Exile Chapter 37 rewrites

I've finished chapter 37 of the second draft of Exile and it can be downloaded at the bottom of this page.

This is a very long chapter, over 8000 words. It'll probably be cut into two chapters in future drafts. It's mostly introversive thoughts by Silmera about what will happen to Aaron's army if it attacks, and reflections on the worth of her own life. After a thousand years of trying to prove herself she's starting to wonder what she's really accomplished. She's done so many things for the betterment of mankind, and no one will even care if she dies, or so she thinks. She's also starting to realize that she has developed feelings for Mal, as unlikely as that seems to her.

One thing I'd like to point out in this chapter is what Fayt Shadowslicer is doing. I had an experience with a job a few years back that is very similar to his situation. He knows for a fact that his immediate superior is a traitor, but there isn't any proof to take to the higher ups about it.

Once upon a time I was the general manager of a crappy little second run theater. It was the absolute worst job that I have ever had. In fact, the stress from this job actually brought out an, until then, latent seizure disorder that I had. I actually had a stress related seizure and ended up in the hospital with a concussion from falling down the stairs when I passed out from the stress of that job. There was a sort of regional manager that oversaw the several theaters owned by the company in the area, but he spent most of his time at my theater because the owner was afraid of the neighborhood it was in and refused to set foot in it. I quicky discovered that he was robbing the theater blind, and had been for quite some time as he had gotten VERY good at it. He left absolutely no proof at all, and though I went to the owner with my concerns about it I wasn't believed that his trusted right hand man could possibly be stealing so much from him. I knew without a doubt that he was stealing, and the higher us would not believe me because of the trust they'd placed in this person, and I didn't have any actual proof except what I was seeing with my own eyes. It was an incredibly frustrating position to find myself in, and that is exactly the sort of frustration that Fayt Shadowslicer feels in dealing with someone who is very obviously a traitor. He's willing to deal with an enemy in order to get proof to smoke out a traitor. To him, the traitor is the more objectionable of the two.

Also a little note about a character named Patrick Eamon. As I started on this draft I reached a point where I needed to stop and work on my outlines for the second half where the majority of the changes would take place. I realized at that time that I needed to add this character into the story in order to make the ending work. I think he's actually mentioned before the time that I took a break to re-outline, but by a different name. Anyway, he is a very important character as he is the only military commander of the Four Kingdoms that has been victorious against the Samirreh, and he is the one that will be ultimately leading the final battle. He's become a legend amongst the people of the Four Kingdoms because of his deeds. I will be adding, in the next draft, much more about his character earlier in the story so that you get the full impact of Mal meeting someone that has been a hero to him for most of his life, and know who he is and what he's been doing, and how it will impact the tactics of the battle. There's a lot that needs to be added about him, so I decided not to go back in this draft and leave it for the next. So he'll kinda just come out of nowhere into the ending of the second draft, but in the final form he'll be a legendary figure that is well known about that you finally get to meet in the end.

The first draft of this story ended at 117,352 words.
The second draft is currently at 205,296 words.