Elantris Ars Arcanum: The Researcher

Ars Arcanum: The Researcher

So some mysterious researcher has travelled to the planet Arelon is on (it's called Sel) and seems to know a lot more about everything (including that there are other plantets with other magic systems). The researcher seems to think that the Aons pre-date the people of Arelon and were taught to them. I always assumed it was some ancient technology that people knew how to use but did not understand.

Before the magic can be used, one must undergo some process called Investiture. For example, waking up one morning with glowing skin completely at random.

There is something called a "full Shard of Adonalsium". Presumably this is some space-travelling tech that powers the magic.

Also, all the gods are dead (including Domi and Jaddeth, presumably) and no-one knows this, but the corpses of the gods are somehow powering the magic.

Fascinating!

Elantris epilogue: Sarene

Sarene arrives to speak at Hrathen's funeral. We learn that Raoden has set up court inside Elantris. I am not sure this is the best idea: wouldn't the people prefer the king to be a little closer to them, not some aloof god-like creature? Maybe not. Then we learn that Raoden has arranged for the nobility to distribute food to the poor. This seems a bit socialist to me. Who will produce the food if there is no profit in it? Then again, I suppose the Elantrians can make free food again now. It's a post-scarcity economy and people will mainly be making YouTube videos from now on.

Sarene makes sure everyone knows that without Hrathen's efforts to save Arelon, Teod would have been overrun, Raoden would be dead, and Arelon would have been taken over by Fjordells.

But thanks to Hrathen, everyone lives happily ever after.

Elantris 63: Raoden

Raoden and Sarene get married. They live happily ever after, though, even as his bride walks up the aisle, Raoden is troubled that Wryn is learning to tap the Dor in another way with his super powered monks. Luckily, Shuden also seems to be able to tap the Dor by doing a fancy dance. Probably there are all kinds of new magics to rediscover. What about those Mysteries?

Elantris 62: Sarene, Hrathen, Raoden and Dilaf

Sarene has a chat with Hrathen, wondering at his change of heart but not learning much. Then Fjon, the priest Hrathen expelled when he arrived in Arelon, turns up out of nowhere and sticks a sword in Hrathen. Turns out he ended up being trained as an assassin. So that's the end of Hrathen. Then Dilaf turns up.

Meanwhile back in Arelon Raoden finishes healing people and then decides he has to teleport to Teod to rescue Sarene. At least he's surprised she got there so fast, I was beginning to think it was only me. Anyway it's really dangerous to teleport without typing in the correct distance, and this is where Adien finally comes in handy: he know exactly how many steps it is! Also since becoming an Elantrian he has regained is full mental faculties.

Raoden turns up just in the nick of time to save Sarene but he only slows Dilaf down. He can't teleport them home because the magic is weak this far from home. Dilaf has hundreds of monks attack them. Just in the nick of time Galladon turns up with hundreds of Elantrians. The Elantrians win but Dilaf escapes to attack Sarene's father. Raoden pursues and fights Dilaf but is injured. Just in the nick of time Sarene turns up to help but she gets injured, too. Just in the nick of time Hrathen, who is apparently not dead and has a bionic arm, turns up and snaps Dilaf's neck with his bionic arm before dropping dead for real this time.

Just in the nick of time Galladon shows up and heals Raoden and Sarene. They live happily ever after.

Elantris 61: Hrathen, Raoden, Lukel, Sarene, Galladon and Dilaf

Dilaf is about to stick his dagger into Sarene's neck, but Hrathen has finally had enough. He's realised he's a baddie, and doesn't want to continue. So he punches Dilaf in the face and fights off another ninja monk and grabs Sarene and runs off. It turns out the superhuman ninja monks are not as formindable when they don't have the element of surprise and you do, and when you know what you are dealing with and its weak spots, and when you are wearing armour that looks like ceremonial armour but is in fact real armour.

Hrathen and Sarene make their escape.

Meanwhile Lukas and family are watching as the Fjordells set fire to the Elantrians and Raoden is climbing back out of the lake, becuase luckilky it doesn't dissolve you unless you want to be dissolved, and Raoden has changed his mind. He goes running off down the hill and Galladon and Karata follow. They realise Raoden must be doing something important so they fight off some guards who would otherwise have stopped him. Karata gets her head chopped off and Galladon gets a sword stuck in him.

