Afterword - Book 1 - Chapter 37 (Patreon)

Chapter 37: The Winter Solstice

(Original Chapter Title: The Winter Solstice)

EVERYTHING is better with a big musical number.

So, for my alert readers: How many of you caught that Ranthia was a pawn in a political game? I'm going to do this afterward a bit backwards, since so many people have expressed concerns about Night's reactions to all things fae. It's a bit awkward because Ranthia wasn't aware of the machinations behind everything and the actual consequences of the machinations end up failing to land (in large part thanks to a fluke of timing) and so an interlude to get into the plot would have been ill-placed since nothing actually happens. There'll be a look back at the plot later on though!

Still, for now I'll say: The idea of a performance 'to appease the fae' was the emperor's idea and he provided the script (not that he wrote it himself, obviously). Quietly—yet frequently in the right ears—the demanded performance was stated to be as part of a last ditch effort to convince them to release Sentinel Dawn. There were layers to what was happening throughout and it's questionable how much Night had told Hunting or Ocean before he arranged to use Hunting's request to get a Ranger(-adjacent) presence involved.

A fun puzzle for you: Who was behind the necklace Ranthia wore to the afterparty? I'll provide a hint: the laurel crown usually denotes the Rangers while the Eagle is Remus itself. ...And note what metal it's made out of.

I had fun with the intrigue behind everything, even if Ranthia remained utterly oblivious.

Going back to the rest of the chapter, this one's definitely my favorite chapter in Book 1. It beats out the splashy combat scenes, the emotional scenes, or the cute romance scenes—by a large margin too. It was a delight to write and I still love reading it. This time around the edits were just polish (and changing Summer Court to Court of Summer to match the Court of Winter; honestly not sure why I had them structured differently in the OG draft).

I remember having fun creating "homework" for Ranthia's Academy courses, trying to figure out ways for her to continue to progress with what I had established. Rigira was the hardest parts, until I remembered that she'd just do something that amused her. Juggling was a great answer, so a solid hat tip to past me for that.

It's almost hard to say anything about the preparation or the performance themselves. I kind of feel like the events and the prose speak for themselves. I pantsed the entire performance when I wrote it, didn't have any master plan. I just went with whatever felt natural. A true test of Ranthia's non-combat dancing talents, but she carried herself well. ...Which wasn't guaranteed, honestly, I really expected things to go wrong. But they never did, and I'm glad they didn't. I love the performance, and I think the chapter would have suffered for any incident.

In the afterparty we see Ranthia can actually hold her own without a social Skill (could you imagine Elaine ambushed as a trainee with a conversation with the emperor?). Then we see Ocean acting out of a guilt for getting her involved in things and trying to reward her with some privacy with her girlfriend to make up for it.

But the performance is done, and Ranthia hasn't quite graduated from the Academy yet—so it's back to the island she goes!