sarahlin
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Rainhorn: Epilogue (The Weirkey Chronicles)
🕑 Added 2021-02-06 17:48:40 +0000 UTCThis is the last chapter of TWC2, and as mentioned, we'll need some time to take care of the cover issues. But meanwhile, I have some fun stuff in store!
In addition to the release of Blades Falling Softly, I have a few things planned for this month. Above, you can see some early sketches for the potential new cover. I am fairly certain that I'm going to go with the first design, but I wanted to show you some of the effort I've been putting in on this front. Also look forward to soulhome blueprints, perhaps a soulcrafting AMA, and maybe more.
Maybe TWC3 chapters? Posting them already feels too early, when I don't have the cover situation figured out, but I could start if people prefer a delay later to one now.
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Epilogue
Esaire sat in the healers' chamber, staring at the fracture running along his left gauntlet. More than the shadows of injuries that still ached in his body, or the insult to his honor, or the presumed loss of his supporters... that fracture hurt most of all.
When he'd returned home, only half-conscious, he'd of course been taken to the Armeau family's finest healers. He'd woken up dressed in fresh robes, never before worn, with the old ones already thrown away. Everyone in the house treated him respectfully and there was talk of how many rainhorns he'd collected during the great hunt, the best record in over a generation.
But his grandfather had chosen not to repair his gauntlets.
Though it was possible that they lacked the sublime materials to repair such a valuable armament, the Armeau family kept great stores of materials, especially during the hunt. For it to be an accident or an oversight was simply not credible, so he could only conclude that his grandfather was intentionally chastising him. Given how poorly the venture into Tatian had gone, he could understand why.
"My lord?" A family servant stood outside the room, his head bowed, but not truly deferential. "Your grandfather wishes to speak with you, if your injuries have mended."
"Of course." Suggesting that he wasn't in good enough condition to speak to his grandfather would be to turn his current disadvantage into a weakness that all his rivals would descend upon. Walking to speak to his grandfather in the main pavilion was a sign of trust in him, but being summoned like this was also a reprimand. Intentionally mixed messages.
Ignoring a few minor injuries, Esaire rose to his feet and adjusted his badge properly. He placed it on his belt as a soulcrafter first, not a noble of the family. This had been about power, in the end, and his grandfather should understand that even if he disagreed with the decisions.
No one accompanied him as he walked through the Armeau family estate, his eyes sliding over the fountains and ornamental trees without truly seeing them. For a long time, he'd just assumed that they would one day be his. In a technical sense that would be true so long as he remained in good standing, but he might become simply another soulcrafter in the family, not the family head dictating their future.
Most considered him the most promising young soulcrafter in the family, but he wasn't without rivals. There were several other Archcrafters with real potential who were the children of major family leaders who could also achieve the position. His sister hadn't been as well-regarded by their tutors, but she had just ascended to Ruler. The family had a distant cousin who had left for a larger city and allegedly reached Authority, though they might never be coming back.
At last he reached the golden pavilion, where his grandfather sat conducting the business of the Armeau family. No one joined the old man that day, he simply sat in his traditional robes and stared at Esaire as he approached, doing his best not to flinch.
There had been a time when he had scorned his grandfather for never ascending to Authority and dominating Anguedan for their family, but that was long gone. The more he soulcrafted as an Archcrafter, the more respect he had for his grandfather's Ruler-tier soulhome. In any case, raw power was irrelevant in what was about to happen, so he lowered himself to a seat opposite the family head.
"You wanted to see me, Grandfather Arceon?"
"I thought that you might want to find out what we've learned from your little jaunt into Tatian." His grandfather was old enough that he no longer cared for propriety, so there would be no hidden knives here. "We needed to withdraw our forces, which reflects poorly on us with the foreign Authority in Nlukoko. However, the information his guards have passed along is trustworthy."
Esaire tried to restrain himself, but his grandfather intended to make him squirm, so he let his discomfort show. "And? What did they report?"