Just in the nick of time Raoden draws the right Aon in the right place and reboots the Elantrian Magic Machine, complete with a cinematic light show. Hurray! The Elantrians now turn into proper Elantrians and instantly heal. It's probably too late for poor Karata, though. Raoden goes into the city and tells the Fjordells to leave within the hour.

None of this is going to help Sarene much, because she is in another city still on the run. And Dilaf is in pursuit.

Elantris 60: Galladon, Lukel, Hrathen and Raoden

It turns out Galladon and Karata are nearby lurking in the shadows and they have been watching in horror. But all they can do is carry Raoden to the lake. There's no hope from anyone else in Elantris, either, because Galladon has seen that everyone there is already Hoed.

Meanwhile Kiin and his family are being marched off to Elantris with all the other nobles to be burned.

To be honest, this was always going to happen. Arelon had a warlike neighbour invading every nearby country and didn't even bother to maintain a decent military to defend itself. This is why pacifism doesn't work: sometimes the war comes to you. They had an effective defense in the form of Elantrian technology, but when that stopped working they didn't replace it with anything.

Aiden is counting the steps to Elantris. This has to be significant. I thought it was significant when we first found out that Kiin had an autistic son: he's either going to turn out to have some superpower or else some great insight that will kickstart the magic.

Sarene, Hrathen, Dilaf and some of the superhuman monks teleport to Teoras. Where did that ability come from? It's pretty expensive because, like all good dark magic, it requires a human sacrifice, but still, you'd think someone would have mentioned it. Or be more surprised if it had been kept a secret. Maybe I wasn't paying attention.

Dilaf is doing that other bad guy thing of smugly assuming he has already won; that Arelon and Elantris have already been defeated. But he's not in Arelon any more so anything could be happening there and probably is.

Galladon tries to give up hope but can't. He's carrying Raoden to the pool. He's just watched all his friends get hacked to pieces. Even I'm stuggling to figure out what hope there might be, though.

Aiden continues to mumble numbers, Sanderson tells us yet again. HINT HINT WINK WINK. Most of the super monks have teleported away so it's mostly just regular soldiers guarding the prisoners. Dilaf really is doing dumb bad guy stuff. Lukel is planning to start fihgting back and Shuden is there too but it's going to take more than two guys.

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Dilaf has a heart to heart with Hrathen. It turns out that his girlfriend was the legendary woman whose healing was botched once. That's why he has such a chip on his shoulder about Elantris. Dilaf is 70 years old but looks 20. Hrathen was confused earlier about why he seemed so wily for one so young. Probably we could have figured out he was a super monk back then.

Galladon and Karata reach the lake. They are going to wait a minute then kill Raoden and themselves in the lake. Something needs to happen soon to stop them.

Lukel watches as soldiers make a pile of Elantrian bodies. It turns out Aiden is an Elantrian and Kiin and family have been keeping this a secret for years. A soldier wounds him and Aiden goes and joins the pile of Elantrians. That would seem to rule out Aiden somehow saving everyone. Unless he can do some Elantrian magic at the last minute.

Hrathen and Dilaf realise they were at the monastery together, and Dilaf was in charge even back then. Hrathen left after Dilaf used a human sacrifice to teleport himself the distance of a short walk. Will Hrathen stand up to Dilaf now? Will it do any good? Wryn's ships have arrived and the Teo ships are all docked so Dilaf thinks he has won again.

Raoden, who has been dreaming, has a vision of his namesake Aon and realises it is the same shape as Elantris and the four surounding cities. He has a Eureka moment but we will have to wait and see what it is.

Lukel watches soldiers pour oil over the Hoed Elantrians.

Dilaf and Hrathen go to see Eventeo with Sarene. Dilaf decides to kill her in front of her father.

Raoden knows the answer. But we don't! And now it is too late because Raoden is in the pool! Argh! Can he do something in the last few seconds before he disappears?

Elantris 59: Raoden, Sarene and Hrathen

Raoden finds himself slung over the back of a horse and taken off to Kiin's house to lure Sarene out. He's not in a good way. He's been hit on the head and he's in a lot of pain and is dizzy. Which means he's going to be in a lot of pain and dizzy forever, magical miracle rescue notwithstanding.

Sarene is determined not to put her family at risk to save Raoden, but thinks the least she can do is go to the roof to see him and say goodbye. Unfortunately Dilaf and his ninjas overcome Kiin's moat and they scale the walls and snatch Sarene and family right off the roof.

