Though the second book in the Savage Wilds series clocks in at around 406 pages (my longest book to date) there were still around 25 pages of deleted scenes I ended up actually removing. Like all deleted scenes, these could be for a variety of reasons; over explanation, pacing, cutting a story line, etc. So if you’re curious to see what didn’t make the cut, keep on scrolling…

Prologues don’t often make the cut in my more recent books. Some work, others don’t, and I think the reason for that is because a prologue is a way for me to feel my way around this new story. Then, after I’ve done that, often it needs to be cut to better get into the action. This prologue was just like that, though I did reincorporate much of it in the final book in the series.

Prologue—The One They Waited For

“Please don't go,” Val begged. “Don’t leave me with him.”

Father Rathers smiled down at her with teeth stained yellow. The heart gems on golden chains around his neck jingled. “There, there, no need to make such a fuss!”

Val hid her face in Peyton’s leg. Why wasn’t she listening? Couldn’t she see there was something wrong about him? “Please don’t go. Don’t go, don’t go...”

“Father Rathers is a friend, my love,” Peyton soothed. “I can’t leave you home alone. It’ll only be for a couple hours.”

“During which the two of us will get along famously,” Father Rathers said. Val smelled sour cherry cough drops on his breath. “Don’t worry. You’re in good hands.”

Val clutched tighter to the hem of Peyton’s shirt. “No, Peyton… Don’t…”

But Father Rathers put a firm hand on Val’s shoulder as Peyton pulled away. She barely looked back as she double-checked her purse, then hurried out the front door. Val struggled to keep her lips from trembling. This wasn’t like Peyton. She’d never left her with anyone but Joshua before. She’d been too distracted to even blow a kiss.

The front door clasped shut. Val’s collarbone ached as Father Rathers clenched tighter. “Why don’t we—”

Val shrugged out of his grip and rushed through the kitchen to the sliding glass door, determined to throw it open and escape outside, as she often did when Peyton was away and Joshua distracted.

“You wouldn’t be thinking of going to the Wilds, would you?”

Val’s hand froze around the handle. Father Rathers stood in the kitchen doorway, a disapproving frown on his face. He carried a small brown bag Val hadn’t noticed him bring in. “You know how terribly dangerous that is. Peyton’s told you a number of times to stay away, no doubt. I think she’d dislike bringing you home from the Wilds, only for you to heedlessly go running back.”

Peyton wouldn’t just dislike it, she’d hate it. It’d been a couple years since Peyton had found Val, bloodied and alone, at the edge of the Wilds, but still her voice trembled when she spoke about it. Val didn’t entirely understand why. The Wilds were dangerous, she knew that. Everyone knew that. But they weren’t all danger. They felt… Not safe, but familiar. More familiar for Val, at least, than pretending to fit in with other kids at school, or learning simple human things that Val couldn’t seem to grasp.

“I wouldn’t be doing my job if I let you go running off,” Father Rathers said. “And I’d hate to have to tell Peyton what you did.”

Val’s heart clenched as she imagined Peyton’s horrified face. She dropped her hands from the door.

With a smile, Father Rathers patted one of the kitchen chairs. “Why don’t you take a seat? I brought some things you might find interesting. Though we dare not enter the Wilds, there’s nothing wrong with learning from their legends. So many wonderful, terrible stories have trickled out from its depths. Have you heard of the Mother Tree? How about Rhasahlyn, the spirit of comfort, or her counterpart, Grislehaut—”

Val darted past him, skinny legs pumping up the stairs two at a time until she reached her room and slammed the door shut. She might be stuck here all afternoon, but she was not going to spend that time listening to Father Rathers blather on. Val had heard enough of what they believed the few times Father Rathers and others from his group came over to meet with Peyton. She never wanted Val listening in, but Val had caught some of the names whenever she’d snuck past the office to grab snacks.

Val flopped back on her bed, kicking her legs over the side. She watched the gray drizzle of the Washington sky, and pulled at the sleeves of her shirt as seeping damp cold came through the edges of the poorly sealed windows. She flipped through the few books Peyton had scavenged for her the times she had gone near the Wilds herself.

