3.

Psyke woke, thick-headed and cold, from dreams of breathlessness and terror. The tisane Olympia had fed her, a poisonously sweet concoction of Petal, bitter chocolate, boiled milk, and sugar syrup had done its work most thoroughly. Time seemed clouded, her head mazed, and her body as lethargic as river silt.

Her world was darkness streaked with grainy light, and the faint sour smell of her breath was directed back at her, captured by cloth. Read more

2.

When Psyke returned to the ballroom, arms prickling, bare with cold and vulnerability, a man's shadow crossed her path, too close to be a servant. Maledicte, she thought, and her fairly trapped. But a glance up and further up still reassured her of that even as her breath caught. This wasn't Maledicte at all, but Maledicte's lover: Janus Ixion, Lord Last, the bastard nephew of the king.

Her smile never faltered, even as Ixion bowed silently, and without a word, or even truly a glance at her, offered a hand. Read more

Psyke's Very Bad Day, pt 1/3

These are a few (longish) scenes that never made it into Kings & Assassins.

Why this didn't make the book?: It was a prologue that references a whole lot of people who would be irrelevant to the plot of Kings. Plus, the nervous debutante was just the wrong feel for the rest of the book. Those of you who've read Kings will find certain phrases or parts familiar--they were cannibalized for use later. Still, I have a fondness for these scenes; they gave me my first look at the kind of woman Psyke Bellane might be. Read more

So I promised you all cut scenes from Kings and Assassins, and promptly fell down on the job. Problem is, I'm a big writer. Tell me to write 100K, and I'll write 140K. Tell me to write 120K, and it just gets ridiculous. This is the sole reason I moved to novel writing in the first place: my "short" stories were all clocking in at 7K, 10K, 25K, and the first Sylvie "short?" reached 40K at the 3/4 mark before I got disgusted and decided she needed to be a novel character. Read more