This includes most of chapter ten 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.
9
[removed a deleted scene with Landaro and Yana]
Sorcerer’s Keep
Aria wakes up slowly, feeling like she is trying to swim toward consciousness. Whatever drug those men forced her swallow knocked her out good. She opens her eyes, but everything is spinning so much, she quickly closes them. The anxiousness rages inside her, but she ignores it for the moment. Aria takes deep breaths to try to calm down a little. A few minutes later, she can at least hear past the pounding of her heartbeat in her ears.
Still with her eyes closed, she uses her other senses to try to figure out where she is. The ground is hard, slightly uneven, and warm. From her brief look, she thought she saw blue sky above her. Cool wind blows past her from all sides, and she feels the warmth of the sun, so she is outside. There isn’t much noise around besides a bird call here and there and the rustle of the trees in the wind.
I got better with adding more description in E2.
Aria finally feels like she is well enough to open her eyes again. The sky is indeed above her, and a stone parapet surrounds her on all sides in a small circle. Aria slowly sits up, fighting back dizziness. She only sees sky over the crenels, so she can only assume she is lying at the top of a tower.
“Great. Now I’m the stereotypical damsel in distress,” she mutters in displeasure.
Aria slowly stands up. She steps over to the chest high wall and leans against it until her legs stop shaking. The dizziness eventually passes, and Aria is able to stand up straight without feeling like she is going to pass out.
“Alright, what’s our situation here?”
Aria walks all around the tower top but can’t find an exit, not even a trap door.
Unless the door only opens from the inside, the horrible thought surfaces.
I had decided that a few of these lines were unnecessary.
[removed some description of the keep and the forest]
“Help!” Aria calls loudly. “Help! Please, somebody!”
No one seems to be around to hear her cries. Aria looks around the edges of the tower and notices some thick vines that might be able to hold her weight. She pulls on one, only for it to rip off with barely any effort.
“Well that’s no good.” Aria throws the vine down in frustration.
She wonders if she will ever escape alive.
Will anybody find me?
Is anyone even looking for you? They’re probably happy that the burden is gone, her mind taunts her.
Aria leans her elbows on the stone and puts her face in her hands. She runs her hands through her hair for a moment. Strangely, Aria feels like she is being watched. She also realizes the forest has gone silent, like it is holding its breath. The princess glances up and sees what she thinks is the dark shape of a person standing on the edge of the tree line.
Hair blows into her face, obscuring her vison. By the time she grabs the strands and holds them away from her eyes, the figure is gone. A sudden chill that has nothing to do with the beautiful spring day runs through her.
A memory hits her.
Stories of a dark sorcerer who once lived deep in the southern forest and the terrifying creatures called wierlings that he created. No one knows his true identity or where he came from.
What everyone does know are the warnings of if you have any type of mental illness, never stray too far into the forest where the sorcerer dwelled. Aria is now trapped in the heart of this evil place. She quickly sits back down out of sight. The princess draws her knees up and buries her head in her arms.
“This can’t be happening,” she says, panic-stricken.
Aria rocks slightly as she tears up. She sniffles and wipes her eyes on her sleeves.
You’re going to die! The wierlings will find you and kill you!
“Please, someone help me,” Aria cries in a broken voice. “I can’t do this on my own.”
She breaks down completely, her tears not ceasing for nearly an hour. All of the fear, the frustration at her situation, the anxiety, and the depression hit her at once. Knowing she has already caught the attention of a wierling does not help.
I do prefer the version of this scene in E2. It is more elegant rewritten.
Long ago, the sorcerer created the wierlings for his own purpose of threatening people into paying for protection from them. They are always described as the shadow of a human form. The creatures were born purely of magic and are neither flesh nor blood.
[removed the history of the wierllings because there isn’t much that is different]
Aria knows that an attempted rescue might put other people in danger. She has to find some way out of this perilous situation by herself if she can. First, she has to get off of the top of the tower. Aria’s only course of action is to stay sitting for the moment. At least the wall and keeping a low profile will temporarily her hide from the wierling that is watching her.
Anxiety questions just how safe sitting in that spot is. The fantasies play in her mind as she feels the familiar pit in her stomach. Given the age of the keep, the battlement behind her might crumble if she leans too heavily on the wall. It most likely won’t, but she can’t shake the anxious thought. Aria scoots forward so her back is not touching the stone to make herself feel better.
Since this was in first person, “that spot” should have been “this spot.” Also, I didn’t do enough research on parts of a castle before I wrote this. “Battlement” was probably unnecessary to use. I replaced it with parapet. Honestly, researching parts of a castle can be confusing.
The floor beneath her could be in an equally deteriorated state. Aria can’t see any significant cracking. She walked all over the whole ring of stone just a little while ago, so her chances of falling through are most likely slim.