“I’m doing humanitarian missions. Hum-an-it-arian,” Peyton had spelled out to her the first time. “Saving humans in places the Wilds have almost taken over. Saving those who have gotten lost or…” She’d hesitated. “Or worse. Hum-an-it-arian. Human. Like you.”

Human, like Val, Peyton always assured her. She tried to assure Val of that so often lately that Val had started wondering why.

When the books failed to hold her attention, Val at last grabbed her lightweight wooden sword from the corner and started swinging it around like Joshua had showed her.

“There are things in the Wilds that would kill you, just like that.” Joshua had snapped so loudly Val jumped. He grinned, tousling her hair. “But you don’t have to be afraid. I’ll teach you how to defend yourself.”

Then, almost reverently, he’d handed her this sword. He must have carved it himself at the workshop at his school so Peyton wouldn’t know. The hilt fit her tiny hands perfectly, the wood glossy with lacquer.

“Thank you,” Val whispered.

“You’re welcome,” Joshua said. “This close to the Wilds, everyone should know how to use one, even those who don’t enter.”

He sniffed disdainfully, as though the thought of being clueless with a weapon was a personal afront. “In the DFA, everyone knows how to fight. They aren’t afraid. Not of anything. I’m not afraid, and now, you won’t be either.”

Val hadn’t answered. Not just because she didn’t speak often, but because the Department of Fringe Affairs and Joshua learning how to fight was taboo in their house. Joshua exalted both. Peyton didn’t, and they’d butted heads about it more than a few times. Last week they’d gotten into a shouting match so loud Val had been forced to clamber into the corner behind the couch and clamp her hands over her ears.

Val paused mid swing and let the sword drop to her side. Something delicious lingered in the air. She cracked her door open and smelled it wafting from downstairs. Her stomach growled.

Father Rathers smiled knowingly at her as she entered the kitchen. “I imagine you’re hungry.”

Peyton rarely cooked, and while Val adored her, when she did the result was usually as palatable as toad skin. Val’s stomach growled again.

“Sit, sit,” Father Rathers said. He pulled the chair out beside him. Val took the one opposite, but Father Rathers didn’t seem to mind. He hummed as he ladled soup into a bowl and, with a flourish, sprinkled some green stuff—parsley, maybe—over top.

“Eat—or drink—up!” Father Rathers said, sliding the soup front of her. “I want to see you finish every drop or Peyton will be very upset with me.”

Val grabbed a spoon and clumsily started scooping the soup into her mouth. She’d never fully gotten used to utensils. The soup was salty and a little tangy. When she smacked her lips, it left a thin film on her tongue.

“How do you like it?”

Father Rathers had seated himself across from her, leaning far too close for Val’s liking. He hadn’t poured any soup for himself.

Val gave a grudging nod. She pulled the soup bowl toward her as he leaned even closer.

“Your mother—Peyton, I mean, sometimes I forget you’re not related—she worries about you a lot. That’s why she moved down here, though Father Dumas thought it a poor idea. There’s no getting far from the Wilds, but closer to Seattle would have been better.”

Val nodded again, though doing so took effort, like a weight had been tied to her chin. She slurped more soup. The film on her tongue had created a grainy texture on the roof of her mouth.

“Personally, I think the closer to the Wilds, the better,” Father Rathers continued. “They don’t know yet…they aren’t certain… Peyton certainly doesn’t agree. She’s confident we’re wrong. But I suppose that’s why I’ve been called. To do the dirty work. To help her see that it’s all for the best.”

He was stroking the inside of Val’s arm in a way that made her hair stand on end. When had he started doing that?

Val tried to jerk away from his hand, but her blood had been replaced by the thick texture of soup. Father Rathers was speaking, but the words swam in and out of her head.

Val blinked.

Her head clipped the bowl as it dropped, spilling warm soup onto her lap.

Blink.

The water-stained ceiling of the living room drifted overhead as she floated in Father Rathers’ arms. Cold outside air kissed her skin. It had started to grow dark. The other houses along their streets were nothing but fuzzy shapes of yards scoured free of grass, and cement and metal in the twilight miasma.

