Elayne Kevarian’s Story So Far
Some of this is adapted from other essays, some is brand new. Enjoy!
Everyone’s favourite Craftswoman, Elayne Kevarian, requires no introduction. So let’s jump right in. As we approach the publication of Dead Hand Rule, let’s take a look at Elayne’s story so far.
Elayne Kevarian before the series
We have heard a little about Elayne Kevarian’s experience in the God Wars, but precious little else. The official timeline tells us she was born in 1423, in the latter half of the God Wars - born into an era defined by the battle between the gods and the Craft, even if the Wars were yet to officially begin in Northern Kath.
Like many Craftsfolk, Elayne discovered her abilities young. She describes teaching herself how to tickle trout at the age of five (not quite as exciting as Tara catching a fallen star in a storm, but impressive nonetheless). This became noticed around her village, but did not seem to immediately cause concern.
She was 12 when she had to run from her neighbours who sought to kill her.
We don’t know about her family, whether they were part of the same mob or helped her hide. Whether they were even alive at this point. Elayne keeps bad memories locked up tight, so even her POV pages don’t tell us much.
We also don’t know how she reached safety, only that she ran away to the Hidden Schools. She tells Mina that she joined the war at 13, and that the Hidden Schools were frequently under threat; it’s unclear if she is referring to war at the Schools at 13, or something else. The Schools can fly, after all. Were they a place of sanctuary and teaching back then, or mobile war camps?
We don’t have a precise timeline of Elayne’s wars, other than knowing she was at the Liberation of Dresediel Lex directly after the Semioticists’ Rebellion in Southern Kath. She was 17 at this point, and had been on the battlefield in some shape or form for four years. She made her first kill at 14. We also know she went to the Shining Empire, razed the Askoshan Necropolis, burned down a forest and killed five gods to kill one man who hurt her friends, and saw gripfire used in the Schwarzwald. She was battle hardened and terrifying. Denovo describes her as more bloodthirsty than he was, and the King in Red recalls a young woman in the vanguard of his army, smiting their enemies.
A lot changed for Elayne at Liberation. She worked alongside the King in Red to try to broker peace, and it all went wrong. Kopil killed the last of the Quechal gods and their priests; Elayne found Temoc speared through the stomach with a thorn of ice and healed him. The Wars continued after Liberation, so we can imagine Elayne was moved elsewhere to fight other gods - but saving Temoc seems to have been a turning point for her.
In the books, many years on, she recalls the Wars as horrific. She believed the rule of Craftsfolk was supposed to build a better, safer world - and when speaking to Dawn, says she thinks it has improved somewhat, despite its flaws.
After the Wars, she worked with Alexander Denovo to create Justice from the corpse of Seril. He is already working on his whole mind control thing, and uses Elayne as one of his early experiments. It was an unpleasant experience for her, and when she broke free she ensured no private firm would ever hire him again.
Since then, Elayne appears to have lived a busy and fulfilling life as partner in Kelethres, Albrecht, and Ao. She has a close relationship with named partner Belladonna Albrecht, though we don’t yet know how they met or the specifics of their dynamic - friends, mentor/mentee, employer/employee? I hope we will see!
Elayne seems to love her work, and being on the road. We hear about her being based in the Dresediel Lex office for a while, working in the Shining Empire, having a history with the Ajaian priesthood, spending time in Alt Selene, representing Grimwald Holdings. When visiting Club Xiltanda, someone tries to kill her because of an old case she worked on, and somebody else invites her to play bridge. We also know that at some point she started to build a sort of insurance policy for herself with Craft, giving up an hour every single day and somehow storing it, able to access the time when she needs it most. It’s pretty cool, she uses some of her hours up in Wicked Problems - worth a reread.
Some of the things mentioned likely happened before the first book in the series chronologically, and some probably happened between that book at the next time we see Elayne some 20 years later. Unless we get a comprehensive timeline from Gladstone, we cannot know for sure.
But we do know for certain that, around forty years after Liberation, Elayne was back in Dresediel Lex working for the King in Red…
Last First Snow
Forty years after Liberation, Elayne returns to Dresediel Lex as partner in a Craft firm, to negotiate land rights between The King in Red and investors in the city. The deal Elayne has worked on for months is about to be agreed, when she learns Temoc is back in the city, peacefully leading a protest against the new developments in the Skittersill area of the city.
