When Comes the Dawn monthly update  [ May 2026 ]

Not too much writing done this month lol. Work has been keeping me busy, especially since I've been having to cluster my shifts much closer together so I can go on a family vacation lol

THE STATISTICS

the draft → 56,432 words

words written this month → 1,912 words

average word count per session →  478 words

words written this year → 15,430 words

STORY NOTES

Most of what's been done this month has just been planning out what I want act 2 to look like. I already have somewhat of a foundation from the chapters I've written months back, but with the details I've changed in Act 1 giving me a clearer picture for the direction of the story, It's probably gonna take me some time to restructure some of those chapters as well

I'm planning on cutting some of the fantastical concepts in act 2 (i.e. the god stuff) in favor of expanding the other fantastical concept (i.e. the ghost stuff). As much as I love Fenice's maybe delusions/maybe divine visions of the gods, it doesn't really fit all that well into the story. Maybe I'll revisit it at some point though

More interactions between the vi Aetier siblings! Like how act 1 started with Fenice receiving her mother's (last) letter, act 2 starts with a letter exchange between Fenice and Charles. (This is definitely not just me finding a short cut to establish the setting in Act 2)

Speaking of, Act 2 takes place in the newly conquered Hesperian Territories. Originally, Fenice was supposed to go there as the Tempus Praetori, but I decided to demote her and so now she's going there as the Kaisarim of Lurs-e-Luran. Will she actually get to go to Lurs-e-Luran? Well...that's another story

EXCERPT

"If your father intended on punishing you, granting you a title would be a strange way to go about it."

"He had no love for this match in the first place. The only reason why he agreed was because he could not refute the logic in my argument," she reasoned aloud. "This…this is a sign of blatant disapproval. To give me a kaisarship but deny me an Ascension? It's like— like showing me a loaf of bread and then only offering me the crumbs from it."

"I thought you were content with just the crumbs." Andras' words silenced Fenice, her wan face flushed with anger. He looked at her as one would a screaming, petulant child. "He gave you a kaisarship which grants you the authority to govern. An Ascension is given to those who mean to rule. Do you mean to rule, Fenice?"

TAGLIST

when comes the dawn monthly update [ June 2026]

THE STATISTICS

the draft → 55,089 words

words written this month → 1,914 words

average word count per session →  383 words

words written this year → 17,344 words

STORY NOTES

Not too much writing this month because 1) I was on vacation with my family at the start of June and 2) act 2 is still kinda daunting to write. Not because it's particularly large or 'action packed' per se, but just because I've changed quite a bit of things from the original act 2 so I'm partially flying blind here haha

Finished Fenice and Charles' letters to each other to briefly bridge the acts together

Fenice in these opening chapters is going to really show the readers wtf is wrong with her lol

Also starting to introduce kyr-Luxana (official first name still pending), the Tempus Praetori.

EXCERPT

But despite seeing it, this ugly and gaping wound her father’s campaign wrought upon this land, Fenice felt no profound sense of shock, or despair, or horror, or…

Maybe if she was not this child of portent and ruin. Not born from war hungry hands and raised with stories of myth and legacy and legend. Maybe if she was anybody else but Fenice vi Aetier, she might’ve felt a shred of sympathy for these poor people. 

Instead, she looked at the kingdom her father carved out of the map, and the people Luxana’s policies were slow to reach in his attempts to turn himself from soldier to courtier, and thought: I could do much better than this. 

Why should she be confined to the pearly shores of Lurs-e-Luran, untouched by the war, when she could be here. Here near the heart of its ruin. Where before her laid a tabula rasa from which she could carve her first marks into history.

The blood of conquerors and kingmakers flowed through her veins. Surely, her father could not blame her for following in the footsteps of those that made her?