"No one else emerged from the Tatian wasteland. Given that their food was exhausted and there are no animals to hunt, it would be foolish to assume any remain alive."
Since Esaire couldn't imagine Delarde dying of something as foolish as starvation, he had no choice but to believe that his childhood friend had died in combat. He'd planned to have Delarde serve as his right hand for years to come... just one more thing that had been taken from him. Yet though he should have felt anger or a desire for revenge, Esaire was simply tired.
"Young soulcrafters should have their duels and vendettas, but you allowed yours to get out of hand." Grandfather Arceon began sorting a pile of Silver Crowns in front of him, agile fingers dividing them into different stacks. "Your efforts have cost us multiple soulcrafters, two Archcrafters, expensive transportation, and above all set back our negotiations with the ai Tatian family. And for what?"
"Nothing, Grandfather." Esaire lowered his head, not in humility but to take the accusation head on. "I let my ego control me when I should have withdrawn and scorned the foreigners."
"Then this was an expensive lesson." His grandfather regarded him with a strange smile. "This was over a Fithan child who inconvenienced you, wasn't it? I thought better of you, Esaire. Petty insults are meaningless, and chasing after pride has ruined many a family. What could possibly be so interesting about a random foreigner to be worth such a vendetta?"
"It was a mistake, Grandfather."
"No, this is not the time for humility." One stack of Silver Crowns struck the table hard as his grandfather leaned in. "What thoughts led you to this mistake will determine your punishment."
Suddenly realizing that he had been playing the wrong game, Esaire rapidly shifted his plans. He knew that his grandfather would scorn his thinking regardless, but if he could justify himself, he might come through without a loss of position. "It was several things, Grandfather. They had stolen a valuable sleigh and I only sought to recover it."
"It was fairly stolen during the hunt, but taking it back would have been worth a lesser cost. But why give them your time in the first place?"
"Their group was unusual, and unusually effective." Esaire swallowed, seeking a tactic that would convince his grandfather. "They acquired various sublime materials and seemed like candidates to assist us in the Great Rainhorn Hunt."
"Recruiting vassals is the least irrational part of your thinking, but I fail to see how they were so interesting."
"Well... the group was a Fithan, an Ichili, and a Tatian. All three were remarkable soulcrafters, even compared to our family. The leader had somehow soulcrafted skills that nearly made me believe he was an Archcrafter, though his techniques proved to have serious weaknesses."
"Trivialities. There are talented soulcrafters everywhere, and you should not be so impressed by visitors from other worlds. You'll soon learn that such places are irrelevant to the courts, and beyond the courts there is nothing of meaning." His grandfather snorted and started to turn away. "Do we need to find better rivals for you in the city, then?"
"It wasn't just that! He seemed strangely driven, I just thought..." Esaire realized that this was a foregone conclusion and his grandfather only wanted to put him in his place. He nearly went quiet and accepted his punishment, but decided to make one more attempt even if it was futile. "The Fithan didn't just seek profit or strength, he was investigating strange subjects with information brokers and in archives. Odd families that don't exist, ai Teraeves or some other minor name, so I-"
A stack of Silver Crowns clattered over the table and Esaire stared far more than it deserved: he'd never seen his grandfather display the slightest clumsiness before. There was no trace of any emotion on the old man's face, but he spoke oddly neutrally. "What was that family name?"
"I... I'm not completely sure, Grandfather, but it sounded like 'Teraeves'. I attempted to research if they were a major family in another court, but came up with nothing concrete, so I assumed it was just another outdated piece of information. There were many odd anachronisms..."
Esaire trailed off as he realized that his grandfather wasn't truly listening. The old man stared out at nothing, deep in thought, and when his gaze drifted back down to the pavilion, something had changed.
"Grandfather Arceon?"
"No one has heard that name in a very long time, and that is exactly how it should have remained. All the resources you wasted on your childish squabbles might be justified after all." Esaire's grandfather rose to his feet and almost immediately snapped down at him. "Well, boy? Don't stand there gawking. We need to arrange a journey to Fithe."
