Editing Kholinar Palace

{{architecture
|image=Kholinar palace plans.png
|usage={{cat tag|Palaces|Palace}}
|city=Kholinar
|nation=Alethkar
|world=Roshar
|universe=[[Cosmere]]
|books=[[The Stormlight Archive]]
}}
{{update|sa4}}
'''Kholinar Palace''' is the seat of [[House Kholin]], [[Kholin princedom]] and the nation of [[Alethkar]].

== Layout ==
{{image|Kholinar palace plans.png|width=400px|side=right|Plans of the palace's main level}}
The Palace is located in the northern portion of the city of [[Kholinar]], atop a large plateau. {{map ref|Kholinar}}

The main building of the palace stands between the Monastery Dais and the Sunmaker Park. The main entrance leads to twin ballrooms - presumably, a separate one for men and for women. Both ballrooms have access to the garden that forms the northern side of the palace. Directly adjacent to the Grand Entry are the palace garrison and the guest quarters. From the latter, one may reach the Eastern Gallery and through it, the Sunwalk, which leads to the Monastery Dais. 

The lower floors of the palace have broad and wide corridors. The palace basements house the unloading docks, used to transport cargo to and from the palace plateau. The upper floors are narrow and cavernous. The royal quarters are located there.{{book ref|sa3|prologue}}

==== Monastery Dais ====
The Monastery Dais is a large, almost perfectly circular platform near the main building, and may be technically considered part of the palace complex. As its name indicates, it houses the Kholinar ardentia. Notable features include the King's Chapel and a room, the Circle of Memories, with eleven lanterns. The ardents believe that the lanterns represent the [[Silver Kingdoms]], with the last one marking the [[Tranquiline Halls]].{{book ref|sa2|i|12}}

In actuality, the room is the Kholinar [[Oathgate]] chamber, and the entire dais is the Oathgate platform.{{book ref|sa3|86}}

==== People's Hall ====
The People's Hall is a separate building within the palace complex. It's a large, open-air structure sitting in the shadow of the palace. In contrast to other parts of the complex, it is open to the public, as it is from there that the reigning monarch can address the common people of the city. It also holds a dais with the '''Common Throne''', where the king or queen sits while making pronouncements. It is there that [[Pai]] chooses to write her denouncement of [[Aesudan Kholin]].{{book ref|sa2|i|12}}

==== Beggars' Porch ====
The Beggars' Porch is a small patio in the back of the palace gardens, so named because the city's homeless often come there, hoping for some charity from the royal family. During the time between [[Evi]] and [[Gavilar]]'s deaths, [[Dalinar Kholin]] would visit it often to get alcohol from the beggars, as his family would hide it from him. It was also there that the [[Herald]] [[Jezrien]] could be found, under the nickname Ahu.{{book ref|sa3|88}} Whether the Porch still remains in this capacity after Gavilar's death is unclear.

==== The Catacombs ====
The catacombs are located in the depths of the palace. They can be reached through the eastern wing, by the same passage that leads into the kitchens and the Beggars' Porch.{{book ref|sa3|88}} It's a stone structure composed of long corridors, with a central chamber spacious enough to hold several dozen people, lit with real fires rather than spherelight. Funerals for the [[lighteyes]] of House Kholin take place there, and their bodies, [[Soulcast]] to stone, are placed upright along the walls of both the main chamber and the tunnels surrounding it.{{book ref|sa3|105}}{{book ref|sa3|63}}

== Palace Guard and Queen's Guard ==
The Kholinar Palace has two forces tasked with protecting it: the '''Palace Guard''' and the '''Queen's Guard'''. The Palace Guard is responsible for protecting both the palace and the city of Kholinar, while the Queen's Guard is responsible for protecting the queen and the royal heir, who in the current times are [[Aesudan Kholin|Aesudan]] and [[Gavinor Kholin]]. 

Due to the actions of Queen Aesudan, the Queen's Guard has been corrupted either during the [[siege of Kholinar]] or shortly before that by the forces of Odium. Aesudan refers to them as her "Knights Radiant".{{book ref|ob|84}}

== History ==
It is unclear when the palace was built, or when it became the seat of the Kholin family. Likely, it was already in their possession by the time of unification of Alethkar, as it became the seat of the Alethi government following [[Gavilar Kholin|King Gavilar]]'s ascension to the Alethi throne. 

King Gavilar was [[Assassination of Gavilar|assassinated]] in the palace by [[Szeth]] during a peace celebration with the [[listeners]].{{book ref|sa1|prologue}} Following that, his son, king [[Elhokar]], moved to the [[Pinnacle]] on the [[Shattered Plains]], so as to be closer to the fighting there. Queen [[Aesudan]] - and, later, Prince [[Gavinor]] - remained at the Palace, along with the widowed queen [[Navani Kholin]], as Aesudan was managing the kingdom in her husband's absence.

At some point after Navani left for the Shattered Plains, the palace came under the influence of the [[Unmade]] [[Ashertmarn]]. This caused the queen to begin acting increasingly erratically, throwing food away to rot, hosting excessively lavish parties and losing interest in ruling Alethkar. The situation came to a peak when ardent [[Pai]] was executed for publicly denouncing this new lifestyle, causing wide-spread riots in the city.{{book ref|sa3|i|12}}

After the riots, the queen recalled her guard into the palace, and appears to have fallen fully under the influence of both Ashertmarn and [[Yelig-nar]]. Anyone to enter the palace would never return, either killed by the Queen's Guard or subsumed by Ashertmarn, while the spren of the [[Oathgate]] beneath the Monastery Dais were subverted by [[Sja-anat]]. During that period, the [[Cult of Moments]] held feasts in the Monastery Dais. A portion of the Palace Guard resisted the lure of the Unmade and were locked in a room. After their release, they claimed that time seemed to pass differently for them, feeling it has only been a few days, not a few weeks, since the riots.{{book ref|sa3|84}} 

The strike team led by Elhokar Kholin tried and failed to re-take the Palace from the queen.{{book ref|sa3|85}} After the king's death and [[Kholinar]]'s fall, the [[Fused]] appear to have made the Palace the centre of their operations in the city, and began to dig it out from under the rubble in search of the [[Design|Cryptic]] that was supposed to bond Elhokar.{{book ref|sa3|epilogue}}{{wob ref|10817}} [[Hoid]] finds her first though, saving and then later bonding her.{{wob ref|10746}}

== Notes ==
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