Authors Note - Scania Achille 🖤
Hi.
So let's talk.
Because apparently there has been an elephant in the room for roughly twenty chapters and somehow I managed to miss the giant gray creature sitting directly in front of me until all of you collectively turned and pointed at it.
And first things first I want to apologize.
Genuinely.
Because a lot of you noticed something was off and you were right.
The pacing changed.
Some of you said scenes felt rushed. Some of you felt like details got skipped over. Some of you said information suddenly appeared and you had the reaction of "I'm sorry when the hell were we told this?" A couple of you even asked if you accidentally skipped chapters.
No.
You didn't.
That one is on me.
It was never intentional and it definitely wasn't me trying to be lazy or rush through the story. If anything, it came from me trying too hard to avoid doing exactly what I'm doing now which is writing too much.
A lot of my friends know I write. Some of them write too and honestly they're incredible at it.
They have amazing books, amazing pacing, and they're genuinely talented.
During Book One I updated at a pace that can only be described as concerning.
If you were reading while it was updating, you know I was putting out two to three chapters a day like somebody had a gun to my head and my only way out was emotional damage and cliffhangers.
And I loved it.
I loved waking up and reading comments. I loved seeing theories. I loved writing all day and immediately posting and seeing reactions.
But there was one major difference.
I had time.
Book One happened during a break.
Book Two happened while life looked me dead in the eyes and said, "Good luck."
Harder classes.
Less time.
More responsibilities.
So naturally I did what a normal person does.
I accepted help.
Which was not a bad decision.
The problem wasn't the help.
The problem was our writing styles are so different that in hindsight it was kind of funny we thought this would work.
My friend writes fast.
Efficient.
Straight to the point.
They believe not every conversation needs to happen on page.
They like implication.
I do not.
Respectfully.
I don't want readers imagining my story.
I want you seeing exactly what I see.
If I imagined the room, I want you standing in it.
If I imagined the silence after somebody says something horrible, I want you sitting in that silence.
If somebody looked away first in an argument I want you knowing why.
If somebody danced, I want you understanding what that dance meant.
I don't write events.
I write feelings wearing events as costumes.
That's why my chapters are long.
That's why random conversations suddenly matter forty chapters later.
That's why I will spend four paragraphs describing somebody dancing and then somehow reveal family trauma in the middle of it.
My friend would read a scene and ask:
"Do we need this?"
And I would stare at them offended because yes.
Yes we do.
Remember when Ophelia left home?
That dancing scene?
Apparently that could've been shortened.
Excuse me?
That wasn't dancing.
That was grief.
That was fear.
That was her saying goodbye to the only life she knew.
Or when she punished her parents.
Apparently four chapters is excessive.
Apparently normal people don't emotionally execute fictional parents over multiple updates.
Interesting information.
Wish someone had told me earlier.
So I started cutting things.
I trusted the process.
Shorten this.
Move that.
Skip this conversation.
Readers will understand.
This detail isn't necessary.
This memory can happen later.
And slowly without realizing it...
I started removing the bones.
Not the decorations.
Not the fluff.
The bones.
The connective tissue.
The reasons scenes worked.
So suddenly people started feeling disconnected.
Questions started appearing.
Characters felt faster.
Emotional moments felt weaker.
And I realized...
Oh.
I accidentally started writing somebody else's version of my story.
Again not because anybody did anything wrong.
Good intentions do not always make good results.
That's something I learned.
Some writing styles clash.
Some stories need different things.
My friend wasn't wrong.
Their advice would work beautifully in THEIR stories.
But this one?
This one breathes differently.
The biggest disagreement happened after Ophelia got poisoned.
Their vision was that she wakes up broken.
Scared.
Small again.
Paranoid.
Almost reverting back into early Book One.
And I remember thinking..
Absolutely not.
I dragged this woman through two books.
I let her hurt.
I let her heal.
I let her learn.
I let her grow.
She can still struggle.
She can still trust too much.
But she is not going backwards.
Growth matters.
So that was my wake-up call.
Which means...
We are fixing it.
And yes.
That means things are coming back.
The scenes.
The conversations.
The context.
The backstory.
The things I cut.
The things I thought I could imply.
The flashbacks.
The memories.
Everything.
But because I physically cannot do normal flashbacks..
We're doing dreams.
Nightmares.
Trauma.
People waking up confused.
Memories that feel too real.
You know.
Healthy coping mechanisms.
And yes.
This book is officially going to be longer than Book One.
Accept it.
Because I have plans.
Specifically one plan.
Giving Achilles a son.
Because I think it would be funny. I need this little boy to realize at an offensively young age that his father gets jealous. I need him getting a tiny paper cut and ignoring every guard in the room.
Ignoring Achilles.
Running directly to Ophelia.
Getting his tiny hand kissed.
Then turning around and looking at his father like
Yeah.
That's my mom.
Stay mad.
I need him interrupting hugs.
Stealing attention.
Sleeping diagonally in their bed.
Using fake tears strategically.
I need Achilles realizing his greatest enemy wasn't war.
Wasn't politics.
Wasn't betrayal.
It was a six-year-old with emotional intelligence and a mother complex.
If Elias annoys him
His son should have that man gray before the end of the week.
Anyway.
I'm sorry.
Truly.
Thank you for staying.
Thank you for pointing it out.
Thank you for trusting me enough to tell me when something felt wrong.
Thank you for letting me fix it.
Now let me go add thirty-seven chapters worth of emotional damage back into this book.
See y'all next chapter.