As I’ve started really diving into Embers: Ziva Payvan Legacy, Part 2 and preparing to bring the Ziva Payvan series to a close (well, sort of—more on that in a bit), I’ve found myself ruminating on a regular basis about how these Legacy books were never meant to exist, and if I’d ended the main Ziva Payvan trilogy the way I was originally planning, they most definitely wouldn’t exist. But just like with Aroska Tarbic’s role in Dakiti, by the time I reached the end, I knew I wasn’t done.
I was, admittedly, a little leery about trying to continue the series, because Ronan was so huge and epic that I thought surely nothing was ever going to top it. I viewed it as my personal best, and I’m still very proud of it. The problem was that, while Ronan’s ending was considered satisfactory—albeit bittersweet—by most (including myself), I felt that the characters’ story wasn’t over. The trick then was to come up with some form of plot that would serve as the vehicle for their story AND still maintain the excitement. Two things allowed me to do that: 1) the fact that I introduced a new element in Ronan (the Niiosian Mob) that gave me further plot material, and 2) the fact that I didn’t end Ronan the way it was supposed to end.
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Still here? Okay.
Once upon a time, I wrote solely for my own enjoyment and had no intention of ever publishing. In fact, I wrote all of Dakiti, all of Nexus, and had started plotting Ronan before I even considered looking into publishing. During those days, I wasn’t nearly as concerned with continuity and bringing everything full circle, so while the plan was still for Ronan to be a culmination of sorts (*cough* #Ariva), events weren’t nearly as connected to the rest of the series as they are today.
In that sense, Dakiti and Nexus were pretty much identical to what they are now. Ziva and Aroska’s rocky backstory was the same, the team went to the Dakiti Medical Research Center, Ziva used her forbidden abilities to save Aroska’s life, he got her name cleared, she went to him for help after being framed for murder by Dasaro, the two of them went to Chaiavis, met Kat, went home and saved Argall, Ziva got shot, blah blah blah. Even the overall structure of Ronan was the same, with Ziva going to rehab, trying to rescue Zinni, reconciling with Aroska, and even teaming up with Taran Reddic and the Durutians to combat Ronan’s forces. The primary difference was who Ronan was.
We first hear Ronan’s name in Nexus when Kat Reilly confides in Ziva that she was captured by the mysterious entity, was exposed to an unknown substance, and is now dealing with a strange illness. That part was still the same in the original story, but the plan was that it would turn out to actually be an illness, rather than neurological symptoms caused by experimental nostium. It would subsequently be revealed that Tav Ronan was some sort of mad scientist (and a man) who was hell-bent on using this disease to wipe out entire races throughout the galaxy (for what reason, I have no idea, so I’m glad I never ended up going this route). See? No Nosti, no Resistance, and no real connection to the rest of the series.
(check out some of my original plot notes below—click each image for a larger view—as well as a few preliminary notes from the early days of Fracture, just for fun)
Since the substance Kat was exposed to caused her disease (complete with the same neurological symptoms like headaches, seizures, and numbness), that of course meant the substance that was released throughout the military base on Na—the substance Ziva and countless Haphezian soldiers were exposed to—also caused the disease. The disease with what had thus far been a 100% mortality rate.
You can probably see where I was going with this. No, Ziva was not originally going to survive Ronan (for real this time—no staged deaths here). The plan, however, was to take her through this wonderful redemption arc, driven in large part by the aforementioned reconciliation with Aroska. Confessions, admissions, and professions were going to take place, all leading up to an epic battle between the Haphezians / Durutians and Ronan’s forces in the heart of downtown Noro. While the Haphezians were victorious, the end of the battle also meant the end for Ziva. As kind of an experiment, I actually wrote out a little one-shot, a final, admittedly heart-wrenching scene in which Aroska arrives in time to be there in her final moments. I scrounged around in my old Dropbox files and found the document—it’s dated April 25, 2013, a full year before Dakiti’s publication. Scroll to the end of this post if you’d like to read it.
I suppose technically I could have continued the series even if that was the way I’d chosen to end Ronan—it just would have been sans Ziva, which was entirely unacceptable. In a way, though, I was able to draw on those old ideas for inspiration when plotting Fracture, considering she staged her death and 99.999% of the galaxy still believed she was dead. But without those changes I made while writing Ronan, we definitely wouldn’t be seeing the same Fracture—or Embers—we see today. In fact, we most likely wouldn’t see them at all.