Father Rathers moved at a determined pace through the slim drainage canal at the end of the the cul-de-sac. Through the thick haze her mind had become, Val realized he was heading toward the towering outline of trees surrounding the neighborhood.

The Wilds.

“Must be quick,” Father Rathers muttered. He kept shooting glances at the snarls of thick undergrowth as he approached the Wild’s edge. Every skitter of movement within caused him to jump. He laughed nervously. “Must be quick, but must be certain. This close should be good. If there’s any reaction…”

Val smelled dirt as he lay her on her back at the edge of the trees. Her left arm was splayed out to the side and Father Rathers hovered over it, a feverish look in his eye. He held a small knife, engraved with strange markings.

Don’t, Val wanted to cry but her tongue was too thick.

She blinked.

Warm liquid poured out of her arm and was greedily soaked up by the soil. Father Rathers cast the knife aside and dug fervently where he’d cut her forearm. In moments, his hands and face were speckled with blood. Her blood.

“…must be true… Must be… Ah!”

Father Rathers peeled her skin further apart and his face shone with mesmerizing blue light. He sat back and gave a triumphant, cackling laugh. The ground shook somewhere deep, deep below Val. It rattled her bones and made her already throbbing head ache even more. Father Rathers was too busy pacing and wringing his hands to notice.

“She has to know. Need to tell her. That’s what all this was for, wasn’t it?”

He left. Val could only lay there as the night closed in. The trees loomed, eager to drag her into their embrace. Inhuman whispers tickled her ear. Shiny eyes gathered at the edge of the long grass. Val wasn’t scared of the Wilds, not like others were, but if she could, she would have screamed.

It was far too long before crunching footsteps returned.

“—what is this?”

That was Peyton, clearly upset. “You left Val out here alone? What were you thinking—"

Val’s hearing had recently become hypersensitive, and the almost in-human pitch Peyton screamed chiseled into her brain. “What have you done to her?”

Then Peyton was clasping Val’s numb cheeks, tugging on one of her eyelids, shaking her hard enough that Val’s neck hurt. The numbness in her arm was slowly being replaced by searing pain.

“…we had to be sure.” Father Rathers sounded consoling. “We had to know.”

“Not like this,” Peyton sobbed. “Never like this.”

“It’s only temporary. She won’t remember a thing, I promise. I knew it’d upset you, so I thought it better you didn’t know ahead of time. But look!”

“I can’t.”

“Just look. Quickly. It’ll be over soon, I promise.”

Peyton appeared over Val, her cheeks tear-stained, Father Rathers gripping both her shoulders as though to keep her from running. Together they knelt. A new wellspring of pain flowed from Val’s arm as Father Rathers pulled aside the flesh he’d cut.

“See?” he said excitedly.

Peyton stared. And stared. More tears and snot ran down her face.

“We were right,” Father Rathers said. Peyton sobbed harder, standing and hugging herself as she walked fervently back and forth. Father Rathers heaved a sigh and joined her, still gesticulating wildly as he talked.

Val found she could move a little. She curled into a ball, clutching at the ragged, bleeding flesh of her inner arm. It took a few tries, but she managed to gulp great, heaving breaths, but not too loud in case something in the Wilds heard. In case they smelled the blood.

She knew this was her fault. The pain, Peyton crying, all of it. She was being punished, she was sure. If only she hadn’t tried running to the Wilds. If only she hadn’t let Father Rathers trick her. If only she’d been stronger, smarter, better.

If only she’d been powerful.

And as Val lay there, the pain in her arm growing unbearable, the Wilds closing in as more and more things from within noticed her, as her own body wracked with silent tears, Val swore she’d never feel this powerless again.

“What—” Peyton cleared her throat as she pushed herself away from Father Rathers’ babbling explanations. “What...is she?”

“They key.” Father Rathers’ eyes glinted. “The key to everything we need. The power to save. Or the power to destroy. But she must never become that powerful. She must never know how strong she can be.”

“Why not?”

“Why not?” Father Rathers laughed as though Peyton were a child who’d asked a silly question. “Because if she does, she’ll be the end of us.”

