Well hello hello, our lovely Cosmere Chickens! How are you all doing this Thursday? Are you ready to attend a ball with Sarene and Roial? That sounds really nice, right? Well… it would, if it weren’t for the GRISLY MURDER happening in the middle of the party!
That’s right, my friends. In this week’s edition of the Elantris Reread, we find out some terrible secrets about King Iadon and whether or not Hrathen starves to death while fasting in Elantris. Come on, what could be better than a jaunt through a sewer, a terrible bloody murder, and slime-covered dinner? We are coming up on Halloween, after all…
(Non-)Spoiler warning: This week’s article has no spoilers from other Cosmere works. Read on fearlessly, chickens!
Trigger warnings: Cults, serial murder.
Last time on Elantris: Misunderstandings and Murderous Monks…
On Sarene’s latest venture into Elantris, the wildmen finally break through to attack the supply carts, and Sarene completely misconstrues the situation, thinking Raoden a tyrant who is restricting access to food for starving Elantrians. Thankfully, Sarene stops Iadon before he implements his Final Elantrian Solution, deftly outmaneuvering him politically and threatening him in front of his own guards. Meanwhile, Hrathen’s poison has taken effect, seemingly turning him into an Elantrian. He’s thrown into the city, where he proceeds to begin praying. Loudly. When he’s attacked by a group of wildmen, he promptly dispatches them all. Having taken Saolin (now a Hoed following the attack) to dissolve in the pool, Raoden and Galladon witness Hrathen destroying his attackers and are horrified.
Chapter Essentials
POV Character(s): Sarene, Hrathen
Discussion
Chapter 32
Instead of growing angry as Kiin had predicted, Iadon simply avoided her. Whenever Sarene entered a room, heads turned away and eyes looked down. It was as if she were a monster—a vengeful Svrakiss sent to torment them.
L: Poor Sarene can’t catch a break socially.
P: She really can’t. She’s just a fish out of water wherever she goes.
Why, in the blessed name of Domi, she wondered, does everyone in this country feel so threatened by an assertive woman?
L: There are a myriad of answers I could make to this, but I think we can leave it at this: when a society is built upon the foundation of patriarchy, it is necessary to break down that foundation slowly, chip by chip.
P: As much as we wish we could just blow it all to hell, I guess chipping at it is the best way to go about it. But it’s not just people in Arelon who are threatened; people, especially men, in Teo were threatened by her, as well.
“When you accept authority, you must be willing to take responsibility for it at all times—even when you don’t particularly feel like it.”
L: Most certainly not what Sarene wants to hear right now, but probably exactly what she needs to hear.
P: Uncle Ben, is that you?
L: I feel like I need to turn in my Spider-fan card for not seeing that immediately.
“You crept into our hearts and did what no one else, even myself, could have done—you unified us.”
L: You know… Sarene spends a lot of time thinking about how she doesn’t have friends, and maybe she’s right, in a sense. She may not have peers of the same standing whom she’s close to, but she does forge strong relationships with those she inspires.
P: Indeed. I also hope that that the ladies of the court who have been attending her fencing lessons are leaning towards friendship, as well.
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“We’ll have to change our plans. We can’t deal with this one the same way we did Hrathen.”
L: And just like that, given a new challenge, Sarene rises out of her sulk and begins plotting.
P: Now she reminds me of Kaladin. She’s found a new purpose that gives her the strength to keep going.
Sarene found her eyes tracing the constellations of the major Aons. Rao shone directly overhead, a large square with four circles at its sides and a dot in the center. Her own Aon, Ene, crouched barely visible on the horizon.
L: Star-crossed lovers, eh?
“What did you find out?”
“The cook did indeed lose a serving woman this afternoon, my lady. They claim she ran off to be with her brother, who was recently moved to one of the king’s provincial mansions. The man, however swears he hasn’t seen anything of her.”
P: Sarene has had Ashe investigating the latest disappearance of a servant at the palace. Women keep going missing and it’s piqued her interest.
L: It’s another testament to her character that she even noticed. To the upper class, servants are often invisible, and female servants doubly so.
“You look as though your best friend just died,” Roial noted, returning to hand her a cup of blue Jaadorian wine.
“No, just my husband,” Sarene said, sighing.
P: Poor Sarene, destined to be alone forever and assaulted with first Shuden’s lovesick demeanor and then Lukel’s. She’s in a tough situation, for sure.
Sarene squinted, searching deep into the ball of light and trying to make out the glowing Aon. She thought it was Opa.
L: I wonder if there’s a limited number of Seons? Only one per primary aon…? Or can they maybe share “names,” with several “Ashes” in the same way we have various Johns?
Personally speaking, I think there’s only one for each aon. It just seems like something Sanderson would do. And that of course begs the question… can they be killed, or disincorporated like spren? If they can, can another seon be born/created/whatever to fill that gap? This is a lot of “ifs” but I find the whole prospect fascinating.
P: I think you’re right, I think there’s one for each aon. These are some great questions for the man himself!
“I could go get Lord Eondel or one of the others.”
“And leave me to get lost in the sewers on my own?”
“You would never do something that foolish, my lady,” Ashe declared. Then he paused, hovering uncertainly in the air, his Aon so dim it was translucent. “All right,” he finally admitted. “You are indeed that foolish.”
L: It’s a good thing they know one another so well, or this most certainly wouldn’t have worked out for Sarene.
P: Leave it to Sarene to ruin a gorgeous dress by traipsing about in the sewers in order to solve a mystery. Though she ends up finding much more than she was looking for!
