My First Love Was Ashan.

Before there was Silver Forest Press, before I knew anything at all about publishing, there was Sinia and Ashan.

(Light spoilers ahead.)

I sat down and wrote a scene.

A single scene about a woman carrying water from a riverbed, through a magical veil, and into a crossroads turned village out of necessity.

Because the world beyond it was too dangerous.

That was all it was meant to be. One scene, written only to set up my new laptop and get a feel for it.

I stopped there. Got up, stretched, poured myself a glass of wine and walked back towards my rocking chair. Then I picked up the laptop again and thought:

What if I wrote more?

What if I told the story of this woman – and how she falls for the most dangerous man in the realm?

In that moment, Ashan was born.

And, being the Demon he is, he never let me go again. Not until his story was told.

So, really, I suppose we can blame the entire Realms of Penumbria trilogy on one new laptop and a glass of wine.

Ashan enters the story as something beyond understanding. The Lord of Fear is trying to pretend he is something he is not – and he continues pretending throughout the whole of book one.

For her?

Yes and no.

He is powerful. So powerful that, at first, he does not dare touch that power.

Fear is his sustenance. It feeds him, strengthening both the Demon and the shadows within him. If people fear him, he remains untouchable – not only as the creature he is, but also as the man buried somewhere deep inside.

Ashan is constantly standing on an edge. He is never safe. He cannot decide whether he wants to step into the light or bathe in the darkness, surrendering to the shadows forever whispering in his ear.

I met him broken in book one. I found him in one of the few places where he could still be reached.

And then I asked a simple question:

What if he did not remain there?

What if, for once, I allowed the dark hero to become as dark and powerful as he was always meant to be?

And how far would my Sinia be willing to follow him?

Believe me when I say I did not know the answer when I began typing book two. Because, for me, the story must come from the characters.

I am what is known as a discovery writer.

I outline, yes. Quite extensively, actually. But I also rewrite those outlines whenever I meet a wall my characters are unable – or simply unwilling – to cross.

They are wonderfully inconsiderate like that.

And so, I never truly knew whether Sinia would follow Ashan into the darkness.

Every one of my books has had more than one possible ending. It is one reason my readers so often find themselves guessing in the wrong direction. My characters are alive to me, and living creatures cannot simply be hung upon a plot and ordered to grow in one predetermined direction.

Throw something new into their path and see what they become.

Ashan was the only character I thought I had set upon a certain course.

Even his darkness soon outgrew me.

And as it did, he kept me awake late into the night, hammering down words until I was no longer sitting in the corner of my living room. I was deep in the Demon Realm, beneath the silver trees of the forest or crossing Maloon’s rolling landscapes.

I followed him. I followed Sinia. I tried to discover what they would do next.

And I never gave either of them a moment’s peace, because I needed to know how much they could endure.

How much their love could endure.

It reached the point where I would wake in the middle of the night with Sinia and Ashan both whispering possible outcomes into my head. Sometimes they told me to go back several scenes because I had written something that did not belong to them.

Something they were not ready for yet.

Apparently, creating fictional people also means accepting their editorial notes at three in the morning.

Craving Each Other.

Sinia and Ashan’s relationship could never be judged through a modern lens. Theirs was born in a world overrun by Demons and monsters. It is a love that could never exist in our world – and perhaps should not.

Forbidden love.

That is the trope readers enjoy so very much. But writing it – truly creating a love that was never meant to exist, yet which destiny somehow demanded – was heartbreaking.

By the time they finally found a way to bridge the abyss between them, I was in love with them too. I had fallen in love with the people surrounding them and with the world that had risen around their story.

So every step I forced them to take deeper into the darkness sometimes felt like agony.

Did that stop me?

Of course not.

A Monster's Love

When I began Ragebound, I started with another question:

Would the Lord of Fear still be capable of love?

What does love become when you place it in the hands of a monster?

Love and hate live so close together that even the wisest among us cannot always tell where one ends and the other begins. So what would happen if I gave love to a Demon of Fear? To a monster who knew nothing of mercy, never mind tenderness?

Ashan showed me exactly where it would lead him.

From the moment he awoke, he wanted Sinia gone. Whatever remained inside him that still belonged to her felt like an intrusion. A weakness forced upon him.

And so, he needed her destroyed.

I will have to stop there, because anything more would take us well beyond the realm of light spoilers – and Ashan has caused enough trouble already.

What I can tell you is this: the desire to discover what happens when a monster loves is the reason I wrote this epic dark fantasy romance trilogy.

Penumbria grew around its people – the heroes, villains and all those who refused to fit neatly into either category. Not only Sinia and Ashan, but Mo, Carlos, Rathal, Mariv and everyone who joined them along the way.

They turned a single scene into a world.

And a woman carrying water through a magical veil into the beginning of everything.

Ashan's Arc

I will leave you with one final truth.

In Fearbound, Ashan is a broken Demon experiencing kindness for the first time.

In Ragebound, he must learn that he cannot be anyone other than the monster he was forged to become.

And in Balanceburned, he must discover that even the light needs somewhere to stand still – whether he wants it to or not.

And Ashan, as anyone who has met him will know, rarely wants anything that is good for him.