This scene was a dream sequence Val had, when she first meets Mother Mal. While I loved the evocative imagery, I ended up finding a more streamlined and active way to introduce our mysterious Mother Mal later on:

The blood, dark living room, swirled away, as thick and filthy as the soup. Peyton’s rigid form stooped over, spine protruding. An old woman with a brown shawl over her shoulders had taken her place. She wasn’t human, even with her back turned Val could tell that right away. One uncovered leg was solid, gnarled oak. The hand that gripped her cane was covered in riots of plants and flowers, their scent strong enough to make Val’s head spin.

“Here you are,” the old woman said.

Val looked around. She stood in a small clearing at the base of an enormous tree. Beyond her immediate surroundings was inky darkness, as though reality didn’t exist beyond this single point.

“Where am I?”

“You’re here, I already told you.”

Val frowned. She stood much taller than the stooped woman, and in an unfamiliar situation she wasn’t above intimidation. She took a step closer. “Why am I here?”

“Because you keep fighting what needs to be. You haven’t grasped what’s needed yet. But when you do…”

The woman stepped aside and Val could see what she’d been tending: a throne of branch and earth and curled with vine and greenery. The high back fanned with flowers like a wreath. Like a crown.

“Do you like it?” the old woman said.

“I—”

“You’d better take it, or else…”

The earth trembled. A crack ripped the throne in two. Val took a step toward it—to do what she wasn’t sure—and the next second she was beside it.

“A perfect fit, don’t you think, little fox?”

Rune sat languidly on the throne, his long, lean body bridging both halves that had been torn asunder.

Every inch of him as Val remembered, though his face wasn’t covered in blood and screaming her name as she was dragged down below. The circlet of ivy and nightshade he’d worn when they’d met had been replaced by the golden, silver, and leafed crown of the High King, tilted at an ostentatious angle across his brow. His glass-sharp mouth turned in a smirk sharp enough to cut.

His eye, gold-red and hard, drank in Val.

“It appears to be missing something, don’t you think?”

“Me.” The words sprang from Val’s lips. “I should be there.”

“You should,” Rune agreed, though his voice and the old woman’s mixed so Val couldn’t discern them. “But not mine, never mine.”

Val didn’t think he meant them, not like that. Drug-induced, he’s once proclaimed that she would be his queen. But that would be impossible. Especially now.

“I’m trying to be there,” Val said. Her chest had started to crumple inward, squeezing the air out. Frigid air seeped into her limbs. “I’ve tried to get out. I’m trying to hold on, but I’m growing tired. It’s too cold, and I’m too weak. I thought you…”

Black ink had begun leaking from Rune’s eyes and mouth. Seeing Rune literally dissolving before her made Val clench her fists.

“I can be stronger, but not forever. I’m getting desperate.”

“You can,” Rune agreed, voice thick. He tilted his head, and the black consumed the clearing. “And I already told you what desperation does.”

“It makes monsters of us all,” Val whispered.

There are many more much smaller sections cut throughout the book, but the final largest section comes at the very end with lots of spoilers, so don’t read unless you’ve read the book. This is a modified version of the throne room scene. I ended up basically rewriting the entire scene from scratch, but kept the old scene and repurposed some of the elements:

There were none, but Sotera’s throne looked as though it had spikes, ready to shoot into anyone who dared tried to take its dead Empress’ place.

The hall was packed with bodies and murmured voices. General Forcheck, Marian, and several other wildlings had made it down here with Rune and me through an enormous opening created by Sotera’s destruction. The Below already had a half foot of sea water we had to wade through to reach the palace.

Sotera’s generals had tried to stop us there, but I’d drawn Sotera’s sword and they’d allowed us to enter. The small army at our back probably didn’t hurt.

Now the remaining generals watched us sullenly. The one I’d seen when I’d snuck through camp looked especially like she wanted to run me through. She looked as though she’d seen her Empress die and blamed me for it.

I shifted uneasily. My calves were damp with seawater, the palace slowly filing with the smell of salt. Sotera’s sword itched, hanging heavy like it didn’t belong. I longed to throw it away, but here it helped to ensure safety. My hands were shaking on the hilt.

