Afterword - Book 4 - Chapter 41 (Patreon)

Chapter 41: Minor Interlude - Avyna - Absolution

(Original Chapter Title: Minor Interlude - Avyna's Ambition)

I hate this chapter.

Nothing else in Blind Chaos has stymied me like this chapter has. When I wrote the OG draft, I hated the chapter. A day or two later, I deleted the original and rewrote it from scratch. Then when it came to editing, I started revising the chapter and then gave up, deleted it, and started from scratch—only to have a crisis in faith about my own ability to write. I actually gave beta readers two different versions, and let them convince me that the 'newest' was better.

But I still hate this chapter. Feedback has been overall positive—for a terrible definition of positive—but I remain paranoid about it. And I think a lot of that is just how emotional this chapter is for both Ranthia and Avyna, and not quite in the same way for either of them.

Mask off for a moment, one thing I hoped to convey with this chapter was that Avyna, for all her experience, was in many ways more damaged than Ranthia ever became. It was what made her so worried about Ranthia's fraying condition, a sentiment rooted in "no one should be like me."

But it's also not meant to evoke sympathy, which makes the earnest reactions to this chapter all the more bitter. Avyna's terrified of her own commitment to a path set when she was a broken child (by her own standards) and at the first glimmer of hope for something better, she wanted to take it. She sought excuses—rationales—while simultaneously convincing herself that it was weakness.

None of it was healthy. And, as the author, I can say that it wasn't meant to be. But I do hope it's at least clear that there was no malice intended from her.

She and Ranthia were both hurting, badly. And not quite for the same reasons.

As I said, I hate this damned chapter. But there's no possible rewrite or idealized version of it where that wouldn't be true.