Zondophan

I have a slightly ridiculous theory. In the flashback of Eshonai after she falls into the chasm, there is something I thought was interesting, though it would be easy to overlook or think nothing of it. When she is being swept by the current of water, at one point she grabs onto a boulder. But it also mentions that “in a rumbling flash, her boulder shifted”. Earlier it is mentioned that it is an enormous boulder lodged into the centre of the chasm. When Venli finds Thude and the other listeners, there is a chasm fiend that seems to have helped them escape the chasms “that night, during the storm”. Now this may be a stretch, but maybe the boulder that Eshonai held onto that shifted was a chasm fiend bracing itself/wedging itself during the storm. It seems that Eshonai does die, but the way it’s described is somewhat vague. Perhaps she either survived and bonded the chasm fiend somehow, saving the others afterward, or she did die bodily, but now lives in the chasmfiend , and saved them with her new form. Crazy maybe, but who knows?