“It’s over, Val,” Rune said, noticing. “There’s no need to worry.”

I was nervous, but not for the reason he likely thought. “And you believe that?”

“Not at all. But I will, for now.”

One of Sotera’s priests, a sickly thin man scabbed with sunstone, half his jaw frozen in crystal, hobbled forward. “Y-you wish to take our Empress’ place.”

“I wouldn’t be done here otherwise,” Rune said. “I suggest we get this over with before we all have ot swim out of here.”

In two long strides, Rune ascended the dais. He turned, looking across those assembled.

“Your empress is dead,” he said. “The Below is mind. Be assured that I am not so cruel as I’m sure she made me out to be. We have a common enemy, one who at this very moment seeks to kill you all.”

If he was trying to be reassuring, I didn’t think he was succeeding. But then again, Rune had never been about coddling or pleasant, false promises. His promises had always been in action.

“Priest,” Rune said, motioning for the sickly man to join him.

“Wait,” I said.

I joined Rune, who gave me a confused frown. “What is this?” he muttered.

Everything in me rebelled. I didn’t want to do what I was sure was right. I didn’t want to be down here any longer than absolutely necessary. To be trapped down here, for as long as it had left, this hell that Sotera had crafted for me.

Yet I couldn’t get the image of Rune dying with Sotera’s false crown on his head out of my mind. The same crown that sat on my brow. That I had survived. I had to take over the place I hated the most.

“I need to take the throne,” I whispered.

Rune blinked. He stood rigid, barely moving. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”

“Yes, I do. Sotera tried to kill you, and I survived it. I still don’t think that’s over. This throne,” I gestured to the cold seat. “Whatever it tries to do, I can control it, I know it. I can’t—I won’t—risk it nearly destroying you again.”

Rune bristled. “That’s not for you to decide. I’m to be the ruler of both, and without that there cannot be peace. To unite the thrones—”

“We will unite them,” I said. “As allies.”

“I-Is everything all right?” the priest said.

Rune ignored him, nostrils flaring. “And you didn’t think to tell me this before, when we were alone. When the entire Below wasn’t watching you usurp me?”

“I wasn’t sure.”

“And you are now,” he said, a sneer in his voice.

“Yes.”

“Val,” he said, voice suddenly thick with magic. “You don’t want this throne. You won’t allow me to watch it destroy you—”

“Don’t,” I said, fury swarming me. “Don’t you dare.”

“I’m scared of it hurting you.”

“No.” I looked at him, truly seeing a side of him I hadn’t before. “I think you’re scared of seeing what I might become. That makes two of us. But we have no choice.”

I brushed him aside, and there was a murmur from the crowd.

“You know I’m right. You just refuse to see it.”

The priest looked confused between us.

“I will become Empress,” I told him.

“Oh, ah, of course. Normally I’d anoint you with a crown, but you, ah, already have that. So the last thing is for you to sit on the throne.”

He began to chant something in words I couldn’t understand in low tones.

“Enough of this!”

One of the younger generals stepped forward from the group. We’d come down so quickly we hadn’t bothered disarming anyone, and he drew a sword on his belt, and charged at me.

I drew Sotera’s sword without thinking, swinging it across my body. There was a scream, and the man’s arm, completely severed, went flying.

“Stop!” I yelled as he stumbled back, howling, and the wildlings closed in. “He can live. I am no bloodthirsty Empress.” Despite my actions of the past.

“No, just a dead one,” the man snarled. “Move! Out of my way.” He pushed others aside, leaving a trail of blood on the floor as the crowd parted for him.

I sheathed the sword. “Don’t stop,” I told the priest, who gaped at the display. “Keep chanting.

He did, and I turned back to the throne, so simple, yet so threatening.

“If it starts to take me,” I said to Rune, “I want you to stop me. However you can. Do you understand?”

Rune’s jaw was tight, scowl so dark it could have been a thundercloud. “You are exceedingly clear.”

I felt better about that, at least. The throne couldn’t be left unclaimed, susceptible to other power grabs. If I took it, great. If not, maybe whatever power still remained with it would die with me.

