Sarene
Princess of Teod and queen of Arelon — wife to the restored Elantrian king who came back from the Hoed for her. Eulogises Hrathen over his open barrow as the man whose dying warning saved her father's armada and whose dying body broke the gragdet of Dakhor off her shoulders. Carries through her sleeve a Korathi pendant of dark stone engraved with Aon Omi. EL:EL:Epilogue
Princess of Teod and Eventeo's daughter, who carried the resistance to Hrathen in Arelon until the gyorn used Forton's mimicking concoction to fake her transformation at her own wedding altar — five days exiled in Elantris before he chose to call her out. EL:EL:Ch 46 superseded at EL:EL:Epilogue
Princess of Teod and Eventeo's daughter, who carried the resistance to Hrathen in Arelon until, lifting her veil at her own wedding to Duke Roial, she discovered the Shaod had taken her in front of every noble in the country. EL:EL:Ch 38 superseded at EL:EL:Ch 46
Princess of Teod — twenty-five, lanky, blonde, sharp-tongued, schooled in her father's diplomatic corps — who arrives in Arelon for a political wedding to Prince Raoden and steps off the ship to be told she is already his widow. EL:EL:Ch 2 superseded at EL:EL:Ch 38
Known facts
- married-to-raoden-by-death-clauseA clause in the Arelene–Teo wedding contract makes the engagement legally equivalent to marriage if either party dies before the ceremony. With Raoden reported dead before her ship docked, Sarene becomes a princess of Arelon and a widow on the same morning, and is bound to stay in Arelon and remain faithful to a dead husband for the treaty to hold.EL:EL:Ch 2
- suspects-iadon-of-raoden-murderAfter hearing Lukel describe how Raoden systematically used Iadon's own laws against him in open court, Sarene privately concludes that the prince's sudden, convenient death may not have been disease at all — possibly the king's own assassins. She does not voice the suspicion aloud.EL:EL:Ch 8
- persuades-lords-to-pilot-land-reformOver Kiin's dinner Sarene sets Raoden's old circle to a wager Iadon himself proposes: turn the king's own system against him by giving the peasants a tenth of what they grow, letting them buy their homes, and proving that free men work harder than slaves. Shuden agrees first; Roial follows on his cover, then Eondel, Edan, and finally Ahan — wholeheartedly, of course, having known she was right all along.EL:EL:Ch 11
- voices-suspicion-iadon-killed-raodenOver wine in the kitchen after the dinner, Sarene presses on Kiin and Roial the possibility that the Arelene crown prince's death was no accident at all — that the prince's coughing-shivers was a king's convenience — and dispatches Ashe to search the royal dungeons for any sign that he is being held alive.EL:EL:Ch 11
- opens-fencing-circle-for-kae-noblewomenSarene turns Eshen's embroidery circle into a recruiting ground for a women's fencing class, leveraging Iadon's contempt for swordplay as commoners' work into permission for the noblewomen to take it up — since by his own logic, what is beneath him cannot offend him. She brings the king around in person at Telrii's ball with a careful imitation of brainless cheer.EL:EL:Ch 14
- inherits-raoden-estateFather Omin points out a thing nobody in court has bothered to tell Sarene: under Iadon's system the crown prince had to be at least as wealthy as a duke, so as Raoden's widow she now sits on a duke's worth of estate in her own right. She intends to spend the inheritance on her Widow's Trial — and to use the Trial to undercut Hrathen by openly favouring the Elantrians the gyorn is teaching Kae to hate.EL:EL:Ch 17
- an-unmarried-shrew-in-teodSarene reveals to her father the calculation that brought her to Arelon in the first place: at twenty-five she was the king of Teod's unmarriageable, gangly, sharp-tongued daughter. No suitor had ever come for her, and the court had openly mocked any man who might; in Arelon as a widow she is, at least, a woman someone was once willing to marry.EL:EL:Ch 17
