Chapter 15
1-2: NAN BALAT
Overview
This chapter (an interlude) introduces the second son of House-family, demonstrating his disturbing habit of torturing small animals to manage his emotional distress. While reclining at his family's estate in western J ah-keved, he reflects on his sister's dangerous mission and his broken family's circumstances before receiving an urgent summons from his brother.
Summary
The chapter opens with the character indulging in his soothing yet sickening habit of torturing a crab on the mansion porch. He is twenty-three years old and walks with a cane due to a severe leg break from an unspecified past incident; the surgeon nearly amputated it entirely. As he pulls off the crab's legs, he reflects on his family's troubled dynamics and his sister's recent departure six months ago. She has sent word via spanreed that she has successfully become the ward of the political heavyweight lady, positioning herself to steal a precious artefact—the mysterious and invaluable power-object known as a
Characters
- balatprotagonist of this interlude; crippled twenty-three-year-old who soothes anxiety by mutilating small creatures, reflecting on his family's trauma and his sister's dangerous theft mission
- shallanmentioned as his departed sister who has gone on a dangerous mission to rob an important woman; has recently sent word of her progress via spanreed
- scrakbalat's axehound that he encounters playing with a songling in the sitting green
- wikimbalat's younger brother who appears at the chapter's end with urgent news for him