“The king had to come to the party; his pride wouldn’t let him stay away. However, his weekly appointment must be important, for he risked leaving early to attend it.”
L: Very, very clever.
P: As she tells Ashe, it’s MaeDal, the same day of the week that Sarene has been hearing a scraping noise in the secret passage that runs by her room since her arrival in Kae. So she arranged to have Roial throw a party on MaeDal in hopes that the king would slip out so she could follow him. Even into the sewers.
Perhaps Prince Raoden lived. Maybe Iadon hadn’t confined him to the dungeons, but in the sewers. Sarene might not be a widow after all.
L: She’s so maddeningly close!
P: And she wants so badly for Raoden not to be dead. Her longing is just painful.
The creatures always knew where they were, and could point the exact direction to any place they had ever been.
L: Because of their inherent link to the magic of the Dor I would assume, and how it’s power is derived from the way the landscape is formed…?
“Merciful Domi,” Sarene whispered. The king stood facing her behind an altar, a red-streaked knife raised in his hand. He was completely naked except for the blood smearing his chest. The remains of an eviscerated young woman lay tied to the altar, her torso sliced open from neck to crotch.
L: Welp. Chalk that up as one I didn’t see coming. This guy definitely wasn’t likable, but he also didn’t strike me as a cultist murderer. But then… as a lover of true crime documentaries, I guess people rarely do.
P: HOW had I forgotten that this happened? Granted, it’s been some time since my last reread but seriously, how could I forget such a thing? Iadon, a supposed devout Korathi, practicing the Jeskeri Mysteries. Shame.
L: And, you know. Murdering innocent women in cold blood.
“Our Derethi friend claimed to have some knowledge on the subject,” Roial said. “He seemed to think the king was petitioning the Jesker spirits to destroy someone for him.”
“Me?” Sarene asked, growing cold despite her blanket.
Roial nodded. “Arteth Dilaf said the instructions were written on the altar in that woman’s blood.”
L: Yikes. I wonder if he’s been sacrificing people every one of the nights he snuck out, and what he was wishing for those other times…
P: The stability of his throne, perhaps? As for whether he’s sacrificed someone each week that Sarene’s been in the city, quite a lot of servants have gone missing.
L: Anyone want to take bets as to whether or not he wished for his son’s “disappearance” as well? Perhaps he did and the conveniently timed “success” was what drove him to start doing it more often.
P: Perhaps… but what I really want to know is what Dilaf was doing there. He knew what was up, he wasn’t there by chance.
“Telrii will almost certainly seize power now,” Ahan said, shaking his head.
L: Well, good job, Sarene. All your carefully laid plans are falling down around your ears.
P: And things were going so well. Stupid Iadon and his stupid human sacrifices.
Chapter 33
He fell into the stupor more and more often lately, his mind fuzzing as he knelt in the same penitent stance. Three days was a long time to spend in prayer.
P: Hrathen is feeling the lack of food and water after three days. You’d think he’d be cramping up something horrible, sitting in the same position with no water to drink. Methinks his time as an Elantrian is coming to an end, though.
L: It had better be, for his sake. The human body can only go three days without water!
There was something beautiful about the pale-faced goddess of the heavens, a mysticism to her eclipse.
…
Hrathen could almost feel her magic.
P: This seems almost a blasphemous line of thought, though he does go on to think that while he could see how a primitive culture could worship the moon, he could not do such a thing.
Was his own belief flawed because he did not regard Jaddeth with the same mixture of curious fear and wonder with which the people of Jesker had regarded the moon?
L: There are certainly different ways to worship, regardless of which god(s) you follow. But in a religion as strict as Hrathen’s… maybe he’s right.
P: I’ve been to conservative church services that were calm and quiet, and I’ve been to some crazy-town happenings. If I were still the kind of person that attended church, I would opt for the former.
He was not a zealot; he would never be a man of extreme passion. In the end, he followed Shu-Dereth because it made sense. That would have to be enough.
L: An interesting amalgamation of logic/science and religion, here. I like this dichotomy; you usually don’t see logic and religion being paired together like this.
P: Hrathen is something else. We can feel sorry for him, we can understand him. Sanderson did such a good job on this character!
L: Yeah, I can’t think of a single other fantasy novel that has a paladin (essentially what Hrathen is, though an argument could be made for monk if we’re going by D&D rules —and I DIGRESS, back to Hrathen!) who is essentially following his religion like Spock from Star Trek would. It’s a really cool shift from the cliché archetype.
He devoured it all—flaccid vegetables, moldy bread, meat, even some of the corn, the hard grains softened slightly by their extended bath in Elantris slime. At the end he downed the entire flask of wine in one prolonged gulp.
L: Okay, I have to wince at eating anything that’s been marinating in slime for days. I’m not sure I’ve ever been that hungry.
P: The Light send that I never am that hungry.
We’ll be leaving further speculation and discussion to you in the comments, and hope to join you there! Next week, we’ll be back with chapters 34 and 35.
Paige resides in New Mexico, of course. Between work and school and the SA5 beta read, she’s trying to work on book 3 of a YA/Crossover trilogy with just a hint of the supernatural. Read book 1 on her Patreon. Links to her other writing are available in her profile.
Lyndsey lives in Connecticut and makes magic wands for a living, as well as working as the costumer for two of her local Renaissance Faires. If you enjoy queer protagonists, snarky humor, and don’t mind some salty language, check out book 1 of her fantasy series. Follow her on Facebook or TikTok!
