A song for two voices - book 6

[swimmer963]

This story is getting HARD to write and I'm not super happy with this draft yet, especially re: pacing, there is way less intense action and it's much more a bunch of loosely connected side plots than I would prefer, and it probably doesn't end in the right place, but it's already taken me forever and is at like 180,000 words, so here, have a rough draft :)

(Note: I have made a bunch of changes to book 5 since the last draft I posted here, which means there isn't perfect continuity between the old book 5 and this section. I've listed major plot-relevant changes below, and I've also linked to the more recent and improved version of book 5.) 

Book 6 MOBI
Book 6 EPUB
Book 6 RTF 



Covers:
*Savil and Van trying to patch things up after the events of the end of book 5. Drama.
*Some clarification on what Leareth is up to, in case you were curious.
*Lots of magical research.
*Stef and Medren have adventures.
*Political drama. Vanyel is not great at politics. 
*There miiiiight be a side plot where Need shows up.
*Jisa getting trained as a Mindhealer.
*Checking in Lissa, Karis, Shavri, Tran, etc etc etc (there are too many characters in this series and they are all amazing and deserve their own side-story, damn it Mercedes Lackey)


New Book 5 MOBI
New Book 5 EPUB
New Book 5 RTF








Major plot changes made from last draft of book 5: 
-Rolan doesn't come back right away, and Tran gets re-Chosen by Delian instead. (Justification: I think it loses a lot of the impact of Taver's death to have Rolan immediately show up as a replacement) 
-Jaysen still dies but no longer calls Final Strike (because my friend thought there it was too much "a chain reaction of spontaneously combusting Heralds") 
-MOST IMPORTANT: the mystery of Leren's assassination attempt is resolved within book 5 and Vanyel finds out it was Leareth's plot. (I mean, I *think* this was canon already, but main thing is that Van already knows what's up by the beginning of book 6) 

Comments

[liana12]

Yes!!!!!! I'll try to be a good girl and keep it till my holiday in 2 weeks. Just one think re Delian, isnt that canon that as soon as one Grove Born dies, another one comes out of the grove to choose the Monarch's own? Like in Exiles, after Taver's death in the battle with the Tedrel?

[kaza999]

hooray!

holy jeez i just finished this and you've got the original series 'drop a mountain on everyone's heads' style down flat lmao--between the blood magic, need, stef taking a dive in a river, van's constant state of crisis and starwind's injury everything is nuts! and that ending, oh my gosh!!!! jeez what the heck is going to happen? where'd yfandes go? this is wild!

my favorite line in the entire thing has gotta be: "“Is it just me,” Randi said dully, “or does Van not actually listen to me anymore?”" i have no idea why it's so amusing but it kind of sums up van's entire existence lmao

stef's huge friggin crush on van (and van's parallel concern for stef) is wonderful and i loved the scenes they were together--also stef's preference for older men is very obvious and also hilarious

shavri is so badass here! between having need and her awesome healing abilities, she is so cool! i do like how when we see her from jisa's point of view, she isn't necessarily the best mother in the world--a lot of her duties and problems take away from being a better parent.

i love your description of jisa's mindhealing abilities.

man, i hope the thing with yfandes gets sorted out. she's one of my favorite characters and it seems out of character for her to reject van like that, even if he is asking really scary questions.

and lastly, it's always sunny in valdemar, or; vanyel's current mental state:

[gildaurel]

So many things I love about the way you've filled in this time period. I really like that Vanyel meets Stefen earlier; I always felt it was a bit implausible that he would never have met Medren's star pupil roommate. I also like how Vanyel seems to be pulling away from everyone into the private person he is in Magic's Price- you pace that very well. His lack of caring about seeing Tantras or not is well done-- I hope that they reconcile, because I feel like Vanyel's actions were understandable.

My only qualm is that I don't like losing the heroism/ idyllic Vanyel (the trial), but that's because I love my Sue Vanyel who is perfect in every way, ha, even if I know it's not the techincal best. And maybe people are coming around to seeing him that way again?

Looking forward to the next part.

[liana12]

finally had time to read it all, and loved it. Book six is so, so good, you did great job turning a slighgtly creepy fairy tale into a full-fleshed adult world (well, minus magic horses and some such, but you know what i mean). I love the way Van thinks, and questions everything, and how it explains him becoming more and more of an "ice-mage". How they all, in fact, THINK, ask questions, research. How they react to the problem of lack of mages - let's try and find a solution, instead of doing nothing and waiting. YOur Shavri is a great character, finally a woman Randale could have fallen in love with, and then I also absolutely love Karis. Please, give us more soon; I'm dying from curiosity. Plus, baby Stef is absolutely cute.

[liana12]

Just reread parts of book 6 (I love it and cant wait for more) and something occured to me re Laereth. What he says, his way of thinking to sacrifice thousands for the greater good of millions - that's exactly how communist ideology worked, and Van's gradually being sucked into it is exactly how very intelligent people could be seduced by it, ignoring even the most horrendous crimes. Perhaps I'm biased, living in one of the post-communist countries, but the similarities are striking to me. First, we have to sacrifice thousands of people fighting for the greater good and a completely just world which will happen once communism is fully installed. Then, it turns out not to be so easy, and (as by Stalin) the class fight gets worse with the progress of communism, because the last representatives of capitalistic oppression become desperate and fight harder. Of course, in the very harsh world at the end of WWI, the idea of a state with no oppresion, no property, eveyrone getting what they needed, seemed beautiful, and plenty of people fell for it. Some very well educated, very bright Russian lawyers are a case in point, giving up all the values they were taught to invent the legal framework of the new, beuatiful world. As a lawyer myself, while reading their writings I couldn't believe my own eyes, how such great professionals could not have seen what a hell they were building a framework for. And yet. Which made me think of Vanyel. Of course, many years and tens of milions of dead later, it turns out it was all deception, meant to justify a tyranny of psychopats....But perhaps it's where you took your Laereth from and I'm just late at noticing it :)