I almost feel as though I should start my own thread where I just randomly spew up theories and thinking, instead of having to start new threads all the time, but this way other people can actually see what I'm thinking about. As always, keep Sending spoilers, hidden, and label them as sending spoilers, please.
So here I was reading KP, and Elspeth was in a memory of when she went to Sutrium for the first time with her father. She had just listened to her father's thoughts, when she realised that maybe that wasn't the right thing to do, and could be worse than eavesdropping. All of a sudden, Ariel appears. Now all of this relies on Ariel being there in 'reality' or through some means, and not Ariel being a manifestation of Elspeth's mind (otherwise what I will say next will not be at all interesting, because Elspeth's mind would easily know this). And he calls her Elspethelf, just like Jes would. I wondered how he would know this name. And if he is just part of the dream, and not 'there', Elspeth's own mind would know this, and thus Ariel would know. But if Ariel was actually in her dream, then how would he know of this name. Did he learn it in 'Obernewtyn', when he was there? Or has he been rummaging through Elspeth's mind to find these things out, which is unlikely, given Elspeth would know.
But then I came to the shocking conclusion (I literally almost had tears for some reason, as I came to this understanding, because it nearly blew my mind) that maybe Ariel has Jes. For some reason I've never really been convinced Jes is dead (and don't confirm nor deny that he is, even if IC has said so), and maybe that is because every single character we have seen, seems to pop up again (hey, remember Rosamunde, she pops up in KP, when she hasn't been heard about for three books). And I've had it ingrained in my mind, from many TV shows, films and books, that you can never be sure that someone is dead, especially if you didn't see it (even if you did, then it's not always true I'm looking at you Sherlock).
So this makes me wonder if Ariel has Jes holed up in some Herder prison, or his own lair (yes I do know of the lair he has on Norse Island, but I try to limit my thinking on the next book) and that is why he knows about Elspethelf, because he has been reading Jes's mind to find out everything about Elspeth! Okay, a pretty wild thought, but it could be true, couldn't it?
For some reason this thought never occurred to me. I always thought that maybe Jes wasn't dead but it really is an amazing thought that maybe Rosamunde was coerced into thinking what she saw. But Jes "died" long before Rushton took Obernewtyn so maybe the Herders had him imprisoned and then when Ariel joined the faction he put two and two together.
