Chapter 12 in E1 is Chapter 14 in E2. Although a lot of the content in the chapter stayed the same, a lot was also changed and cut out. There is content from Jayce’s perspective that had to be removed when I made it all from Aria’s perspective.
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.
12
Landa goes to the bedroom and rests on the chair wrapped up in a blanket. Jayce checks on the horses before returning to the top room where he had left Aria. He doesn’t find her though. She isn’t in the bedroom or in the storage room either.
Jayce keeps climbing the stairs until he sees a torch on a holder at the top. Next to it is a ladder and a lever. Above those is an open trap door. He climbs the ladder and finds Aria leaning against the wall looking out over the distance. She had quickly overcome her fear of the wall toppling over after a few minutes of gingerly testing her weight on it.
I guess you could consider this a little bonus scene that you didn’t see in the final book, as the final chapter is only from Aria’s perspective.
“You should lie down again. We’ll only have a few hours to rest,” Jayce suggests as he leans an elbow against the stone.
“I’m not tired right now.”
Jayce climbs all the way up. When he reaches Aria, she seems deep in thought with her hands folded together on the top of the wall. Jayce leans against the parapet next to her.
The night is pleasantly cool with a gentle breeze blowing. Somewhere in the forest, two owls hoot back and forth to each other. Crickets chirp and fireflies dance in the meadow below them. Besides the fact that evil creatures could be watching them right now, the scene before them is exquisitely beautiful.
Just because a lot of the content was written quite badly at times, it didn’t mean that some lines, like the paragraph above, didn’t make it through to E2.
“Jayce, I’m sorry I haven’t told you before about my mental illness. You’re right. I need to talk about it,” Aria admits quietly.
She glances at Jayce, her eyes tearing up. He frowns and presses up against her. She gazes back out over the horizon.
“I don’t actually want to die. I just want everything to stop. Everything I’ve been going through. All the pain and the fear. And now that I find out that my mother’s death was an intentional poisoning means all of the anxiety over my health was a lie. I honestly had thought my mother caught some kind of mystery illness, and I was so afraid of getting the same or something just as bad. If I had known, then maybe everything that’s happened over the past year and a half would never have happened in the first place. I could have lived happily without the fear of death. Now, it’s all too late. I know people all have some reason they have mental illness, but even though it was a lie that threw me into my own mental illness, I can’t just return to normal after everything that’s happened.” Aria wipes tears from her eyes.
The bare bones are there, but this is awkwardly written.
[removed a couple paragraphs that were mostly similar to the final version]
Jayce suddenly feels sick to his stomach. Losing Aria to a wierling would be traumatic enough. Waking up one morning to find out his girlfriend is gone is something he can’t even bear to think about. He gets a faraway look in his eyes.
Why didn’t I see this before? I could have helped her. I should have helped her, especially after…
Aria mistakes his expression as frustration or disgust directed toward her.
“If you’re mad at me, I’m sorry,” she says in a tight voice.
“No, I’m not mad. I understand. I understand better than you know,” Jayce responds in surprise.
He puts his hands in his pockets and takes a breath. “I had a little sister named Tabitha. I would call her Tabbie. I guess you could say she was like any normal little girl. Nothing seemed to dampen her spirits, even when our father left us. Our mother was always so busy working in a tavern that I was left to take care of her. We would do odd jobs together just to help make ends meet. She may not have been able to do everything, but she would help me in whatever way she could.” Jayce’s smile at the good memories turns into a frown. “I’m not sure when I first noticed it. She started these strange habits. She had to collect things like flowers in a certain number. She avoided the cracks in the stone and didn’t want to step in any puddles. When we would walk, she kept thinking she would see something strange on the ground and have to go back to investigate, only to find nothing. She would look back repeatedly as if she kept seeing something. At night, she would think she saw things in the shadows. She even had trouble reading, and I only knew that because she told me she kept feeling like she had to reread parts of a story she thought she had missed. It made her anxious if she tried to ignore whatever her mind was nagging her about. Some kind of anxiety or fear must have started it all, but I’ll never know. We went to a healer, and he said it was some kind of obsessive-compulsive disorder. He said we needed for her to learn to not give in to her compulsions and realize that nothing bad happens so she can calm down.”
This is much more concise in E2.
Jayce leans his elbows on the wall. “I was always there for her, even when I was busy training to be a knight. We talked about her issues and came up with a few ideas to combat them. I would hold her hand on walks and try to help her break the cycle of stopping. When she would think she saw something, I would take a quick look for her and tell her that there was nothing. We thought that maybe it would help her start trusting that she wasn’t seeing anything strange in the first place. She would try not being concerned about numbers and try to not be too upset about walking on things she didn’t want to. I’m not sure if our efforts truly helped at all though. Her reading may have gotten a bit better, but she never read much after that. I could see in her eyes that she remained frustrated and ashamed of her obsessions, no matter how many times I told her it wasn’t her fault.”
