A quickie pub-board nonupdate: we’re still in a holding pattern, but I think that’s good. If last week’s answer were “heck no,” that would have come down the pike immediately. Last time, we got a “no” the day after the book got shot down. I’m hoping the delay this time means they’re working out details and scheduling and such, but you never know. I’m keeping up the prayers until I hear otherwise.
Annihilation Chapter Twelve is up online now. In this chapter, Remiel has finally had all she can take dealing with the enemy, and she returns home half-sane.
My favorite moment this chapter isn’t something I can pull to quote because it develops so slowly. It dawns over Remiel that she’s sensing the activity in the Seraph-Cherub bond between Beelzebub and Mephistopheles, something she shouldn’t be able to do. And as she realizes this, she’s seeing that Mephistopheles is tuned out and Beelzebub is using Mephistopheles.
As this continues, she realizes how corrupted their bond is compared to what it should be, that they detest one another on some level but they’re lingering near one another because they know this should be good for them, and it should complete them. And in the next moment, she realizes that she and Camael are also two who should have completed each other, and that she wants to go home. She just wants to stop thinking and go home.
So she does.
I love the character of Remiel, and she wasn’t one of the ones I initially intended to. Gabriel I’ve loved since I was sixteen and developed a massive crush on him. But I didn’t love Remiel until after I wrote her and realized how in many respects she’s like me and I’m like her, and how there are more layers to her personality than I ever realized the first time I created a story for her.
Just another one of those things that happens when you’re a writer and you let the characters run free a little, I guess. But I’m glad I “met” her and I’ve been told others find her their favorite character as well.
