#heralds

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RereadingThe Way of Kings - Chapter 33 (Cymatics) when Shallan is in the Palanaeum library in Kharbranth:

A light flickering through nearby bookcases startled her, and she tucked away her folio. It turned out to be just an old, berobed female ardent, shuffling with a lantern and followed by a parshman servant. She didn’t look in Shallan’s direction as she turned between two rows of shelves, her lantern’s light shining out through the spaces between the books. Lit that way - with her figure hidden but the light streaming between the shelves - it looked as if one of the Heralds themselves were walking through the stacks.

Which made me go “hey, what if - ”

So I checked Coppermind, and it turns out that, yes, Brandon has confirmed that this is Pailiah, the Herald associated with Truthwatchers! (Battar, the Herald associated with Elsecallers, is also in Kharbranth and was part of Taravangian’s Diagram group - she’s briefly mentioned in ROW Interlude 3.)

Given that the Truthwatchers are all about seeking out and revealing true and accurate information, and all the Heralds who broke the Oathpact have become their antitheses, and she’s in the greatest library and archive in the world, it’s almost certain that she is either destroying books or falsifying them.

That makes Chanah (Dustbringers) and Vedel (Edgedancers) the only Heralds still unaccounted for, which lends additional credence to a certain Book 5 theory.

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