Chapter 40 Deleted Scene (Patreon)

Chapter 40 deleted scene

To say Annika’s day following her kiss with Fin was ‘relaxing’ would be the same as calling a hurricane ‘a bit gusty’… 

She had sent a hawk to Corey after she had taken care of the last two Troivackian assailants that she had tracked back into the woods. She had then had her horse drag their bodies further into the King’s forest, where the mercenary buried the bodies for her. Corey had grumbled until she had thrown a small satchel of gold at him. She had then left him while sang her praises. Though he still had no idea who she was.  

She had narrowly avoided detection from her brother’s men and squire, then had gone to the secret passage that took her back to the Queen’s room, where she changed back into her proper clothes and left. Her stitches had chafed horribly, but then again the thread Fin had used was typically used for turkeys, not humans. 

As soon as Annika had returned to her chamber she had taken to her bed claiming illness. She needed Clara to properly stitch her up, but her brother had stuck a female Troivackian attendant on her as a ‘gift’. 

The ‘gift’ was of course a woman who was watching her every move, and three days in to experiencing her ‘gift’, and Annika was ready to have the woman experience an unfortunate accident. 

She had already plotted a few possibilities. 

Lady Jenoure didn’t want the woman dead, just… bedridden for a while. 

Annika even toyed with the idea of getting Fin to tell her what he had dosed her brother with the first night he had arrived. The man had been so preoccupied with his bowels and luring the ‘mystery spy out’, he had been wonderfully absent from her daily presence. 

The Queen had immediately begun to fret when she first laid eyes on her friend’s wound, despite Annika attempting to hide it. The feat of feigning good health had taken even more of her waning strength. Fortunately, Annika had been able to sleep all of an hour before her brother’s squire had summoned her. 

Then she had awoken the next day trembling in pain, though immensely grateful that Clara had insisted she be the only one to tend to Annika’s morning needs- particularly while in ill health. The ‘gift’ could shoot her death glares al she wanted, but Clara’s stoic flatness defeated her all the same.

Clara cast a critical eye over Fin’s rough handiwork, and set to righting it while Annika screamed into a pillow. The poor woman had to douse the wound with the Troivackian moonshine as it began to look red and puffy with infection. A trick that she had heard mentioned by the court physician in casual conversation as a more modern treatment.

By the end of the ordeal, Annika stayed in bed the rest of the morning sleeping and consuming copious amounts of moonshine. She was forced to rise by her brother’s squire who told her in no uncertain terms was she to miss her luncheon with Lord Miller. 

Annika was leaning towards murdering every other Troivack in the castle if it meant she could suffer in peace. 

Her only solace, was that the pain and stress was effective in distracting her from her confrontation with a certain redheaded cook…

*** 

(OFF HAND SECTION REMOVED FROM WHEN ANNIKA WAS HIDING BEHIND THE TREE)

Not that she was overly fond of the animal. Her regular horse had been out in the pasture, and the one she had taken named Buttercup had proven to be a skittish brute. So much so that Annika had been at an even bigger disadvantage against her assailants because Buttcup (The nickname was more deserving of the beast) hadn’t stayed put.

WHY THESE SCENES WERE CUT

I had initially intended to gloss over Annika's day following her kiss with Fin, however it just felt too forced/ textbook in exposition. Instead I thought maybe to humanize her a bit more and even add a bit of humor to her reaction after.

The chapter was going to start off with the dialogue between her and her brother, and then have the explanation follow, but definitely seemed too ham fisted for my liking.

The bit about the horse, I was trying to work in a joke, but it just never landed in my opinion. So I opted to cut it out.

What do you all think?