At the scene of the protests, she sees him seemingly about to sacrifice a worshipper, and stops him with the Craft. It’s the first time she has seen him since she saved his life, it appears. He convinces her that he isn’t going to harm anyone, and she lets him go, watching him perform a new bloodless rite to try and placate his remaining weakened gods.
He invites her back to meet his wife and son, and Elayne is extremely out of her depth. She doesn’t do domestic. But she bonds with Mina, plays cards with Caleb, and catches up on a little of what has happened in the last forty years. She ensures Mina has her business card in case things go wrong.
Elayne mediates between Temoc’s people and the King in Red to find a new solution for the Skittersill. It’s hardgoing, but eventually the relevant parties come to agreement, meet in Chakal Square to sign a treaty…
And a riot breaks out. Investor Tan Batac is shot. Wardens - Dresediel Lex’s police force - retaliate against the crowd. A child dies. Wardens and the King in Red refuse to hand over the man who killed the child, and thus the peaceful protest becomes a violent uprising. The King in Red is happy to fight back. Temoc leaves to be with his family. Elayne attempts to hold the line and keep peace as much as she can.
Unfortunately, “as much as she can” isn’t all that much in this case. Kopil is thrilled to have an excuse to fight the God Wars all over again, and some third party is fomenting dissent within the Chakal Square camp. Elayne is able to track down the company printing seditious newspapers, but can’t do much to stop calls for violence going out.
She can’t succeed. Not against this. And even Temoc, who seemed committed to remaining out of the fight, is convinced to rejoin - which Elayne learns when Mina turns up at her hotel room door, nearly faint, with a bleeding Caleb in her arms. Temoc has carved Quechal priestly glyphs into his skin in an attempt to protect him.
Elayne gets the two of them priority treatment at hospital - Caleb is, now, the son of the leader of the riot, and the King in Red will want him as a potential hostage. In the hospital, she visits Tan Batac and finds that a representative of his insurance company is still at his bedside. She puts pieces together - Batac arranged for his own shooting, in order to prevent the new deal from being signed. If the Skittersill burns before the contract takes hold, he isn’t liable.
She persuades the King in Red to sign on his behalf. This shouldn’t work, legally, but the King in Red can guarantee that Batac will sign it when he wakes.
Back in the Square, Temoc is asked by a dying protestor to sacrifice him to the gods, feed them and get more power back. Temoc does so, breaking the last possibility of peace - the King in Red will destroy the Square and the Skittersill Uprising the next day using God Wars weapons.
Elayne is forced to promise not to intervene to protect the people of the Skittersill - and a promise with the Craft cannot be broken without breaking your own mind. She finds a loophole, and is able to save much of the Skittersill itself, if not its people. Speaking to Temoc, she does manage to convince him to persuade as many people as possible to leave. Many do, but not enough.
Elayne finds herself questioning her choices - on this day, over the course of her work in Dresediel Lex, across her entire life. She believes in the power of the Craft to improve the world, but this battle is showing her only how it destroys.
“She had warned them. And the King in Red had warned her. No aid and comfort to the enemy. And she said yes.
Elayne said yes, because she did not want to fight the King in Red. Because the Craft was the way of peace, truth, freedom. So she believed. If the system is broken, do what you can from within to fix it. What else was there?
The argument tasted like sand in her mouth. She said yes for those reasons, and also because she could not defeat the King in Red in his own city.
…
A peacemaker. A restorer of life. That was what she wanted to be. A counsellor.
And so far she had failed.
Soon, at least, the fires would go out.”
Gripfire falls from the sky. The King in Red rides the corpse of a dragon into battle. The few remaining gods rise up and make some of the dead into weapons, but they can’t fight against the might of the King in Red. The Skittersill Uprising is brutally quashed.At the last minute, Elayne finds herself praying - and someone, or something, answers her. It saves Temoc at her request.
Elayne leaves Dresediel Lex a changed woman. She cannot forgive either the King in Red or Temoc for what they have done. She asks Mina if she can drop in from time to time to check on her and Caleb. And, finally, she confides in a knowledgeable golem working for Kelethres, Albrecht, and Ao, about the strange answer to her prayers in Chakal Square.
We know she does indeed drop in to DL to see Mina and Caleb. Caleb grows up playing cards against her and calls her Auntie Elayne. It’s honestly incredibly sweet and I need someone to write about this for me.