Dilaf phones up Sarene's dad and tells him he's holding his daughter hostage. Dilaf tells him he's about to pay him a visit by private jet (or some other fast travel system, presumably, because I don't see how else he can get to Teoras in one hour. Nobody seems surprised by this but perhaps they are distracted by the ultimatum: surrender or the girl gets it. Dilaf then does the typical bad guy thing and explains the whole plan: kill the royal family and sink the ships, then use Teod as a demonstration of power.

Dilaf sticks his sword into Raoden's belly and Raoden is now Hoed. Turns out this isn't quite as bad as it might have been, since he does at least lose conciousness.

Dilaf orders his men to take all the people to Elantris and burn everytone.

It's not looking good, is it? Galladon or someone had better have someting up their sleeve.

Elantris 58: Raoden, Sarene and Hrathen

Raoden is back in Roial's house. Shouldn't he be at the palace now? Anyway, he wakes to the sound of fighting in the city, and what's worse, Dilaf in his house with a bunch of demon soldiers. It looks like these are superhuman ninja priests with armoured bare chests. They fight off Raoden's guards without getting scratched and capture Raoden.

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Sarene is out arranging deliveries of weapons to Elantris because they're concerned about upcoming unrest due to Raoden becoming king. Little does she know she's about to be attacked by marauding superhuman ninja monks. The demons are running around slaughtering everyone in sight. The see Sarene. Her coachman is killed. She makes a run for Kiin's house but is caught.

Luckily, it turns out that Kiin is more of a total badass than his friendly merchant-chef persona lets on. Kiin the axe wielding hero actually manages to kill one of the monsters, though it takes a lot of effort. They escape to his house where all their friends are hiding (including Shuden and the previously missing Torena) and collapse the bridge. We finally learn why Sarene's dad doesn't like his brother: it turns out Eventeo stole the throne from his older brother while Kiin was off partying. So Kiin became the pirate Dreok Crushedthroat and learnt very useful fighting skills in the process.

Presumably Sarene is about to start worrying about Raoden but the viewpoint changes to Hrathen, who is learning all about Dilaf. It turns out Hrathen also went to the Dakhor monastery where monks are given potions to transform their bodies and give them superhuman abilities (dark magic I expect rather pre-dates Shu-Dereth, as that book Sarene found would no doubt explain), but Hrathen dropped out.

Dilaf did not drop out. He became a super-human ninja monk and has been hiding out in Arelon for decades preparing for the invasion. He also outranks Hrathen because he is a gradget, in charge of the Dakhor monastery. This rather explains his previous insolence. Hrathen's only purpose was to serve as a distraction. The real aim is to kill everyone in Arelon and wipe out the Elantrians forever.

Uh-oh.

The only hope now is for someone in Elantris to switch the magic back up to full power and use it to fight back. Who can do it? No-one in Elantris is as good at Aon magic as Raoden (although he sent Galladon back to teach people about AonDor and we don't know what has been happening there lately; hopefully someone there turns out to be a natural magician once given the opportunity). Raoden is captured. Can he use his magic to escape?

Elantris 57: Hrathen

We see the coronation scene from Hrathen's point of view. Hrathen is at first miffed that Sarene has managed to get people to accept some impostor. Then he is miffed that the people accept the Elantrian Raoden. Hrathen figures out that Raoden has been in Elantris all along.

Hrathen once again questions his own strategy. He's so full of doubt, this guy! It's a wonder he achieved anything.

He follows Dilaf into the city and finds out that Wryns army of ninja priests is already here. The invasion is starting early, presumably triggered by Telrii's insolence at asking to be a gyorn.

Elantris 56: Sarene

Shuden is not happy because his best friend Eondel is dead, his betrothed Torena has disappeared (a mystery to be solved later) and her dad Ahan turned out to be a traitor (and is still at large, possibly having escaped somewhere with his daughter).

City guard soldiers approach Roial's house. Raoden decides to parley, which turns out to be the right move because the soldiers are looking for a king.

Raoden decides to claim the throne and heads straight to the coronation ceremony. It's the latest in a long line of ceremonies in which people turn into Elantrians at the key moment. Dilaf somehow interferes with Raoden's magic disguise. What power does Dilaf have over AonDor?

It's not as bad as it could be: Sarene makes a rousing speech and persuades the assembled nobility to accept Elantrian Raoden as king. It seems to work. Personally I'd be a bit more worried about the peasantry: will they accept an undead king supported by a wife who came back from the dead? It seems far from a given. And peasants can be revolting.