TAGLIST

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when comes the dawn monthly update [April 2026]

We were soooo productive this April

THE STATISTICS

the draft → 59,181 words

words written this month → 6,567 words

average word count per session →  821 words

words written this year → 13,518 words

STORY NOTES

• [ACT ONE - THE IMPERESSA EUCLEIA] is finally finished!!! You guys have no idea how much of a personal achievement this is, considering I usually end up giving up and restarting right before act 1 ends. I've previously written some chapters for act 2, but with the current direction of act 1 and some of the stuff I've outlined, those chapters will probably go through a lot of rework as well

• I've rearranged Nike's introductory chapter again, and also switched some of his chapters around as well. So he makes a brief appearance in Fenice's POV in chapter 5, then afterwards transitions to his first POV chapter in Chapter 6

• Act 1 starts with Fenice's POV and ends with Nike's POV which I think is really sexy

• A lot of what I did this month was pretty much just filling in gaps and doing some light revision on certain scenes to make everything flow very well

• Really want to give a shoutout to @kaatiba for being my alpha reader!!! Sharing my work with her has done wonders for my motivation <3333 Reading her wip in return was also such a pleasure

EXCERPT

The sharp snap of a closing fan echoed throughout the room as Fenice's eerie little eyes opened. "You're going to make a fool of yourself if you keep drinking anymore." Those were the first words she'd spoken to him today.

He bared his teeth at her. Not even married and she's already nagging him. "It's only water."

"You wouldn't be so happy to see that servant if it was just water."

By happenstance that Nike suspected was completely engineered, the guard Philo was given the task of delivering pitchers of water for them to drink during their fast. Philo—at this point the only half-decent Aetierian Nike's met—in a small act of kindness, decided to sneak in pitchers of wine along with water for Nike to make this whole ordeal even slightly less miserable.

Nike rolled his eyes. "With how watered down this wine is, it might as well be just water."

It clearly didn't work. Or maybe he just needed more wine.

TAGLIST

when comes the dawn  [ January 2026 ]

First update of the year!! We're starting off pretty good if I do say so myself :P

THE STATISTICS

the draft → 55,537 words words written this month→ 4,024 words average word count per session →  366 words words written this year→ 4024 words

(still loving my new writing tracker yall)

STORY NOTES

• I was realizing that the order I currently had the scenes in is NOT the order I actually want it to be in for act 1, so once I finally finish this act then I'll be going back and actually restructuring it before I fully commit myself to continuing act 2

• i keep flip-flopping on how soon i introduce the whole arranged marriage subplot which is the main reason for the problem in the first point

• once I do restructure things, Nike will probably end up not getting a POV chapter until like 60% of act 1 is done, which is kinda bad for POV character but in my defense he isn't really able to do much stuck in what's essentially a maximum security prison lmao. He still has a presence in the 60% he doesn't appear in, but more of as a person of interest

• Illysandre kinda becoming more involved as Fenice's backer of sorts was not what I envisioned their relationship to be lol. I'm kinda liking it

EXCERPT

By the end of the week, Fenice's name was on the lips of every green-robed archontes to the humblest of scullery maids. The logical, preposterous, and utterly unexpected answer to the question that was Lurs-e-Luran.

A brilliant decision, some would say. They'd applaud the Vasilier's keen instinct, for picking Fenice would give a bride of equal standing the Deominos prince without offending either House Kallystos or House Soresi, keeping the balance of power between both houses at the status quo. A backhanded gift, the less generous would whisper behind closed doors. On paper, Fenice's status as not only Dantalion's firstborn child, but also the only child of the Vasili, the main wife, gave the appaearance that His Majesty was giving favor to the fallen Deominos line. But in the context of who— no, what Fenice was, the match was nothing more than an insult.

Deadborn. Accursed. Afflicted. Her presence would be a blight upon the Deominos family tree, the very start of its rot.

It didn't even matter that Dantalion had yet to sign the official edict granting the marriage of the Deominos prince to one of his heirs. As far as the court was aware, he had already made his decision, and they praised him for it. Clever, cruel Dantalion, people would whisper. To gift catastrophe in the guise of favor.

TAGLIST (ask to be +/-)

when comes the dawn monthly update {february-march 2026}

doing a combined update for february and march! I was on vacation during the majority of february visiting family so I didn't really have a lot of time for writing haha.

THE STATISTICS

the draft → 57,181 words words written in February→ 1,069 words --- average word count per session →  535 words words written in March → 1.858 --- average word count per session → 372 words written this year→ 6,951 words

STORY NOTES

• I think I've finally found the way I can bridge act 1's chapters in the order that makes the most sense, but to do that I've ended up moving Nike's introductory chapter further down and then extended it

• I ended up adding a sort-of formal courtship/engagement ceremony for Fenice and Nike that wasn't originally planned. As much as I do want Nike to come in swinging and full of rage at his situation, personality wise it makes more sense for him to make an attempt at playing nice with Fenice in order to get more sway/wiggle room in their upcoming marriage.

