This includes the rest of chapter ten and chapter eleven in the final edition of “Reawakened Flames.”
Reminder: My notes will be in italicized red font, and the text from E1 will be in black. E1 refers to edition one, and E2 refers to edition two.
10
The princess jerks awake with a gasp. Long shadows now lie in the room that had been brightly lit what felt like five minutes ago. Her headache is a dull pain, and the nausea is under control. Aria glances outside to realize the sun has fallen low in the sky, and it is only about an hour until sunset.
She gets up and stands in the northern facing doorway. No one has come to rescue her and wandering around in the woods is now too dangerous, even to just go find water. Aria regrets not telling her father about her mental illness last night.
No one knows to look for her here. They are probably scouring the whole kingdom and maybe the neighboring kingdoms trying to find her. Walking back by herself is impossible. She wonders why a wierling didn’t attack her in her sleep, considering she is alone and completely vulnerable.
Realistically, a wierlling probably would just be standing close by and waiting for her to wake up.
The all too familiar chill sweeps through her, and the forest falls silent. Aria looks to her left to see a wierling standing at the edge of the tree line. The dark creature seems to just be waiting there.
[the description of the anxiety and the depression is nearly the same in E2]
Aria loses control of her mind. A twisted, malevolent voice whispers to her. It is not her usual mental illness voice.
You have nothing left. You have no life outside of your fears. No one is coming for you. They never were in the first place. You aren’t worth the time and effort to rescue. You are just a burden and a failure of a queen to be. Everyone will be so much happier if you are gone. They don’t deserve the failure dragging them down.
This was a big change that the wierlling does not speak in any way.
All Aria desires is for all the pain to stop. She doesn’t want to be a burden or afraid anymore. She longs to stop being ashamed of how she feels.
Her body begins to move of its own accord, and she approaches the wierling. This is the only course of action that seems to make sense. She will finally find the peace she has been searching for.
As she nears, details of the wierling become more noticeable. The creature is taller than her with ragged, tattered black robes, like ones she had seen in illustrations of the sorcerer, and long hair. Most of the face is hidden behind long, thick hair. Only a dark, decayed looking nose, a sliver of a mouth, and a chin are visible. Two pinpricks of light reflecting off of its eyes shine through spaces in the hair. She thinks the eyes actually look like normal human eyes, and they are black with a wispy gray ring around the pupil.
I dreamed of the wierllings as having pale skin, and somehow it changed to darker skin. I switched back to lighter skin when I rewrote it to match the ones I saw in my dream. Also, in my dream I only saw humanoid shapes. The finer details of the description were made up when I wrote them.
The wierling extends its equally disgusting looking hand to her when she is close enough. An unspoken understanding passes between them. All Aria has to do is take the creature’s hand and everything will be better. She starts raising her hand.
“No!” came a shout.
That voice sounds so familiar. She lowers her hand.
The wierling beckons to her with a bit of urgency, but Aria isn’t so sure now.
This is what I want right? To be free?
The rational part of her mind grabs her attention. Her sense of self-preservation kicks back in.
You’re in danger! Get away from that thing!
The spell the creature had over her broke, and Aria is filled with horror at what is happening. She lunges backwards away from the wierling.
Everything happens so fast after that.
The wierling rushes forwards to try to grab her. Aria screams in fright but loses her balance and falls. She hears hooves thundering behind her somewhere, and the wierling becomes distracted by something behind her.
Aria hears a screech, and a red blur zooms over her head. A phoenix dives down and beats at the wierling with its wings and slashes with its beak and talons. The creature unsuccessfully tries to bat the fire bird away. It finally turns tail and flees into the darkness of the forest, the phoenix in close pursuit.
[removed a few lines]
“Jayce, we need to get moving,” she says urgently. “That thing will come back, maybe with others on tow. We can hide inside the keep. They don’t go in there.”
“On tow?” Really?
I guess that’s why the wierling didn’t attack me earlier, Aria muses.
There is a reason wierllings don’t go into the keep and will be explained in a later book.
Jayce helps her mount her horse. Storm bends his head around, and she strokes his head.
“Hello, my beautiful boy.”
Storm nickers softly at her voice and pushes his nose against her hand.
Jayce holds onto the reins as they quickly ride back across the meadow to the keep. Aria’s vision darkens, and she holds on tightly to the saddle and Storm’s mane. She remembers them riding back into the ground floor before finally passing out.
Jayce will never be able to describe the emotional punch that struck him when he rounded the corner and spotted Aria about to go with that evil creature. The fear and shock that coursed through him was something he had only felt once before with his little sister. This was something he had hoped to never experience again.
Jayce dismounts and catches Aria as she wavers in her saddle. He takes her in his arms bridal style. Landa lightly lands on the ledge of a window opening.
I didn’t know what to call the windows. Saying window opening just sounded awkward, so I stuck with window later.
“She should rest,” the phoenix suggests. “There’s probably a bedroom somewhere in this place.”
Jayce turns to go up the stairs. A thought bothers him though. “Landa, why didn’t you burn the wierling back there?”
She shifts uncomfortably. “I just…I-I can’t.”
“Why not?” Jayce questions, confused.
“I just can’t, alright,” Landa says, flustered and embarrassed. “Are you going to find somewhere for the princess to rest or just stand there?”
“Fine. I won’t ask.” He backs down.
The phoenix closes her eyes and sighs quietly in shame when Jayce’s back is turned. “I’ll keep watch. Call me if you need me.”
I was switching between Jayce and Landa’s points of view here. It was much simpler to stay with Jayce in E2.
[removed a couple of paragraphs]
Jayce gets a fire going in the fireplace. He then returns downstairs to unpack and take care of the horses.
I realized that getting the fire going was a plot issue. No one stays in the keep, so there would be no good wood in the fireplace. Jayce also didn’t carry anything with him besides Aria. It took me awhile to come up with the magical logs that don’t burn or decompose. The advantage of creating a world in which people use magic is that you can fix plot issues by saying, “It’s because of magic.”
Jayce glances cautiously around the openings and doorways. Even though Landa said they are safe here, he still feels exposed and vulnerable. The horses seem to mirror the same sentiment as they stand quiet and tense. Jayce pets them both soothingly for a moment. He tries to not think about his sister. That ordeal was painful enough at the time.
A thought occurs to him. He walks to the northern doorway. “Landa? Can you come here for a second?”
Landa flies down from her perch on the top of the central tower and lands back on the ledge of an opening. “Is the princess alright?”
“Yeah, she’s fine right now. I don’t know how she will be when she wakes up though, so we should probably keep quiet for now about her father’s condition and the invasion, at least until she recovers.”
“I agree. She’s already had a difficult enough day.”
“Have you spotted the wierling again or any others?” he asks apprehensively.
“No, they seem to be staying away for now. We need to wait until morning to leave though. They could sneak up on us too easily in the dark. At least in the daylight we’ll see them coming.”
“I’m going to go sit with Aria then. Tell me if you need a break.”
“I will.”
Landa flies back up to the top of the tower. Jayce returns to the bedroom and checks on his girlfriend one more time. Then, he grabs the lone chair in the bedroom and sits down to keep watch over Aria, his sword half unsheathed and ready in his lap should something try to attack them.
Even though a lot had to be rewritten in E1, I’m surprised how much of this chapter stayed the same in the final version.
Copyright © 2018 Lindsay McCafferty