- secures-entry-to-elantris-for-trialSarene trades a Teo silk contract — brokered live between Iadon and her father Eventeo via Ashe, at a price four times what the silk is worth — for a standing royal exception to the law that bars entry into Elantris. The terms: no more than ten people excluding guards, between an hour before noon and an hour after, as her Widow's Trial.EL:EL:Ch 20
- marks-spirit-as-real-leaderWatching Spirit at the cart — patient, gentle with the crowd, ravenous over a single turnip, observing her too carefully to be anyone's servant — Sarene revises her read on Elantris: this man, not Aanden, is the leader. She sets Ashe to investigate him.EL:EL:Ch 23
- broke-iadonConfronted Iadon alone in his study, threatened to reveal that her Teo grain contracts were what saved his treasury, and forced him to sign a countermand recalling his troops from Elantris — leaving the king weeping at his desk.EL:EL:Ch 29
- broken-engagement-graeoAs a girl in Teod she briefly tried adopting a docile manner and got engaged to Graeo, a count willing to risk the mockery. She broke it off in pity at the altar; the public refusal sealed her reputation as unmarriageable.EL:EL:Ch 32
- engaged-roialWith her Raoden contract dissolved by Iadon's death, Sarene agrees to a political marriage with Duke Roial — her fortune and Iadon-family legitimacy combined with his wealth, to keep Telrii off the throne. The wedding is set for the day of Iadon's funeral.EL:EL:Ch 35
- taken-by-shaodSarene is taken by the Shaod on her wedding day. The veil comes off with her hair in front of the assembled nobility of Arelon, her skin already spotted; the marriage to Roial is broken at the altar.EL:EL:Ch 38
- chooses-arelonRefuses Eventeo's offer to extract her from Elantris back to Teod, naming the Arelene people as hers and binding her fate to theirs even after the Shaod.EL:EL:Ch 41
- shaod-progression-stalledAfter days in Elantris her Shaod is uncannily slow: skin still mostly her own colour, no new wrinkling, no spreading pain, no hunger — none of the degeneration other newcomers show within a few days. Raoden attributes it to New Elantris sparing her the worst.EL:EL:Ch 43
- aondor-strokes-refuse-to-formCannot make Aons appear under her finger; the strokes simply do not start, despite Raoden judging her form correct. Galladon notes that even before the Reod, some students took years to coax their first stroke from the air.EL:EL:Ch 43
- never-actually-elantrianWas never taken by the Shaod; the apparent transformation at her wedding to Roial was Hrathen's use of Forton's mimicking dose on her, the same forgery the gyorn had once used on himself. Five days in Elantris she healed steadily without ever feeling the city's hunger or pain.EL:EL:Ch 46
- engagement-to-roial-dissolvedHer betrothal to Duke Roial is dissolved by mutual consent on the evening of her return from Elantris; with the throne already in Telrii's hand, the political match has nothing left to do, and any further claim would have to come by force.EL:EL:Ch 47
- leky-stickEventeo explains "Leky Stick" to Raoden at some point between rescue and altar, and the king teases his wife with it every chance he gets after. A father's nickname from a childhood his new husband had not seen.EL:EL:Ch 63
Events
- EL:EL:Ch 22 Watched, unaware, from Raoden's rooftop: she calms the cart-horses, surveys the slimed courtyard, then whips the cover off the cart to reveal it loaded with food. Raoden recognises her on sight.
- EL:EL:Ch 25 Hands Spirit boxes from the cart and tells him to be nice to Torena — the only noblewoman who has dared come — because if he scares the girl away no other woman will follow.
- EL:EL:Ch 28 Trapped between Eondel's line and a dying wildman muttering that all he had wanted was a share of the bread, sees the overstuffed sacks Spirit had set aside and names him a tyrant before fleeing the gate.
- EL:EL:Ch 39 Led from the throne room by Korathi priests in shock, the wedding party still around her.
- EL:EL:Ch 40 Curled against the stone of the gate in her sacrificial whites, head buried in her knees, hair gone, skin already mottled with the Shaod. Eventually takes Spirit's offered hand and rises.