Elantris 55: Raoden

In which Raoden and Sarene decide to get married. Sarene is a bit annoyed that she didn't figure out Spirit's identity sooner, but she's not as annoyed as I thought she would be, probably because she is mainly relieved. Raoden uses magic to make her hair grow back, since Hrathen's poison made it fall out. It seems the Elantrian magic is powerful enough to be useful.

Through magic binoculars they learn that Eondel and Telrii are dead.

Elantris 54: Hrathen

Here we go. Hrathen doesn't believe Raoden has returned and assumes it's a rumour spread by Sarene. He goes to see Telrii but he turns out to be busy being overthrown. Eondel and his soldiers are fighting the city guards. Eondel chops off Telrii's head and collapses himself. The bloody change in power is under way.

I expect the change in power is done and dusted, or will be soon. Now Raoden and Sarene can take the throne and live happily ever after. And restore Elantris to its former glory. And fight off Fjorden hordes. But probably not in that order.

Elantris 53: Sarene and Raoden

It's all happening at the secret meeting! They discuss various methods of deposing Telrii, such as raising an army of peasants or having him assassinated. Raoden drops out of character accidentally and Sarene figures out that he is Spirit. In the kitchen they have a nice chat, but Spirit lets on that he has more secrets.

Roial has hired some assassins and they are ready to go. But Ahan turns out to be a spy and has summoned the king and his guards to arrest everyone. They stick a sword in poor old Roial. Then Raoden reveals himself as Raoden! The soldiers don't want to attack him and they run off, and the Telrii is not far behind them.

Raoden explains himself somewhat. He tries to heal Roial but the magic isn't strong enough. Eondel calls him king. Sarene realises she has a husband.

All they have to do now is unite the people behind Raoden and defend the realm against the superior might of the Fjordells. Easy!

Elantris 52: Raoden

Ok I was wrong. Raoden is playing the part of the Dula and Galladon is the servant. The plan is to wriggle his way into Arelene high society and get invited to Roial's meetings. I'm not sure why the secrecy when surely playing the "I am the highly popular and previously thought to be dead prince with a blood claim to the throne, follow me!" strategy would be simpler. What possible influence could a newcomer Dula wield that would be worth risking so much to exercise?

He's not doing too badly. He's had Roial sell his gold light fittings for enough money to live comfortably on for several years. Those are some pretty awesome light fittings! Presumably they came from the secret library. How much other treasure is lying around in Elantris? The Elantrians are missing a trick.

Somehow, through sheer charm, Raoden as Kaloo gets invited to the secret meeting of traitors. Roial is awfully trusting.

Elantris 51: Hrathen

Hrathen wanders the market and spots an arteth going into a tent. He follows, annoyed that arteths are wandering the market when they are supposed to be praying. It turns out to be Dilaf, who is very disrespectful. I say again: what is the point of a strict hierarchical structure if you can't just have your underlings' heads chopped off if they so much as look at you funny? Dilaf is claiming some sort of victory and Hrathen is left wondering what it is.

Oh, we also learn that Wryn is not going to make Telrii a gyorn (because he's a foreigner). So that means he either converts (and the whole country converts with him) or else Wryn will attack with ninja priests. Or possibly Telrii will be overthrown by Sarene and Raoden just in time for them to be attacked by Wryn. We'd better hope the Elantrian magic is back up to full strength by then.

Elantris 50: Sarene

Hrathen is threatening to force everyone to convert religions, which if it happens will likely result in Sarene and her friends being arrested and executed (presumably because they would not be trusted to convert). Telrii is hesitating for now, but there is a sense of urgency about getting him off the throne.

She visits Roial's mansion where the fencing practice is now done. Roial has a new visitor, a mysterious Dula refugee named Kaloo (and his servant). Sarene is suspicious of him and challenges him to a duel and is surprised that he does not bleed when she pokes him with her sword. That means he's an Elantrian. It must be Galladon in disguise and the servant is Raoden. It must be a very good disguise.

Elantris 49: Raoden

Well, it's all going to happen now. Raoden is in the library trying to figure out why the Aons don't work any more. Elements of Aons looks like features on maps of Araluen, so what changed in Araluen? Of course it was the earthquake that opened a chasm: a chasm not caused by the Reod but that caused the Reod! It's all so obvious now.

Raoden makes an Aon that shoots fire. This releases a lot of energy, and via Scooby Doo logic he knows he will no longer have the attacks of pain he's been getting twice a day. So that will buy him more time to work on this. But after that first successful spell the pressure has been released somewhat and Aons work only weakly. And they can't cast spells on Elantrians because they aren't proper Elantrians; they're stuck half way.