• I actually wrote a good chunk of the courtship bit from Fenice's POV before I realized that it was absolutely the wrong POV to write it in, so now I'm taking it apart for scraps to use it in Nike's POV

• There are a few chapters that I've previously written that I'm kinda realizing are either redundant or just serve no purpose at this point, but I'm just gonna keep them in for now until I can comfortably say that act 1 is finished.

• I'm bringing back the idea of public/imperial nomens for the vi aetiers!!! the tl;dr is that members of the imperial family are given 4 names at birth as a descriptor of who they are/their lineage, and at least within the etiquette of the court, members of the imperial family are never addressed by their first name, only their "public name." Orignally the idea came because I wanted to do something thematic with identities and the like, but it was a bit too complicated and, again, didn't really serve the larger narrative so I scrapped it. But I do like the idea (and I didn't come up with those long ass names for the vi Aetiers for nothing!!!) so I'm mostly bringing it back as some worldbuilding flavoring lol.

EXCERPT

"This entire arrangement is an offense to me, Silvanis. Tell me, which one of the Vasilier's brood are they wanting to throw me to?"

To his surprised, Silvanis did not jump to defend the honor of his liege, choosing instead to don the face of a man desperately chewing through a sour lemon. "His Majesty has bestowed upon you the hand of the most honored lady, the Imperessa Eucleia."

Imperessa Eucleia?

The name didn't ring a bell. Last he knew, Dantalion only had one daughter that was about sixteen years of age, but her public nomen was Helena. Euphemia Helena. Nike cringed. "By all the gods, please tell me that Dantalion is just having me marry some of secret bastard of his instead of a bloody infant."

"Neither is the case, Prince. The Imperessa Eucleia is His Majesty's eldest daughter, borne to him by late Vasili, Titania Glad-of-War."

"The witch could spawn ?" Nike snapped his mouth shut, color draining from his face at the very thought of Titania of Taul. Logically, he knew she was dead. It was considered the greatest victory Hesperia had in the war, even though they lost that particular battle in the end. However, the instinctive bolt of dread that was ingrained into him, and surely every single Hesperian, at the very mention of that walking calamity was nigh impossible to forget.

To think, had Titania still lived, she'd be Nike's mother-in-law.

Dreadful. Horrid. Absolutely vile.

The Trinity was merciful enough to spare him that, at least. Instead, he'd only be saddled with whatever manner of creature she and that Butcher-King begat.

Hm. Not as much of a consolation as he'd thought.

THE BLOG

I made a worldbuilding post on imperial and noble titles! You can read about it here.

Also, the tag to see all of my wordlbuilding posts for wctd is #wctd.the aetieriana

TAGLIST (ask to be +/-)

when comes the dawn monthly update {11.2025}

While I didn't do a lot of writing this month, I did do quite a bit of planning, expanding on ideas, and worldbuilding. I also opened my wip notebook again, and man I forgot how much I love my wip notebook for getting ideas down.

THE STATISTICS

the draft → 51,324 words words written this month → 2110 words average word count per session →  528 words

STORY NOTES

• I think I have a pretty good idea of the timeline/transition from act 1 to act 2, but it does require some rearranging and additional new chapters and characters that I'm hoping will help add more tension and raise the stakes a bit earlier.

• I've decided that Fenice doesn't get the Tempus Praetori rank until act 2 when [REDACTED] happens. Which means the only title she'll get after her marriage with Nike is the title of Kaisarim. It seemed to convenient to give her both at the get go

• Adding a new element of conflict on the geopolitical stage here by introducing the territory of Laran (or Lurs-Laran? Haven't completely decided yet) in south-western Hesperia. It's loosely inspired by neapolitan history where multiple kingdoms/powers try to excercise their 'claims' over the land.

• I've been doing some more work on the various positions in Aetierian government outside of the imperial family, like defining the positions and role of The Archontes, the hierarchy of the Synedrion/Curia, and essentially stripping down the nobility to two ranks: Dux and Kyri

EXCERPTS

Andras' face was unscruitable, the shadows stretched across the planes of his sharp cheekbones and the hard line of his mouth. All except his eyes, as silver as the rest of their family's, and shining like the oracles of myth. Too wise. Too knowing. Fenice wanted to sink her thumbs into them if only to stop his judgement upon her.