Three Parts Dead
Elayne has clearly been keeping an eye on Alexander Denovo’s research and his work at the Hidden Schools. When student Tara Abernathy burns his lab down and is thrown from the Schools, Elayne is watching. Tara remembers that as her professors held her over empty space, “a soft, unexpected touch—a woman’s hand sliding into her pocket, an alto whisper before gravity took hold. ‘If you survive this, I’ll find you.’ Then the fall.”
It seems that Elayne immediately set to work trying to convince Belladonna Albrecht that they should hire Tara. She had the paperwork ready to go, but the senior partners were not swayed. Conveniently for Elayne’s plan, when the Church of Kos came calling, she was assigned to the case and permitted to choose her own staff. She went for Tara Abernathy, just in time to save her from a mob of neighbours after she unwisely decided to resurrect recently deceased townsfolk as guards for the town. The timing is serendipitous, but I like to think Elayne had kept an eye on her future protegee over the past few months.
“Thunder rolled, and a woman appeared, hovering three feet above the ground, long white scarf flaring in the fierce breeze. She wore a dark, severe suit, with narrow white vertical stripes as if drawn by a fine brush. Her skin was pale, her hair iron grey, her eyes open black pits.
Her smile, on the other hand, was inviting. Even welcoming.
“You are about to attack my assistant,” she said in a voice that was soft, but carried, “who is helping your community for no fee but the satisfaction of working for the public good. We are required elsewhere. Keep the zombies. You may need them.”
What an entrance.
The new co-workers fly to Alt Coulumb. There is a little hiccup where something stops them flying, sending Tara into the ocean and Elayne to the ship she arranged to meet them. Her old friend Raz Pelham, who she turned into a vampire to save his life forty years ago, was waiting to meet them - though she planned a more restrained landing.
Elayne sends Tara to meet an old contact of Elayne’s, while Elayne meets Cardinal Gustave, the man who has hired them. When Tara arrives back at the Sanctum of Kos accompanied by Abelard, the young priest who was at the scene of the murder, so to speak, Elayne immediately notices that Kos is in fact hiding in Abelard’s cigarette. Not so dead after all then. Tara also reveals to her that gargoyles are back in the city - which Elayne realises means something is happenign with Seril. Her impressive mind starts turning, and she works on an undercover plan that we don’t get to learn about until the end.
Elayne was chosen for this case because she has history with the Church of Kos - the old Seril case. It makes sense to her, therefore, that her colleague on that case, Alexander Denovo, is a likely choice for opposing counsel. She knows him well, and I think there is at least a chance she suspects he had a hand in the Kos situation, though she does not as yet have proof.
Knowing that Kos is actually alive, and hiding with Abelard, she ensures Abelard is never alone. At first that means sending him off with Tara for document review. She receives a letter from Denovo with a nasty curse, which she is of course able to shake off. She then arranges a dream meeting with Denovo, and sneaks Tara in a backdoor so she isn’t surprised by his appearance in court. Tara has managed to hospitalise herself by saving Raz Pelham from a mental attack by an unknown Craftsperson. Once again, she has no proof, but I imagine Elayne is even more suspicious of Denovo at this point. He’s the opposing counsel, and is possibly the Craftsman most skilled in mind control.
Unwilling to let Denovo attempt to take a look in her mind, and to see how well Tara will handle things, she gets Tara to represent Kos in the opening arguments. She watches carefully. Tara wins the first encounter with difficulty, but Elayne says she has done well. She sends Tara off for further research, while she takes Abelard along with her as she meets key stakeholders around the city. We later learn that she is telling them that Kos is alive, inviting Abelard along to prove the seemingly crazy story to them, and ensuring they withdraw any support they have given to Denovo, slightly weakening him.
Oh, and she also kills Abelard so Kos will bring him back. This more than Abelard’s cigarette is what proves her point for her.
I never said that Elayne was nice.
While Elayne speaks to Cardinal Gustave, Abelard goes into the boiler room to work out why things have been working strangely. He recovers an odd knife, and accidentally releases some kind of shadow beast that chases him. Elayne comes to the rescue, compressing the shadow beast to the size of a sweet and swallowing it. This is important for later.
Elayne sends Abelard after Tara, telling him to tell Tara everything that has happened in detail. She knows she won’t be able to. To ensure Denovo makes his move, and that she and Tara can therefore stop him, she needs him to feel he has won an advantage over her. That means going to a dinner date with him, and allowing him to take over her mind.