Jayce’s expression grows darker. “One day, we both rode to a village a few hours away. The trip was supposed to just be a normal sibling outing, but I didn’t realize the village was so close to this forest. I let go of her hand and only took my eye off of her for two minutes. She slipped away from me. When I finally found her, she had already taken a wierling’s hand. I yelled for her, but it was too late. The wierling pulled her into the darkness of the forest, and they disappeared in seconds. My little sister was gone, and there was nothing I could do. It was my fault. I should have protected her from the start. I should have realized where we were and not brought her with me. I ran into the forest, but I couldn’t find them. Two village guards rushed in and convinced me to leave. Honestly, if they hadn’t, I would have searched the forest until I couldn’t go on or the wierling decided it wanted seconds. That’s why I was trying to get you to talk to me. I can’t lose you too.”
“I’m sorry about Tabbie. I’m sorry I’m putting you through this again,” Aria guiltily apologizes.
He should be with someone who’s not going to break his heart all over again; someone without mental illness.
“You don’t have to apologize to me. It’s not your fault,” Jayce comforts her.
“It’s not your fault for what happened to your sister either. It’s these creatures that don’t even belong here.”
Jayce doesn’t respond. Honestly, if Aria were in his place, she probably wouldn’t forgive herself.
Aria continues, “I’m angry at the traitors. They’re the ones who are at the root of everything that’s happened to me and my parents. I want to be angry at Rodrick for even the rumor that he’s involved as well. I’m also just so tired though. I want this nightmare to end. If I didn’t have this mental illness, we would be able to grab a flower and get back to my father in time to save him instead of being stuck here.”
I think I removed the paragraph above because some of it seemed awkward in the context of the conversation.
“Your father would probably kill me for putting you in that much danger. From what he told me, he considers your safety as more important to him than his own life. He said he loves you and that even with your mental illness, you will still make a great queen of Toranon. He believes in you and so do I.”
A small smile breaks out on her face in response to the confidence that her father and her boyfriend have in her. For a moment, Aria lets herself feel the wind blowing gently through her hair. The sensation triggers memories of happier times.
“I remember what it was like before I developed anxiety and depression. I remember living each day with reckless abandon and sleeping with not a care in the world. I could gallop through a field on Storm and feel safe and free. I never allowed myself to think of things going wrong or how even a little mistake could lead to death. I remember days when I would sit overlooking all of the people living their lives below me. I loved to watch the stars at night. Now, most of the time I’m too scared to leave my room. When I look down at the people, all I wonder is how everyone can be so happy. Do they realize that even if they are happily smiling and laughing one minute, something terrible could befall them the next? I know I don’t know their whole stories, but it still makes me sad to think about it.” Aria looks up at the night sky with a frown. “The stars that I use to love no longer bring me comfort. All they look like are tiny points of light suffocating in the darkness.”
“But they still shine,” Jayce points out encouragingly. “Even if you think you are suffocating in darkness, it can never snuff your light out completely. I guess some of us can have everything wrong and still hide it behind smiles and laughs. After Tabbie was killed, I was a wreck. I would fake being okay, but I felt nothing inside. I had had my heart ripped out, and it left a hole I thought I would never fill. I was so angry with myself for what happened that I put my full focus into training so I wouldn’t have to think about my sister. I thought maybe I could make up for losing her by being the best knight I could be and protecting other people. Somehow, I quickly moved up the ranks to a royal guard. That’s when something extraordinary happened.”
Jayce looks at Aria lovingly. “I met you. I still don’t know if I can ever forgive myself for what happened to Tabbie, but you showed me there can be light in my life again. You gave me a reason to have hope. You repaired my heart when I thought it would never be whole again. I want to do the same for you. I want to show you what it’s like to live again. I owe Tabbie that much to make sure someone else I love doesn’t die because of mental illness. You don’t have to fight by yourself anymore. I’m here now, and I’m not leaving. We’re in this together.”
Aria can’t hold back her tears as she embraces him. Jayce wraps his arms around her tight and kisses her forehead.
“Thank you. I love you so much,” she says gratefully.
“I love you too.”
Aria pulls back to kiss him. She finally feels just a little lighter and maybe like a spark has been rekindled.
We’re about two-thirds of the way through. If you’ve stuck with me this far, I applaud your dedication, despite the bad writing I’ve subjected you to. But I guess all writers have to start somewhere.
Part 13 Coming Soon!
Copyright © 2018 Lindsay McCafferty