back when the newly formed kingdom--what Maze-dwellers know now as the White City--withheld needed goods, and the new city’s strategic clifftop location protected it from attack.
Slowly, the Maze’s population began to starve. Within a century, the remnants of the original monarchy toppled and the Citadel fell into ruin. Lawless and suffering from a power vacuum, gangs formed and asserted their dominion over the Maze we know from The Hidden King and The Last Prince.
E.G. RADCLIFF IS AN INCURABLE WRITER and lifelong imaginer of worlds. An insatiable reader and researcher with a penchant for all things Celtic and a love of the mysterious and magical, she brings a knowing touch to her Young Adult fiction. She enjoys adventure, reading on the train, and dreams about flying. She is a Chicago native and is based in Illinois.
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