This can’t have been easy for Elayne. She’s fiercely independent and private, and knows exactly what Denovo is capable of. But she’s willing to put her safety and sanity on the line to stop him - and she trusts Tara to be able to save her and Kos. Because he is truly awful, he kisses Elayne against her will.
Denovo takes Elayne to the Temple of Justice after Tara (and everyone else) is arrested. He corroborates Tara’s story. Tara realises Denovo is trying to take the power Kos attempted to transfer to Seril for himself. As a fight breaks out, Cardinal Gustave appears in flame - he had betrayed Kos to work with Denovo against Seril. Abelard is killed.
At the battle’s climax, Elayne regains some control over her body and creates a resurrection circle in her own blood to bring back Kos (and alongside him, Abelard). With Kos resurrected, Seril somewhat restored to Herself, Gustave dead and Denovo in custody, the main Alt Coulumb plot ends.
As Elayne prepares to leave the city for their next assignment, Tara decides that she wants to remain in Alt Coulumb as Kos’s in-house counsel, to rebuild what was broken. Elayne is disappointed, but understands.
And before Elayne leaves, she visits Denovo in his cell, which is warded against Craft or divine interference. As a Craftsman, he is destined for immortality and is happy to wait for the tides to change. But remember that shadow monster Elayne swallowed earlier? When Denovo kissed her, she passed the shadow monster into him - and now uses it to kill him once and for all.
What. A. Badass.
Elayne shows up super briefly a year later in Four Roads Cross when Tara asks her to represent the Church of Kos. Unfortunately she is in the middle of a delicate case and cannot leave, but recommends another Craftsperson in the firm, and is willing to write an introduction letter to the King in Red so Tara can meet with him.
Then, a little while later, we see her properly in Kavekana.
Full Fathom Five
On the tropical island of Kavekana, theologian investment bankers build idols for the world’s richest to store their soulstuff off shore. Kai Pohala is one such priestess. When an idol, nicknamed Seven Alpha, is scheduled to drown because of trades gone wrong, Kai tries to save her. She fails, ending up badly injured.
The idol’s owner, Grimwald, hires Elayne Kevarian to investigate. Like investments in our world, investments in idols can go wrong and the investor can lose everything they put in. But the fact that Kai tried to save the idol shows that perhaps the priesthood was at fault, not the market.
Elayne interviews everyone involved, including Kai, through nightmares. Through Kai’s eyes, Elayne is scary af. I certainly wouldn’t want to be on the opposite side of a courtroom, battlefield, or deposition nightmare as Elayne. While Kai is still in a hospital bed, Elayne interrogates her, trying to ascertain whether the idol’s assigned priestess, Mara Ceyla, was negligent. But Elayne is also asking questions that in retrospect seem a little suspicious.
When asking Kai about Seven Alpha, Elayne questions whether idols are conscious or self-aware. Do they have personhood? This doesn’t seem entirely out of place in the scene itself, but once we’ve reached the end of the book and the reveal that the idols were, in fact, part of a larger newborn god, it seems rather more suspicious. And remember, Elayne is working for Grimwald.
Does Elayne actually know that the idols are coming to life? Does Grimwald? I’m not sure either of them do, not for certain, but I do think they are both suspicious. Knowing both of them as we do, I doubt they have discussed these suspicions with each other. But Grimwald has been trying to shape the course of history itself. He wouldn’t have let the Kavekanese build their idols without investigating.
And Elayne Kevarian is smart. She noticed Kos in Abelard’s cigarette within seconds of meeting the priest. And we mustn’t forget that she prayed at the end of Last First Snow and doesn’t quite know what answered her. She understands how gods develop, and knows Alexander Denovo was working on connecting minds and souls into a greater network he could control. These disparate pieces could come together in an analytical mind to make Elayne question quite what is going on in the pool atop Kavekana’ai.
We don’t know, and likely will never know unless someone asks Gladstone. But I do like this interpretation.
After this, Elayne isn’t particularly closely involved with Kai, and she doesn’t seem to come across Izza Jalai, so we don’t get much of her work on-page. She is, however, hounding the priesthood and becoming an absolute pain in the Order’s neck. The head of the Order, Jace Kol, reassigns Kai away from the pool and her idols. He claims this is to keep Elayne at arms length, showing her and her client that Kai is considered irrational and therefore her account of the idol’s death shouldn’t be trusted.