Instead he held her chin between his metal-wrought fingers and tugged it upwards, forcing her to meet his gaze. "The vi Aetier dynasty has not survived this long because its descendants were willing to settle for scraps." The disgust was clear in his voice. "Where is your pride? Your ambition? The blood of conquerors and kingmakers runs through your veins, Fenice. You have the potential to be so much more if you weren't so in love with your own self-pity."

Blood pounded in her ears. Whether it was from anger, shame, or something else she did now know. "Am I not a pitiful creature, uncle?"

Andras released his hold on her chin, moving to grasp her hand and untangle the gnarled mess of chain around her bone-white fingers. "The only thing pitiful about you is the cage you've built around yourself."

TAGLIST (ask to be -/+)

when comes the dawn monthly update {10.2025}

Not much of an update this time haha. I think I only wrote once in October.

THE STATISTICS

the draft → 49,213 words

words written this month → 771 words

average word count per session →  771 words

STORY NOTES

• Like I mentioned in the previous update, I decided to just jump back into writing act 2 to give my brain a break from all the act 1 set-up

• I pretty much just wrote half of a scene, and most of it ended up being exposition to explain some of Fenice's beaurocratic experiences

• More Titania lore! Love her so much, its a shame she's dead

EXCERPTS

Eliskander-konig cherished and doted on her, that is true, and if Titania wished it he would have proclaimed her his heir upon his death. Titania, as clever in mind as she was talented in warcraft, would be a fine leader as any, but the fact of the matter is she simply had no desire to rule.

She was a creature of ego, one skilled enough to feed her own whims and pleasures. When something interested her, she pursued it with wild abandon. When something did not, it might as well never have existed in her mind.

Statecraft and land management were among some of the things that Titania simply had no interest in, and thus much of the governing of the lands gifted to her from the Vasilier after their 'separation' fell to stewards, and eventually Fenice when she was deemed old enough to learn. It was only from that experience that Fenice did not find herself close to tearing her hair out in frustration as she read increasingly distressing documents and ledgers that outlined the pitiful state of the region she now governed over.

To put it kindly: Hesperia was crippled by the war. What money that wasn't drained into the war effort or pilfered in the chaos was pitiful at best; much of the major infrastructure was destroyed or in need of heavy repair; hundreds of people found themselves refugees and displaced in their own counry; and the less said about the dead, the better. Anti-Aetierian sentiments were at its peak, and thus would be ripe for a rebellion given the right trigger.

TAGLIST

when comes the dawn monthly update {08.2025 & 09.2025}

The past couple of months have been busy so not much of an opportunity to write, but better late on this update than never lmao.

THE STATISTICS

the draft → 48,442 words words written in august → 1,293 words -- average word count per session →  323 words words written in september → 2,040 words -- average word count per session →340 words words written this year→ 27,357 wordS

STORY NOTES

• Act one is kicking my but so hard, I keep getting trapped in the set-up hell that i made for myself. I'll probably take a break from act one for now and try to make progress on act two

• Nikephoros gets his own problematic blond a friend! yay! he's totally trustworthy guys :D

• chapter seven gets a little bloody (there is a distinct lack of actual death for a story that includes ghost characters lmao)

EXCERPTS

Two excerpts this post, one for each month.

It would be easier, perhaps, not to fight it. To make friends with Illysandre vi Soresi would be a great advantage for Nike and his sister, and with the consort-prima's influence and his own willingness to set aside his pride as a Deominos prince, he may be able to secure better accommodations and more freedoms for them.

And it's getting tiring, isn't it? To keep fighting.

There was only so much more of this tower you could take.

Far from Isandros. Far from home. Far from hope.

--

Dantalion hummed, nodding his head. "Yes, yes. You are grateful for many things are you not? You are grateful for your head, certainly, that it is still attachd to your shoulders. You are grateful that We have allowed you to remain with your sister. And certainly you are grateful that you have been accommodated quite well considering the circumstance." He motioned for the guards to release the prince. "Unfortunately, your brother doesn't seem to express the same sentiments. Look here—" he sat the urn down in front of Deominos "see how he has repaid Our kindness."

Slowly, Deominos peered inside the urn.

His scream echoed throughout the hall. In his flailing to get away from the urn, he knocked it over with his arm, the object within rolling out onto the marble in plain view of the entire court.

It was a severed head.

THE BLOG

no updates here :>

TAGLIST