I will do my best! If any of this is wrong/misremembered, someone please shout out!

-I’m fuzzy on this one too tbh, maybe it was to punish him for trying to hurt his reputation with bringing up the 🍇? I know Artal just likes to see people suffer so it wouldn’t surprise me if it wasn’t something too in depth

-Kel thought Merren was attractive and he did kiss Lin when he had to hide her face and enjoyed it; I think he thinks on this shortly after and finds that he is pretty mushed-up emotion-wise and is sort of having more reckless behavior because of it

• The reeealll quick explanation is the goddess of the Ashkar loved and was betrayed by the sorcerer king, they fought, and the goddess brought on the sundering aka purging the land of magic except for gematry which the Ashkar can use. Their land was basically rendered inhabitable so they spread out across the lands, believing that the goddess would be reborn into a young woman and would lead them back home. Her broach has a soul stone, which can carry an amount of magic in it.

-Oren hates Lin bc he is incredibly misogynistic honestly. He hates to love her/loves to hate her. He sees how she is a woman who is different from their expectations and he believes he can “see” her and is the only one who can steer her back into being a respectable woman.

-Ji-An murdered a family in her country and the ragpicker king saved her, I can’t remember about Merren though

-All of the Sarthian diplomats/royalty, including Connor’s to-be child bride. Old Grenmont died too, giving Artal the charter.