But Elayne, naturally, keeps digging. Mara complains to Kai that “their Craftswoman, Kevarian, she keeps digging for more information about Seven Alpha. Nothing’s enough. I don’t even know what she’s looking for.” Mara has been interrogated three times.
We later find out that Mara is telling the truth. She doesn’t know what Kevarian is looking for, because when Seven Alpha was discovered, Jace made a deal with Mara to wipe her memories of the case. She wouldn’t even realise the memories were gone, were Elayne not continually questioning her.
Mara is confused. She goes to Elayne for help, and we see the pair of them going back through a simulation of Seven Alpha’s unlife and death. Elayne accuses Mara of manipulating records. She’s found discrepancies.
We see this from Kai’s perspective when she sneaks in to the simulation for her own ends. Kai suspects that Elayne is trying to map the idol network, and Jace confirms she requested to do so. Is that for this case specifically, or to try and get information about the potential existence of a god? I’m inclined towards the latter, given my theory above.
“I thought we were in danger. I thought Ms Kevarian and her clients might be trying to learn about other idols—to use their suit as a pretext to map the pool, to learn our secrets. [But] they haven’t pushed discovery that far back.”
“They tried,” Jace said. “We stopped them.”
“Then Kevarian does want to map the pool.”
“Kevarian wants every scrap of information she can pull from us. Everything she doesn’t yet know is a potential weapon in her case.”
“They have a plan,” she said. “There’s something deeper at work here.”
And then Mara goes missing. Elayne searches for her through nightmares, and stumbles across none other than Kai Pohala. They are both looking for Mara Ceyla. Elayne tries to get Kai to share information with her, but given Kai’s experience thus far it isn’t surprising that she refuses.
Elayne reveals that Mara came to her, not the other way round, and ran when she realised Kai was in the simulation. She also says she has “uncovered a series of artful stories, and [Kai]—the piece of the puzzle that does not fit. Plagued by misplaced loyalties to superiors who have sidelined and betrayed her.” This sounds like a line to Kai, but from what we know of Elayne I think she means it. Sure, she’s manipulating Kai, she’s a Craftswoman. It’s more natural than breathing. But I think she also does see that Kai is being used, and wants to work with her, help her.
“Do you trust me?”
“No.”
She nodded. “I doubted you would. A colleague…a friend once accused me of using people, of manipulating them without their knowledge. She did not understand, I think, how difficult it is to convince others you have their best interests at heart.”
Oh, Elayne. Tara’s words really stayed with her. I’m glad she considers them friends.
Back to the case at hand. Although Kai does not trust Elayne by the end of the conversation, it doesn’t end especially antagonistically. They seem to respect one another. Elayne says she wishes she could help Kai, but she can only help if Kai lets her.
This conversation is around 60% through the book. Imagine if Kai actually shared her intel here. We’d be done in ten pages, and nobody else would need to be locked inside a Penitent.
That is not, however, the case. Kai continues to try to work things out alone, and it all goes even more wrong. But Elayne, I think, is watching. After Izza Jalai sneaks into Kai’s house while Kai sleeps, and threatens Kai over the death of Edmond Margot, Kai finds a business card in her hand - a business card with Elayne Kevarian’s name on it.
Kai uses the card at a pertinent moment at the climax of the book. She, Cat, Teo, and Izza have broken into the pool to rescue the shard of Seril, and the Blue Lady. Kai tears the business card, calling Elayne, who then witnesses Kai confronting Jace, and Jace confessing to everything - knowing about the god in the pool, and deliberately killing the idols that came to life.
Elayne will sue the Order and Jace, but that happens after the book ends. She got her confirmation about a god being born in the pool, and one can only presume Grimwald did too.
Wicked Problems
We don’t see Elayne for a couple of books and a few in-world years, but we later find out that she pops into Alt Coulumb fairly often, which I adore and desperately want to read.
She is aware of the Dawn Situation thanks to Tara writing letters, though she doesn’t have all the details. When Dawn steals the skazzerai shard and the heart of Ajaia with it, Elayne is called to represent the priesthood of Ajaia; the priesthood sues Kai, which implies to me that Elayne was the one who sent Kai the notification that interrupted Kai’s date. The more things change, the more they stay the same etc.
