Afterword - Book 1 - Chapter 52 (Patreon)

Chapter 52: A Flower in a Garden

(Original Chapter Title: Duels & Direction)

Ranthia meets her next team!

Tertia throws people off a lot; "how many women are on the team" confuses people since she has a full name like men do. There'll be an explanation coming in a chapter soon, but bear in mind that we're now over 9 years into women's rights. Some families seized this more readily than others.

The final arc of Book 1 is underway on RR, which is wild. Like... seriously, in some ways I still feel like I just started sharing my work!

Ranthia's prior arc challenged her concepts of leadership and trust, saw her overcoming a deadly adversary, and showed her shackling herself to obligation to try to escape her pain. Now she's stepping into this arc with that baggage. But she's second in command of what might be one of the most... blatantly unique Ranger teams in quite some time.

I enjoy the characters of this arc a lot, so I hope readers enjoy this leg of Ranthia's journey too.

As to her class up, this was another point where Ranthia went slightly against me. I was expecting her to take [Reflections of a Heroine], yet Ranthia logic-ed it right out of the running. Ah well, I roll with the punches, and even by that point I was getting used to it. It's kind of hard to even envision the path I'd expected her to walk anymore.

As an actual behind the scenes bit, there's some cut content that followed this chapter. In the OG draft there was an interlude from Night's perspective after this. It's the first of two Night interludes that I've cut (poor Night). The interlude would have given the readers explanations for things that, ultimately, I felt worked best coming from Ranthia's perspective when she (eventually) learns of them. A few bits were more important, but I was able to provide that information through something I added to the end of book 1.

The story is ultimately Ranthia's, and it took me a while to figure out the right balance.