Comments
Jeff Kabat
Thanks. I'm really enjoying the story.
Sarah Lin
Hmm... just doing a blind text search, I see a moderate number of "yets", but 300+ "thoughs"! Even though some of those will be in the middle of sentences, that's a high number for a short book. You're going to have to put up with it for a while, because I probably can't afford to do a full rewrite of the next books, but I will keep this in mind. Thanks for the feedback on detail!
Jeff Kabat
I really enjoyed book 2, but I noticed that you over use the words though and yet quite a bit. You may want to find a new way to start sentences.
Sarah Lin
Patreon might only send notifications to the first poster, not sure. In any case, I'm replying but also sending you a message. If you'd like a copy, just give me an email address where you'd like me to send the file! Reviews on Goodreads/Amazon are always appreciated, and anywhere else you feel inspired to promote helps a little. ^-^
Are you kidding me? I'd love an early copy! Where would I post a review? goodreads? twitter? (i have like 3 followers though...) edit - for some reason I had to go searching for this comment cause I did not get any notifications that you responded. Sorry for the delayed response!
Sarah Lin
Thank you for your words of support. You might think, as much as I've written, that words don't have much effect, but I'm always glad to hear from someone who really enjoys TBS. ^-^ I'm pretty good at self-discipline and managing my enthusiasm, so you can definitely count on more TBS in the future! The second book will be coming out in a month or two, while I'm working hard on the first draft of the third so that it can be fully edited by 2022. After that I may need to take a break, but I'm very committed to finishing that first trilogy to give fans a lot of proper arcs. Actually, would you like an early copy? I could always use more people to post early reviews.
TBS is your best work, no contest. It's unfortunate that the target demographic for wuxia and cultivation books is men who want very... power-fantasy tropey fiction. And I'm sorry to hear that you're struggling at the moment. I really enjoy your writing. Hope things get better <3
Sarah Lin
I'm glad that you enjoyed it! These are meant to be shorter books, so I hope once I have several out, some people will binge them. Thank you very much for recommending my work. Authors live by this sort of word of mouth. ^-^
Always a fun read! It always seems so short, but that is how good books are I suppose! I know you have been frustrated for a while, but I am a fan. I recommended you to 3 people just the other day.
Sarah Lin
I like to think the stuff I'm passionate about is better, but plenty of people don't seem to agree. One very legitimate weakness of TWC is trying to write long arcs stretched over multiple books. Why Theo is there, who he was on Earth, and so on... that will all be relevant, but it will emerge over time. My goal was to start with fun isekai stuff and some traditional rivalry and powering up arcs before some later reveals, but the whole plot structure may have been flawed. I can't promise you all the stuff from the prologue and Theo's past will turn out satisfying, but it's all there for a reason. So no, you didn't miss anything. Wait until Theo meets some more people from Earth - they'll really make him do some personal reflection. Feel free to PM me about TBS! It could definitely use more reviews and attention.
Arkeus
thank you for being clear! I would like to say that writing stuff you are passionate about does make for better writing ultimately, but if less people like it it doesn't exactly bring food :( And yeah, having the protagonist' knowledge being less than he would have thought is something that frustrated me, so it's not like I am immune to liking dumb stuff, though in this case I am not sure you leaned as heavily into that as you could have? Like, him messing up his soulhome because he has changed was great, and so was him noticing that he didn't actually put a lot of attention on stuff... but it was just, well, around? It never felt like his lack of knowledge was an actual major plot point, hence why I had the impression the story would have just been better without said knowledge, as it was always teetering on the frustration of "why doesn't he know this" without ever going into "there is a character growth arc where he learns he was an actual ass the first time around". Maybe there was such an arc and I missed it, though. Anyway, I will give the third book a try because I actually like your writing and your banter and I love the worldbuilding. I am just sad about the genre conventions. This does remind me I went on this patreon because I wanted to pm you a review of Brightest Shadow, but I always got too lazy to actually do it.
