I AM IN HELL

There’s a little piece of magic that Brennan hasn’t gone into detail about just yet from the first episode that keeps nagging at me.

Julien’s curse.

What we know about it: After Julien interacted with Thjazi’s body at the funeral by spitting on it, a shadow followed him out the door. Brennan describes Julien’s shadow now as especially dark, unnaturally so.

To my knowledge Julien hasn’t been pinged by a paladin divine sense or otherwise checked out by an arcane ability. He doesn’t even know that there’s something supernaturally wrong with him. He hasn’t shown any combat abilities or roll modifiers that would correspond to a curse or a new ability from this shadow, so what is it?

That flashback of the Soldiers combat keeps coming back to me, where Thjazi summoned shadows to fight. I had assumed the shadows were a feature of the Liar’s Blade- but if they are, then Hal hasn’t used that ability in combat yet.

Perhaps the shadows are a part of whatever Thjazi did to get his magic, since we know he isn’t a sorcerer. He tells young Occtis that there are many ways to get magic.

What if Thjazi’s shadow was a part of his soul or his post mortem consciousness and it attached to Julien at the funeral? What if Thjazi’s soul is hitching a ride in Julien’s shadow?

Out of the people who showed at the funeral, Julien is the one that absolutely nobody would be checking for any connection to Thjazi. He’s not an ally, but he is familiar enough to Thjazi and he was always in close quarters to Aranessa.

If I’m right about the timeline - Thjazi’s soul was in his body at the execution (obviously).

Then there is a stretch of time where his body is being watched by the funeral goers, and specifically Thaisha who would have noticed anything out of place physically or spiritually while she was preparing him and performing the Farramh.

Then he is in Hal’s care, until he is buried up on the hill. I’m assuming that after the burial is when Tachonis tried to mess with the body and put their scar on him, the mark on his body that Thaisha found just over a week after the burial.

We know that Tachonis didn’t get their hands on his soul, presumably because it wasn’t there. So where did it go between the execution and the Tachonis meddling attempt? Surely Thaisha would have noticed it missing when she was preparing him to walk the Path? So when did it disappear? Where did it go?

We’ve learned some important info about him post mortem - his soul is unreachable by Speak with Dead, and the Tachonis gave him the scar

Based on the titan skeleton nightmare Thaisha and the squad saw at the cemetery and the ghastly face of Nullus Tachonis, Thjazi is NOT a puppet of House Tachonis, despite their best efforts to make him so. “Bring him to me” means they don’t have him.

The Speak with Dead not working could mean that the Tachonis already tried to do so. In the wording of the spell, it states that the spell fails if the corpse was the target of the spell within the last 10 days. Thjazi was executed 11 days prior to this casting of the spell (unless my timeline is off but I think it was 11). It is entirely possible that someone, likely a Tachonis, used a Speak with Dead spell after his burial, which would fall within the spell’s 10 day limit. If that were the case it would also explain how the Tachonis gave him the scar without anyone at the funeral noticing anything amiss on his body.

Out of order because I’m still wrapping my head around everything from this episode:

Sylandri, the elven god of life made her people sterile, they could only have children if they prayed to her and asked her for them. It’s SO tyrannical, and further demonstrates that Azgra wasn’t the only cruel Shaper. The moment with Vaelus and Hannan was SO good, I want more of them together.

The Pariah blades were reforged already, by Shadia Fang with magic paint, a Lloy by blood changing the intent of an object!! I LOVED this moment, I love when Brennan has these little bait and switch moments that gut punch you

Thjazi Fang being unreachable by Speak with Dead!! I think this confirms that he allowed his death to happen, and that wily motherfucker is still running schemes we don’t know about. If Team Birdwatching gets to Mara and she’s still alive, I’m eager to hear what she has to say about him.

Teor and Cyd are awesome together and I have even more questions about their power source, how it’s growing? Given the class of paladin, they’ve gotta have an oath of some kind, but there’s no confirmation that that is how paladins work in Araman, maybe they’ve changed like how clerics have changed? There’s still a well of power somewhere that they’re tapping into they just don’t know it’s form yet?

Azune is KILLING it as a lying-liar-who-lies for someone who just broke down about it. Otto Einfasen saying that he recognizes something in him is very interesting to me, because he could be literally referring to the familiarity Azune put on with Alter Self, or he could be referring to Azune’s sorcerous ability. I’m very interested to see if House Einfasen backs the research into Azune’s power, to see where it came from.

The Sundered Houses dinner is going to be SO intense, and Wick is getting a front row seat.

I’m so glad Demodus made it out okay, I think it would have severely hurt the Schemer’s relationship if that went sideways. Seeing Murray get to give Demodus another shot at life, at practicing magic, getting him safe was so great to watch. 10/10 best professor

I’m loving Julien more and more with every episode, his douchey facade keeps crumbling and I LOVE it. He’s off his balance with the group back together again, compared to the last time he saw everyone. His family is fracturing, his home is gone, and his new allies are challenging him. He’s been confronted by a few people now who have told him they know him, Teor and Azune saw Julien during the Rebellion, though beyond telling him they know what happened, nobody has said any details about it. Bolaire knows about his vices and his party lifestyle, apparently having a hand in enabling his behavior? I’m very interested to learn more about that. And now Tyranny is hinting that they may have hooked up? Julien doesn’t remember it, which suggests more of the partying, but we also know Tyranny hasn’t been on the material plane very long, only a few months, so this had to be a relatively recent encounter that Julien isn’t remembering. Also “he’s a crier” has me wondering if maybe Tyranny was present for a Julien drunk/high meltdown moment

Of the three groups for next week I am the least worried for the theater team. They’re the largest team and are as prepared as they can be for the show/ritual.

Yanessa makes a comment to the effect of “I’m too important to go to your silly little show, that’s beneath me” and if we assume the other Houses have that same mentality, then we know the play won’t have any of the heads of houses present.

Thjazi and The Cloak have been stalking Tachonis (and maybe the other houses) and swiping their ritual components to use for whatever is going down at the Round.

So the Sundered Houses have their meeting coming up for the same night, a meeting that is unrelated to the theater and Thjazi’s plan.

From what we have learned so far, we know Einfasen wants to confront Tachonis, Cormoray wants to confront Tachonis, Halovar wants to confront Tachonis, and Tachonis are up to something. (Rip Royce)

The houses seem pretty divided at the moment, even Tachonis itself, with Petra and Ryah voicing their concerns about Primus abandoning the politics they’ve been playing.

The houses all seemed to have a hand in the assassination attempt on King Gus, and that didn’t quite go as planned thanks to our Schemers, so that’s likely an issue on the table for the meeting as well.