I’m very glad they do exist though. While the characters kind of get put through the wringer in Fracture and the story is a little grittier/darker than what we’ve seen in the rest of the series, I’ve had at least a couple of people tell me they enjoyed it just as much if not more than Ronan, which is honestly a relief for me. I mentioned earlier that I was initially concerned about any continuations living up to our dear Ziva Payvan Book 3, but I don’t think the two things can even be realistically compared. Yes, there are combat and battles (and, without spoiling anything, Embers will have a little more of an epic final battle feel), but so much of the primary conflict in these Legacy books is interpersonal rather than on any sort of organized level. In many ways, that’s exactly what’s called for; the characters have spent the past three books battling various enemies in order to protect their home, way of life, and even the galaxy, so now we have this final test of their resolve as they battle each other.
But worry not! While Fracture’s theme is pretty clearly brokenness, Embers’s theme is—you guessed it—revival and redemption. How those things come about remains to be seen, as well as the precise form they will take. My plan at this point is to once again conclude Embers in such a way that it has a definite ending but still leaves things open enough to continue IF I choose to do so. I do have some ideas for more continuations, but I worry about a) sullying my planned ending and b) further postponing work on some of the other stories I’d like to write. Perhaps I’ll have to do a series of short stories :)
ICYMI, the storyboard for Embers is complete. I’ve actually made a little progress lately so some of these word counts are no longer accurate, but take a look at this list of chapter nicknames and speculate wildly!
As always, keep an eye on my social media spaces and/or subscribe to my newsletter for all the latest info regarding my work. I’m really excited to make some progress on Embers during this new year!
The End (that mercifully wasn’t the end)
By the time Aroska made it back to what was left of HSP Headquarters, the victory cannons had been sounding for close to ten minutes. And by the time he found his way through the rubble and up onto the partially intact sixth floor, it had been closer to twenty. He was no soldier, but there was something thrilling about fighting alongside the Grand Army’s finest. Maybe it was because putting his hard-earned skills to the test felt good, or maybe it was the sense of pride he felt in protecting his homeworld. Whatever the case, the sweet relief the victory brought him was indescribable. There was just one more thing he needed to do before he would allow himself to revel in relief.
“Still can’t reach her on comm.” The voice of Skeet Duvo carried through his earpiece. “Are you almost there?”
“Almost there,” Aroska confirmed, stepping over the lifeless bodies of several of Ronan’s men who had tried to take the floor. He ran his eyes around the area, trying to familiarize himself with the dark, demolished version of the lounge outside the director’s office. He carefully began to pick his way across the room, pausing a moment to give his last medipac to a bloodied HSP agent who came crawling out of the shadows. There were several seconds of total silence as he lingered in front of the office’s side door, almost afraid of what he might find inside.
When the door slid open and he caught sight of her, he quickly let out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “She’s still up here, Skeet,” he said into his comm.
“Good,” the sergeant said, the relief obvious in his voice. “I’m meeting up with Sheen and Adin and then we’ll rendezvous with you there. We’re about fifteen minutes out.”
“Copy that,” Aroska said, returning the comm receiver to his belt. He made his way into the room, all the while keeping his attention on the woman sitting directly across from him in front of the big picture window. Ziva remained in a relaxed posture, one leg drawn up against her, the other stretched out before her, her back pressed up against the desk she’d overturned to serve as cover in the event that the enemy breached the room. She didn’t look at him when he entered, but he knew she heard him by the way her shoulders straightened and she held her head a little higher. Her eyes remained on the window, or more accurately, the view outside that had once been separated by the interior of the office by a pane of glass. The faint pink light of dawn reflected off her face.
Aroska sighed and settled down beside her, assuming a similar position as he too gazed out the window. He’d seen this view plenty of times before, but it looked completely different now that some of the nearby buildings had been destroyed. Without them there, he could see all the way across the charred cityscape to the river, and he had a perfect view of the sun as it broke the crest of the distant hills. If not for the fact that it was his home and the majority of it had been destroyed, he might have thought it was beautiful.
“We did it,” he said, his words trailing out on the tail end of a sigh.
There was a long pause before Ziva spoke. “We did.”