Sarah Lin
Sorry to hear that, and this is one of those cases where I wouldn't necessarily urge you to push through the third book. After the fakeout of the first book (Magnafor), the second book was meant to be a more straightforward rival story, and the third is an alternate take on the "impossible duel" trope. It's a mild twist, but it's leaning into certain tropes. I try to always be honest with readers, and I'm not sure what to tell you. What gains traction in this genre seems to be more trope-laden stories, and whenever I do something I'm passionate about, people don't like it. For example, one of the things that interested me most about TWC was breaking the "reincarnated person knows everything" trope by showing one life's experiences to be shallower than you'd think, but for you it was a major drawback. The Brightest Shadow was meant to be my big story writing whatever I wanted, and it will remain that. There's the recent novella in that world, TBS2 is coming out later this year, and I'm struggling through depression to finish the rough draft of TBS3 for 2022. I don't really have any hope, so that's the best I can offer you.
Arkeus
Quite a bit disappointed in the epilogue. I know you are playing fast and loose with the genre conventions, but the second book is firmly "standard young master and their hidden ancestor" xianxia pattern to a really ridiculous degree. It's hard to not be disappointed and give up hope on this story.
Sarah Lin
I promise I won't stop after the third book. This one makes too many promises and has more of a conventional narrative structure, so it needs resolutions. What I can't promise is when I'll get the fourth book written.
Sarah Lin
I'm afraid I'm exhausted with releases at the moment and not able to give very good feedback, but perhaps some others will click your link. The first thing I would suggest would be to divide your sections into shorter paragraphs.
Joe
That epilogue is HYYYYPPE!! Can't wait to find out more about what happened after his first life
Michael
I love the epilogue, really leaves you wanting to dive in to the next chapter. Each book makes the world bigger, more dynamic, and if I had the next book I’d stay up all night trying to consume everything the story offers. I bet it’ll be worth the wait. I hope you continue with this story beyond the third book. The potential of this story is massive and I feel like we’ve only touched the tip of the iceberg here. People like myself could read book one and two in a single sitting. We crave big worlds like this one hints at being and we typically are reluctant to dive into something until we know there’s enough there to keep us engaged for long enough. The more you build this world up, the more your audience will grow. I think this might be more of a slow burn build up in readers, but if you keep with it I think it has the potential to lead to exponential returns eventually.
JKincaid
That’s actually very intriguing. What could they possibly have done after Theo was “killed”? Or perhaps this weird conspiracy came after them simply for associating with Theo?
link to my 2 part short story. pls can u read and give feedback. https://www.wattpad.com/953704655-midnight-strike-lightning-retribution-part-1
Sarah Lin
He claimed it was a legend, but that was his friend's family name.
JKincaid
I can’t remember, was that his friend’s family name or that ancient legend he was chasing? Either way, while I’m glad that idiot Esaire was actually being held accountable, it’s just a shame he dodged the ultimate consequences. The family itself seems somewhat competently run. Hopefully our trio will be quite a bit stronger when they all meet again.
Sarah Lin
You're going to have to wait a bit, but I promise there's at least an overall answer in the third book.
Glaurung
I'm very excited to know what's so alarming about that name.
Alexander Dupree
That's not at all enthralling. Nope don't care why someone would completely drop everything to go check up on the MCs story because of one half heard name. Definitely not waiting for the third book. (In case it wasn't obvious that was sarcasm I love it.)
Nandan
Wow. Damn. That epilogue is just fuggin' excellent. I. love. it. A very believable but enjoyable thickening of the plot, intrigue, mystery... It also gives us a nice glimpse of Deuxan noble family dynamics, familiar to those acquainted with Chinese cultivation stories. This last twist is perfect, in that it leaves me wanting more. Can't wait for the next book. Thank you!