So, our heroes have new powers but they still have work to do. Raoden at least manages to make himself a magical disguise that makes it look as if he has been healed. He's planning to use that to escape Elantris. Maybe he can keep up the disguise, marry Sarene, and take up the throne. He'll just have to be careful not to bang his funnybone.

Elantris 48: Hrathen

Hrathen is annoyed that he is not being shown enough courtesy by the king he helped crown. But no big deal, he's going to pay the king more Fjorden money and eventually render him powerless. Except Telrii doesn't want money. He wants to be a gyorn just like Hrathen, and he's written to the supreme ruler of the universe Wryn to demand that it be so.

Hrathen thinks that this is a bit preposterous and presumably assumes that Wryn will just send armies to kill everyone who doesn't convert. That all of his efforts to take Araluen peacefully have been in vain. I suspect Wryn will play along for a while longer, though.

Hrathen is dazed. Probably he should have seen it coming; Telrii is supposedly not all that smart. I guess he's the Donald Trump of kings: not caring about convention and doing what he wants, which is both vulgar and surprising.

Elantris 47: Sarene

Hrathen meets Sarene outside the gates. She tells him that she knows what he did. Her friends attack him but he fights them off and goes away, leaving them. He says that her father will convert to Shu-Dereth now, which rattles her.

But now presumably she is still free. Free to make a fuss and tell everyone what Hrathen did. Surely she still has reputation enough to do damage to Hrathen. He seems unconcerned about that for now, though.

Sarene goes back to her uncle Kiin's house and spends a few pages eating. Roial is there and he accepts that Hrathen was behind Sarene's adventure. There is discussion of the difficulty of taking action against Telrii since it would be treason. They agree to sleep on it.

Sarene calls her dad and amazingly, he is determined to go through with his conversion even though he knows Hrathen was behind his daughter's curse. It makes no sense to do this out of honour, since the promise was made under false pretences. But he says Fjorden will overwhelm Teod eventually anyway so he might as well surrender. Oh dear.

Even if our gang overthrow Telrii by force, Araluen has no defence against Fjorden. Their only hope is to solve the Elantrian magic problem, but apart from Raoden, no-one is working on that. And no-one expects it to be possible anyway. Something is going to have to change about that.

Elantris 46: Raoden

Raoden and Sarene make idle chit-chat while Raoden practices his Aons and she reads. Hrathen is apparently screaming at his god to heal Elantris, which Sarene finds to be a strange change of heart. Presumably this is part of the theatre to convice people that he was the one who healed Sarene.

Raoden and Sarene discuss the main important mystery: why the Elantrian magic stopped working. If they could solve that and fix things all the other problems will go away, since Elantrian magic beats Fjordell might every time. Sarene hits on the notion that Aons look a bit like a map of Arelon. This comes as a complete revelation to Raoden and Galladon. Maybe they're just drawing the Aons wrong now that the land has changed shape or something like that.

Probably the Elantrian computer systems just downloaded an auto update and the shell has changed from Bash to Dash and it's broken a bunch of scripts. That happened to me once.

Anyway, Sarene is suddenly healed and they figure out the whole Hrathen poison trick. Raoden immediately takes Sarene to the gates and tells her to return and go and fix Arelon. I'm not sure what the rush is, but ok.

Elantris 45: Hrathen

Hrathen is wandering the Elantris walls again. He finds the hole but decides not to report it. The Elantrians aren't too much of a worry to him.

Now Telrii is king, his plan is to continue to ply him with money to get him increasingly indebted to Fjorden, thus undermining his power. Sounds plausible, since Telrii is greedy and easily manipulated.

We find out that Hrathen is worried about Sarene and wants her to live. That's a turn up for the books. I was assuming he thought throwing her in Elantris would get rid of her. Why does he want her alive? Her father phones him up and somewhat answers that question. Seems like he is going to pretend to have Jaddeth save her in return for her father, the king of Teod, converting to Shu-Dereth.

So he's going to claim credit for that. Interesting.

Elantris 44: Sarene

Sarene explains everything that has happened on the outside. Raoden is pretending to have been in Elantris a bit longer than he really has. Sarene is impressed at how well he seems to know all the people she knows. He just says it's important for even minor nobles to keep up to speed on the major nobles.