- EL:EL:Ch 43 Found in a nook of the underground library with Wyrn the King open in front of her; her Shaod is moving unusually slowly and she has abandoned AonDor practice for political histories. Confesses to dethroning Iadon.
- EL:EL:Ch 46 Reads at her desk; provides the missing key — every Aon opens with a sketch of Arelon — then is found to be silently healing.
- EL:EL:Ch 46 Dragged from the library to the gate; refuses to leave New Elantris until Raoden tells her the city will starve without help from outside.
- EL:EL:Ch 55 Pressed against Raoden's side on Kiin's roof; talks him into showing his real face and gets her shaved scalp regrown by an AonDor Aon.
- EL:EL:Ch 56 On the roof with Raoden when the Guard ride out to acknowledge him; sits with Shuden through the funeral pyre.
- EL:EL:Ch 56 Turns the silence after Raoden's illusion drops into a speech, kneels first, and personally sets the dropped crown on his head.
- EL:EL:Ch 59 Snatched off Kiin's roof by Dakhor monks the instant she shows herself; held at knifepoint while Dilaf calls her father.
- EL:EL:Ch 60 Inside the Dakhor ring with Hrathen when Kae vanishes; deposited on a rooftop above Teoras bay to wait while Dilaf's monks gather.
- EL:EL:Ch 60 Held by the neck and gagged at Dilaf's side as he walks her toward Eventeo under his blade.
- EL:EL:Ch 61 The blade about to cut her throat is the moment Hrathen turns; she is shoved into the alley behind him.
- EL:EL:Ch 62 Crouches over Hrathen in the street as the light leaves his eyes, hand pressed to a wound she cannot close.
- EL:EL:Ch 62 Finds a sword somewhere and fences Dilaf until his bone wardings flare and his blade goes through her shoulder.
- EL:EL:Ch 63 Adjusts Raoden's gold jacket in the chapel, swears she is not letting go until somebody marries them, and kisses him at the altar.
- EL:HoE:Prologue Walks into the dining room pregnant belly first, agreeing with Ashe that Aeo for bravery is an apt name for Matisse's seon.
Relations
- relatedRoial — Engaged on the day of Iadon's funeral as a marriage of political convenience. EL:EL:Ch 35
Backreferences
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 2
- factRaoden
- factSarene
- factAshe
- factTeod
- factEventeo
- factKetol
- factWyrn
- factDio
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 5
- factSeon
- factGyorn
- factKiin
- factDaora
- factSvorden
- factJinDo
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 8
- factSarene
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 9
- factHrathen
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 11
- factSarene
- factSarene
- factRoial
- factShuden
- factWidow's Trial
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 14
- factSarene
- factHrathen
- factShuden
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 15
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 16
- factRaoden
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 17
- factSarene
- factSarene
- factOmin
- factSyre
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 20
- factIadon
- factIadon
- factIadon
- factSarene
- factKiin
- factMeala
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 22
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 23
- factRaoden
- factSarene
- factKarata
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 24
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 25
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 26
- factIadon
- factKiin
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 27
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 28
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 29
- factElantrians
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 31
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 32
- factIadon
- factIadon
- factGraeo
- factOpa
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 35
- factSarene
- factRoial
- factSeinalan
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 36
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 38
- factSarene
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 39
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 41
- factAshe
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 43
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 44
- factTelrii
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 45
- factEventeo
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 46
- factHrathen
- factAonDor
- factAtad Mountains
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 47
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 49
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 50
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 52
- factRaoden
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 53
- factRaoden
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 54
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 55
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 56
- factRaoden
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 57
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 58
- factKiin
- factAon Reo
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 59
- factRaoden
- factDilaf
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 60
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 61
- factEshen
- factHrathen
- factHrathen
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 62
- factHrathen
- factHrathen
- summaryEL:EL:Ch 63
- factRaoden
- summaryEL:EL:Epilogue
- factHrathen
- factAhan
- summaryEL:HoE:Prologue