I stilled myself, then rigidly turned so that I stood at its edge. Marian’s lips were a thin line. General Forcheck looked curious, and the generals of the Below looked ready to watch me kill myself.

“Don’t forget your promise,” I said to Rune as I lowered myself onto the throne.

Invisible spikes stabbed into my arms, my legs, back, neck, so fast I could only sit there unblinking and endure the pain. The throne room vanished as my vision darkened and all I saw was darkness and blinks of blue. I was the earth and the Below. For a hair’s breadth of time I could feel it in its entirety, the monstrous weight of eons crushing down on me.

I felt something else alive within. Something that didn’t belong.

From it radiated black and red veins of hatred. At me. At life, wildlings, Those Below, humanity. It didn’t care about that. It simply wanted all of it gone.

I fell closer to Grislehault. Through the connection that had formed in me I tried to urge him back to sleep.

This isn’t your world, I coaxed. This isn’t your time.

The veins of hatred only thickened. I tried to close it off against the rest of Those Below, but it was like trying to shut a door against a tidal wave.

All at once, my vision hurtled back to my body and I could move again. I slumped back into the throne, then tilted forward out of the throne and face first onto the stone. I was aware of whispering among those gathered. The soft footfalls of Rune as he knelt beside me and grabbed my arm to help me up.

“Off. Get off,” I hissed. “I can’t show weakness. I can’t need you. I won’t need you.”

Rune’s hands left me as though I’d burned him. His face hardened into a cool, cruel mask, the one I’d first known him to wear. The one that had slowly worn off, but was now back again, fastened in place.

“As you wish, Empress,” he said.

It took a moment for the feeling of spikes piercing me to leave before I stood. The sea of faces that met me ranged from awe to clearly wanting me dead. There was a looseness on my head and I reached up to readjust the crown that had finally relinquished its grip.

“Say something,” Rune said.

My mouth had gone dry, tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. The gravity of what had just happened hadn’t sunken in. The throne had accepted me, and now I had no clue what to do next.

General Forcheck sank to a knee, bones popping.

“Behold, the King of Thorns, behold the Empress of Glass. May there be peace between our kingdoms. Long may they rein.”

The other wildlings sank into a bow immediately. Like unoiled machinery Those Below did, too. The last to bow were the generals. I had no doubt that whatever my position in their eyes was, it was temporary at best.

“Long may we rein,” Rune said.

I looked over at him, as the black blood dripping from one eye, and the glowing blue of the other. A hissing voice whispered, “It’s not over.”

“Give a command,” Rune said, and it was just him again. “You’re so good at giving them to me it shouldn’t be a problem.”

And just like that I did have a plan.

“We’ll be submerged in a couple days,” I said, trying to make my voice come out strong. I nodded at the lead general, the one who looked like she wanted to stick a knife in my back. Best to keep her busy and far from me. “Do you have any safe places to go?”

“If we’re at a truce then I’m sure the Wilds would be more than amicable,” she said, voice dripping with disdain. “Other than that we have higher chambers. Bendeti will have to let up eventually, lest he wants to drain his entire kingdom.”

“Start moving, then,” I said. To the next general, or maybe an advisor, one surprisingly young, one arm rigidly frozen at his side. “I want to know what else Sotera was working on. I’m sure she had other plans besides what she executed.”

“I’m not sure…” The man reconsidered. “As the new Empress wills it.”

“I also want to see Grislehault,” I said.

The woman gave a barking laugh. “If you’re so eager to meet death, Empress-Slayer, I won’t stop you.”

The tension rose in the hall. Rune was looking at her with a smile that told me he wanted nothing more than to drive a blade through her throat.

“Let’s do it,” I said, internally wincing at how un-ruler-like that sounded.’

I turned back to the throne. To try to grapple with what had happened.’

“Congratulations,” Rune said. “You got the power you so desperately crave. I said it before: it fits you well.”

He gave a playful smile, all teeth, and I couldn’t help seeing the wrongness in his eyes again. “Long live the Empress of Glass.”

I could feel the others staring, friend and foe alike. Their eyes were like knives in my back.