Elayne’s work for the Ajaians takes her to Dresediel Lex. I assume she tracked Dawn to the Shining Empire and back to DL, as Caleb and Abelard did. She shows up at the perfect time (my favourite deus ex machina) to save Tlaloc Observatory from godfire, rescuing Caleb, Abelard and Mina in person.
She briefly moves the Observatory into space to put out the fire (iconic). Abelard is awestruck both by her power and by Caleb running to hug her with a shout of Auntie Elayne!
Caleb’s view of Elayne amuses me, so quoting it in full here:
“Auntie Elayne was not just Auntie Elayne. Of course he knew that. Her practice might keep her away for months or a year, but she always came back, sweeping in on the wings of a storm with an arched eyebrow and a pack of cards from some city he’d thought only existed seven hundred years ago, because that’s where it featured in his mom’s books. On her visits, she did not talk about work. Part of her job as a Craftswoman was to hold the great secrets of the world, and however boring she claimed those secrets to be, she took her responsibilities seriously. When he was older he’d realised there was another reason for her silence: a shadow of guilt.
She had been a friend, or something, of Dad’s in the Wars, though she’d been on the other side. Caleb did not think there was anything Auntie Elayne could have done to stop the Skittersill Rising or to save his family. But she had a card player’s tendency to review. Did I make the right choices for the right reasons?
But here she was in his mother’s house, talking about work. With Abelard. Who, he gathered, had once been PART of her work. As had Tara Abernathy.
It explained too much.”
My heart.
The four of them have some Big Discussions at Mina’s house, and it becomes clear to both Mina and Caleb that Elayne is there for another reason. She suspects - rightly, as it turns out - that Mina helped Temoc and Dawn sneak into Tlaloc Observatory. Caleb takes his mother outside to talk to her about it, while Elayne and Abelard remain together. This lovely reunion is interrupted by the arrival of some Wardens to arrest Caleb and Abelard.
I like to think Elayne and Mina spent some time together after this, though Elayne likely had to quickly leave to get back to work. We see her the next day on the beach when Dawn is adventuring around DL, acting like the normal girl she will never be again. They have a somewhat cryptic conversation, and bond as much as you can in a few minutes of conversation. Elayne says she is glad Dawn is free, no longer getting hurt. She shares that after she herself was hurt, she tried to build a world that was better - and it is, a little.
And she asks Dawn whether it was she who answered Elayne’s prayer all the way back in Last First Snow. It was, we learn.
The two of them part when the Arsenals show up. I can only imagine how worrying Elayne’s presence was to them. Elayne wordlessly offers her help to Dawn, should Dawn want it, but Dawn says it’s okay. Elayne takes her leave.
Elayne then goes to meet her old colleague, the golem Zack, whom she told about the prayer at the end of Last First Snow. He is extremely paranoid, and gives her all sorts of weird instructions to follow to throw of a tail. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work - when she met Dawn, a grey man latched onto her, and followed her to Zack’s lair. He and Zack kinda fight, and both die. Elayne only survives by using a sort of Craft life preserver she developed herself and which she has been strengthening for years.
When, some time later, she comes back to herself, she knows she must find Dawn. She sees a glow on the horizon, and goes to it immediately, finding herself at the cavern of the Twin Serpents. She sets wards around the area to prevent any spillover from the battle, and goes in to find the King in Red is fighting Temoc, as always. When grey men attack, she saves Temoc, and then chats to Kopil (possibly for the first time in 30 plus years). Their dynamic remains perfect as always, so have another quote:
“The King in Red revolved to face her. “And I was just starting to have fun.”
“I regret to inform you,” she said, “that your amusement is not the organising principle of the cosmos.”
“I shall take a memo. Did I see you help Temoc?”
“I will not have that conversation with you at this time.”
“While I was up here fighting for my life?”
“You just said you were having fun. You can’t have it both ways.”
“Who says?”
“Logic.”
“I must take another memo.”
The battle is over, and Dawn flies off with her people. But fire rages. Elayne’s wards, that she hoped would buy time, are burned through in mere seconds. Kopil is fighting back with all his power and talent, but it isn’t enough. Abelard, saint of the fire god Kos, walks into the flames. Elayne and Kopil, soon joined by Tara Abernathy, blast him with cold to try and save him as he saves the city.
After all is done, Tara blames herself for everything. Elayne tries to comfort her, but it doesn’t quite work.
And that’s the end of the book, and thus the end of Elayne Kevarian’s story so far.
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