Aria is quite thirsty. A headache is coming on as a result. She wouldn’t have minded a spring shower to pass through, but today is sunny and mild. Her stomach aches just a bit worse and growls. She doesn’t know how long it has been since she last ate. That would probably explain the little bit of lingering disorientation.
When I had the book edited, my editor pushed me to do more show rather than tell. For example, rather than saying that Aria is thirsty, have a physical sensation that shows she is thirsty.
The princess wonders if she should take a nap. The sun is almost at its highest point, so she still has some time to rest and regain some strength before nightfall. She wants to be out of this forest by then.
I don’t know why I thought it was a good idea to have her going from scared and wanting to escape to wanting to take a nap, hence it being removed.
Aria lies down and sighs, discouraged at not finding an escape route yet. She turns her head to the left, tracing the pattern of the stones with her eyes.
That’s when she finally notices the irregularity.
Aria sits back up, tilting her head slightly in thought. The brick pattern on the parapet is broken by a smaller out of place square close to the floor. Aria crawls over and spots a square block on the floor with a gap all the way around like a door. This part of the floor had been in a shadow before. Now, the sun shines from straight above, bringing the crack to light.
The timeline was moved to the evening in E2. I had to be very precise with where the sorcerer’s keep is positioned in relation to the sun setting in the west.
Aria backs up from the square and presses the little button on the wall. The block in the floor falls away, revealing a ladder. Aria smiles in delight that she found her escape route. She carefully climbs down, not liking when the rickety wood creaks and pops.
“Please don’t break. I don’t want a broken bone.”
The distance down turns out to only be about seven or eight feet. A lever is beside the ladder on the wall, and she pushes it up to lock the door back in place.
“Alright, step one to escaping this place done. Now what?”
The staircase in front of her curves downwards. The wall to left of the stairs blocks her view of what lies below. Arched windows provide enough light to not require a torch. She has no materials to craft one anyways. She will have to walk in the dark either way. Aria takes a breath and gathers her courage. She picks up her skirt and starts descending down the flight of stairs.
When I wrote the new version, I wanted to be more precise with which way the stairs go down, which side the windows are on, etc. This was hard though. I had to concentrate on an image in my head of what the inside would look like. If there was light from the windows where Aria was, then the windows had to be on the west wall. Moonlight shining through a window had to be on the correct wall too. At one point, I thought I got it right but then I realized that all my directions were backward. I had to reverse everything.
Also, along with the button, trap door, and lever, the torch thing is partly a Minecraft reference and partly just because the book is in a medieval setting. And yes. I have played Minecraft. That’s also where the idea of the stones covered in vines and moss came from. There is a block in Minecraft called mossy stone. When I was laying out the keep in my mind, I would have built a version in a Minecraft world if I had had a computer that could run the game. My laptop at that time was not powerful enough. It would have made figuring out what the inside looked like easier.
[removed a few paragraphs]
Finally, she reaches the ground floor in an empty circular room with window openings all around. Two doorways on each side lead out to the paths. Two others lead to the covered walkways and the smaller towers.
The princess walks to the northern facing doorway. A path leads out into the woods. The journey back to the border of Toranon will take several hours of walking if she can even survive the trip.
Aria cautiously checks her surroundings. She can’t see any more of the evil creatures in sight. The birds are not as chatty as they were earlier. She is unsure if a wierling could still be watching her without her knowing. The mere thought of that possibility is unnerving enough.
Her headache is worse, and she desperately needs to find water. The sorcerer may have been exceedingly powerful, but he had still just been a human. Surely, he had had to satisfy basic human needs like eating and drinking. Aria looks around again for a well or some indication of a water source.
A sudden chill once again runs through her. She flattens herself against the wall out of sight. Aria crouches down and crawls to an opening. She peeks up and spots a wierling disappearing back into the trees, seeming to melt into the shadows.
Aria sits down and wraps her arms around her knees, trying to slow down her panicked breathing. If she makes a run for it, she won’t get far. Anxiety builds up, as well as the throbbing in her head and the churning in her stomach.
She feels nauseous even while sitting, so she lies down on her side. Stone isn’t the most comfortable surface to lie down on, but the surface is cool and helps relieve her headache. The change in position also quiets her stomach. Aria closes her eyes and breathes deeply to relax her body. She doesn’t intend to lull herself into sleep.
When I first wrote this, I thought ending the chapter like this was a good idea. Afterward, I hated it. It was completely changed in E2. I actually forgot that the chapter ended right here. The best thing to have done with this version would have been to write it and then leave it alone for a few weeks. I’m sure I would have changed my mind once I could look at it again with fresh eyes, but I rushed.
Copyright © 2018 Lindsay McCafferty