When I wrote the published prologue, I did so very intentionally, knowing that I wanted it to form a little independent arc with the interlude and the epilogue. Yet I wanted to keep them as short as possible, so they wouldn’t “overstay their welcome” (as one of my beta readers put it) or steal focus from the main storyline of Rahelu joining the Houses.

But writing short things has always been a struggle for me. The initial draft of Azosh-ek’s prologue was 1,429 words long—and my alpha readers and I were agreed: it was far, far too long for a prologue.

Luckily one of them had an easy solution: end the prologue at “Time to be gone.”

That left me with a short fight scene about 1,057 words long. It was a scene that I liked quite a lot and had the right vibes. I added another 195 words to the beginning and hey, presto, I had an interlude!

If you’re reading along and you feel like you have no idea what’s going on in the prologue or the interlude, it’s totally okay. It’s meant to be “just vibes” at this point—hopefully intriguing ones!—that will be made clear later.

The storylines will eventually converge.

While I don’t have an exact outline of how everything will turn out, I know the general shape of it and, more importantly, the motivations of the characters and factions involved.

I do worry that by the time I get around to the writing, things will have shifted in my mind. (This happens a lot whenever I try to outline something in a reasonable level of detail; what’s actually written doesn’t really resemble much of what is outlined, but the overall concept doesn’t change.) Either way, I will do my very best to give you the most satisfactory ending I can.