In this review of The Autumn Kingdom: The Wraithbound Queen #3, the sisters deal with the illusions before them, and get closer to their goal than ever.
The Autumn Kingdom: The Wraithbound Queen #3
Writer: Cullen Bunn
Art and Main Cover: Christopher Mitten
Variant Cover: Emily Schnall
Page Count: 32 pages
Release Date: April 1, 2026
This review contains spoilers
After another scene depicting Elsethriel’s trek through Hell to find her sister, The Autumn Kingdom: The Wraithbound Queen #3 catches up to Sommer as she stands face-to-face with Elsethriel herself. But she knows it’s an illusion from the Fae, and that there’s no other explanation for encountering a fictional character her dad came up with. And from there, the two fight.
Winter, meanwhile, is still shown illusions of her parents as a means of making the blood offering go easier. She knows better than to believe they’re real. But she’s told that it’s still much easier than what Sommer’s dealing with.
Sommer keeps up the fight with Elsethriel, but the warrior gains the upper hand. And Winter is soon shown an illusion of Sommer with their parents.
Winter knows it’s all an illusion. But she’s just so tired of fighting now. She agrees to go with the Fae Ruler…but she’s also eying a rock along the way.
In the fight between Sommer and Elsethriel, the latter is definitely winning…but then her visage starts to crack, before the illusion explodes out of existence. After a short search, she finds Winter standing over the bloodied corpse of the Fae Ruler. Since she’d killed her, that also killed the illusions. The sisters, now reunited, continue the search for their father.
After a bit more walking, pondering if it’s all a dream, and another scene of the trek through Hell, the girls come to the blood fields of the Autumn Kingdom. And trudging through the fields is none other than their father.
So, one thing I’ve noticed with The Autumn Kingdom: The Wraithbound Queen #3 in general is that in the sections that show Elsethriel’s quest, she looks quite a bit like Winter. When her sister is shown, she looks rather like Sommer. It makes me wonder if there are official illustrations of the characters in-universe or if that’s how Sommer imagines them looking. Because the visual comparisons between the story and their current (probable) reality are hard to miss.
Especially when looking at the Hell-scape and the Blood Fields side by side.
The resemblance aspect also adds a bit to the fight between Illusion-Elsethriel and Sommer. It feels like there are three possible reasons behind why she’d outright attack the girl. 1) The illusion just being created to attack because the Fae need human blood. 2) Sommer does look just like the sister she’d sent to then hunted down through Hell. 3) (Perhaps half-joking, but with the Fae, I feel like all bets are off) Being told to her face that she’s an illusion, and somehow, she doesn’t seem like one that’d take that with the best of humor.
Points to Winter for her quick thinking and simple-but-effective act of Fae regicide. Faeries aren’t human, but getting brained with a rock is a very human way to go out. I wonder about any possible fallout from the murder…but the Faeries are already after the humans’ blood as it is, so what’s one more slight against them going to do?
The story’s close to its end, though. And Sommer has promised to rain bloody vengeance upon the Fae now that they’ve found their father alive. So, that’s got me invested for what’s to come. Was great to see the sisters find each other again, with Winter being the one to save Sommer as opposed to going the more obvious route of the one with the ginormous sword. Rather than it being about a weapon, it was all about human ingenuity.
Final Thoughts
With one goal attained and the other within reach, The Autumn Kingdom: The Wraithbound Queen #3 is an excellent continuation and sets up the endgame quite well.