Raoden almost gives the game away when he reveals he knows about Sarene's marriage contract, but she doesn't follow this up.

She sends Ashe off to find out the latest news and he returns to say that Telrii is already king. That was a bit quick. So much for Sarene getting out of Elantris in time to stop it.

Elantris 43: Raoden

Raoden and Galladon get to the top of the wall. The look out and see that the guards are at Telrii's house. They decide to ask Sarene what is going on, since despite spending every waking hour with Raoden she hasn't told him anything.

In an expository interlude we learn about the risk of invasion once Fjordell sees a chance. The Arelenes are a bit pacifist and helpless after centuries of relying on ancient alien technology to protect them.

Sarene is doing rather unusually well and her injuries don't even hurt. Come on Raoden, figure it out! She's not hungry because hes feeding her. This is what Hrathen won't be expecting. She'll be better in no time and back to take over. She can't draw Aons because she's not an Elantrian. Instead she reads books about politics. Apparently the Fjordell priests made up their history to make themselves look cooler.

Raoden is shocked to learn his dad killed himself. Maybe now he'll reveal his identity.

Elantris 42: Hrathen

Hrathen is feeling smug. Dilaf is under control. Telrii will be king within the week. He's got 6 weeks before the deadline to take the country without force. I'm willing to bet he's wrong on all counts and things are soon going to start going very wrong for him.

Elantris 41: Sarene

Raoden shows Sarene New Elantris. She likes him again now that she has seen what he has done and that the people like him.

New Elantris is such a happy place that children are running in the streets. Is that wise? What if they scrape a knee and it never heals? I think there was something about the Shaod not being as bad for children, but still. I'm worried.

Sarene sees a mad seon and assumes that Ashe will be like that. But he won't, since she was not really taken. I wonder if she will figure it out before she gets better.

Raoden is pretending to be some minor noble. I don't know why he doesn't tell her the truth at this point. It's getting weird. She's going to be annoyed when she does find out.

Sarene feels the cold but other Elantrians don't. Come on, Sarene, figure it out! Even Ashe the seon comes to visit her, proving her seon is not mad like the others. She sends him off to tell her family she's ok, but first she phone's her dad. He tells her his spies say that Telrii is waiting a few days before taking the throne. Will she get better in time to leave the city and put a stop to it? Her dad wants to break her out but she's having none of it. She thinks she can still help.

Elantris 40: Raoden

Raoden and Galladon find a stairway to the top of the wall. They're keen to look out because the city guards have disappeared.

Sarene arrives. Annoyingly Raoden is still keeping his identity a secret. He convinces her to go with him.

Elantris 39: Hrathen

The shortest chapter ever mainly confirms that Sarene was poisoned.

Elantris 38: Sarene

Sarene is suspicious of Hrathen's recovery. She knows it must have been a trick.

The head of the Korathi religion, the patriarch Seinalan arrives in town from Teod. He's ostensibly there for the king's funeral but Sarene wonders if he has other reasons to visit.

The funeral happens. It is short and to the point. Sarene notices that Telrii looks frustrated, presumably because she is going to marry Roial which eliminates his claim on the throne. I am not so sure. Then the patriarch makes an announcement. Turns out Iadon left a will that fixed all the titles in place after his death. His plan was to have people fight for noble positions, and then let the winners keep them. This also changes the rules of succession to the crown but Sarene assumes that strengthens her claim.

She's still going to marry Roial, though. Belt and braces, I suppose. Though I'm not entirely sure what the rules of succession are now. Iadon doesn't have another son. It's all a bit vague.

At the wedding Hrathen looks calm. Hrathen and Telrii are definitely up to something. There is something of the badly playing band about them. The wedding goes well until Sarene lifts her veil and everyone screams. Looks like Hrathen has given Sarene the fake Shaod poison.

Oh boy, now all the set up is going to pay off. Sarene is going to be thrown into Elantris, meet Raoden, and find out that she's still actually married to him. Then they'll find out that she hasn't really got Shaod. Hrathen probably expects her to die of starvation in Elantris, but Raoden probably has some sort of food supply and she'll be fine. She'll emerge a few days later and it will look like she has healed. That might help with her claim to the throne!

Elantris 37: Raoden

Raoden is getting attacks of sudden intense pain. At first he thinks he is hoed, but it turns out he glows when it happens. The theory is that the AonDor, the magical power of Elantris, is trying to escape through him.

Although it has given some of their followers hope, Galladon and Raoden are suspicious of Hrathen's recovery.