The Teller of Small Fortunes

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of racism, emotional abuse, and death.

Tao, the novel’s protagonist, is a young Shinn woman working as a traveling fortune teller in Eshtera. She carefully limits herself to reading only “small fortunes” to avoid using her greater vision after the traumatic childhood experience of foreseeing her father’s death. Having fled her stepfather’s home in Margrave to escape joining Eshtera’s Guild of Mages, Tao has built emotional walls around herself. She travels alone with her mule Laohu, convinced that solitude is the safest way to avoid pain, loss, and rejection. Her guardedness is further shaped by the discrimination she encounters throughout Eshtera due to her Shinn features, though she has lived in Eshtera since her childhood. As a result, she feels like she belongs to neither Shinara nor Eshtera. 

At the novel’s start, Tao sees her independence as a shield for her loneliness as well as a point of pride. Her lifestyle is defined by constant movement and surface-level interactions, but to her, it signifies freedom. Struggling with The Weight of Foreknowledge, she refuses to use her greater vision, and in this way, she tries to establish control over her powers.