Behind the Chapters: Shroud of Whispers - Chapter 1 - Walking Casualty

There are spoilers for shroud of whispers in this blog. You have been warned.

Shroud of Whispers had two genesis points, the first being a short story I wrote for an anthology called The Legacy. The basic premise of the anthology was the story of a family through the years, with each story focusing on a different individual in each generation. Unfortunately, the anthology was not published. I submitted two stories, and the one that was not chosen was called The Inquisitor’s Crusade, which became the start of Shroud of Whispers.

Chapter 1 is an expansion of the opening scene of the short story. I had been watching police procedural shows at the time, and I thought it would be interesting if the corpse were not lying down but walking down the street.

Xamual’s ability to not be seen by the undead was a plot device to make the opening work and also gave a very satisfying reason why the poor kid from the wrong side of the river was in such a position of power.

Magic had been explained to me like this once: It was like a lantern. The mage was the vessel, the flame was the magic, and jye was the oil that fed the flame. But unlike most mages, I couldn’t ignite my magic; it just happened. Mages like me were called veiled-mages. I’d been told that if I were left in the room with a bunch of undead, my jye would eventually run out, and I’d die soon after.

Initially, since this story was not in my world of Erone, I did not have to adhere to the rules of magic in my world. I didn’t really have to explain how the magic worked, so this explanation was not in the original short story. My editor questioned the terms I was using and she wanted to understand the magic system better.

The word jye was created to name the power of magic. I thought of it like “ki” the life force whose existence and properties are the basis of much of Chinese philosophy and medicine. I had only read the word and had not heard it spoken, so my pronunciation was like the “ki” in kite instead of the proper /CHē/. So as I do with most words that I want to play with, I took the basic sound and replaced the starting letter. Going through the alphabet, I liked how “j” sounded with the hard “i” sound. When I got to “r” and got the word “rye”, I liked the way it looked. That is how the word of “jye” came into existence.

Baion was soon standing next to me. “What do you think?”

Baion in the short story helped the woman stepping out of the bakery as Xamual inspected the body. A character—who will be introduced later—then arrives on the scene to have this dialog with the Inquisitor. The short story required a faster pace and thus had me introducing characters quicker if in slightly odd circumstances. I changed this to make the scene feel more natural.

I headed back into Valicory along the undead woman’s path. There had been a cobbler’s shop along the way, and I had noticed movement inside. The cobbler might know who had crafted the boots.

I learned the difference between a cobbler and a cordwainer while researching this book. The idea that the big piece of evidence was the shoes was a fun way to unravel the mystery.

My feet led me by Toppers. Two local members of Specter’s Hand stood outside the opium den, their distinctive black scarves looped around their necks. My jaw clenched, and I looked away as I walked past them. This was where I’d found Darain dead four years ago; his body had finally given out after years of opium use.

Xamual’s brother’s opium addiction was a coincidence with Trú’s. I developed the short story for Xamual and Trú’s backstory with no idea that they would be eventually tied together. If I’m being honest, this is actually the fourth book I’ve written for the world of Erone. I wrote book three first, then book four, followed by book two, and then finally book one. This was not my original design. Book three (Rippling Darkness) was intended to be book one, but I was unable to get an agent for it (came close, but no dice). I was in the middle of writing book four, which I abandoned to start working on book two (which was supposed to be the new book one). I almost abandoned Shroud of Whispers until I realized how much world-building I would accomplish with it. Plus, I fell in love with the story and the characters and could not leave them unfinished.

Next chapter, we’ll talk about Trú and Draë,