Her voice was quiet—she was no doubt exhausted. Hell, they all were, but ever since she’d been exposed to the virus, it didn’t take long to wear her out. She’d never stopped fighting, though. Even now, she was still holding her rifle, finger poised above the trigger guard with the barrel resting against her leg. It was almost as if she didn’t believe everything was truly over and wanted to be able to get up and fight again at a moment’s notice.
Ziva still had yet to look at him. Her eyelids drooped slightly, and her face was contorted as if whatever she was thinking about was causing her pain. “Do you think things will ever be the same again?”
It seemed like an odd question coming from her, considering what a one-day-at-a-time attitude she’d always held. Aroska shrugged and watched one of Reddic’s men help a comrade out of the rubble in the street below. “Probably not,” he replied, gesturing at the sunrise, “but look, it’s a new day, a new start. Who knows what could happen?”
Ziva shook her head. “Never in my life did I imagine it being like this.”
Aroska turned and brushed a bit of debris from her hair. “How are you doing?”
“I’ve been better,” she replied, bringing her rifle to rest on the floor between them.
There was something about the tone of her voice that didn’t seem right, and Aroska turned to get a better look at her. Only then did he notice the way she was pressing her other hand against her stomach, the way her fingers were stained a dark red, the way her fiber mesh was soaking wet.
“Sheyss!” he exclaimed. His hand flew to his belt, looking for that last medipac that was no longer there. He shifted his focus to his communicator, but Ziva’s hand on his arm stopped him cold.
She made an airy sound reminiscent of the word “don’t” before swallowing. “Medevac’s not going to get here in time.”
“The hell they’re not,” Aroska retorted, picking up the comm anyway. “Skeet, come in Skeet! I need you to double-time it up here. Bring medical—Ziva’s hurt.”
There was what seemed like an unnecessarily long silence, followed by heavy breathing before the sergeant responded. “We’re moving as fast as we can!”
Aroska rose up on one knee and returned his attention to Ziva. The gaping wound beneath her left rib cage appeared to have been caused by shrapnel, and the corresponding marks on her legs and arm seemed to back that theory up. It was still bleeding at a steady pace, and a puddle of blood had begun to form under her.
“Some grenadier got lucky,” she said before he had even asked what happened. “Don’t worry. I blew him away along with three of his buddies.”
For a fleeting moment Aroska had to fight away a smile. “Are you in pain?” he asked. “You’re talking almost like normal.”
“Yeah, I…” Ziva coughed a bit. “I don’t feel much. Everything is pretty numb right now.”
“Don’t leave me.” “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Well, I guess that’s good.” If there was a plus to this mysterious disease, it was that she didn’t have to suffer much. “You’ve used all your medipacs.” It was more of a question than an observation—no harm in checking.
“And they didn’t do me much good,” she said. She lifted her hand briefly and glanced down at the wound. The blood was still coming at a steady pace, unable to clot. “Like I said, I never imagined the end being like this. Kind of anticlimactic, isn’t it.”
“Hey!” Aroska exclaimed, grabbing her by the shoulder more roughly than he’d meant to. “Don’t you dare talk like that. This doesn’t have to be the end.”
She looked up and met his gaze for the first time since he’d arrived. She was by no means crying, but her eyes were glistening with the first signs of tears. Much to Aroska’s dismay, she slowly began to wag her head. This was the woman who had always managed to keep fighting and defending herself, regardless of how much pain she was in. She could push through a mission nauseated and burning with fever, and the only way you’d ever know was if she told you outright. Her tolerance for pain and ability to persevere through suffering had always impressed him beyond description. This was that same woman, admitting she was done. This was as real as it got. Aroska felt his own eyes begin to well up with tears.
“Don’t you dare,” Ziva said through gritted teeth, somehow able to show anger despite the situation. “Don’t you dare cry over me.”
Aroska slumped back against the desk, staring out into the light and blinking rapidly to reign in the tears.
That’s all the further I ever got writing the scene (aren’t you glad things didn’t end this way?) but the idea was to have Ziva completely shed all the defenses she’d been putting up for the entire series and reveal this vulnerability in her final moments. No more of that nothing-to-lose attitude, because suddenly she did have something to lose (some of that element still found its way into the Ronan ending we see today). I even threw together a little corresponding artwork, and the whole scene was set to “As it Fades” by VNV Nation in my head. There was going to be an epilogue where Aroska received a note she had written in anticipation of not surviving the final battle; it essentially confirmed her redemption arc and gave him her blessing to continue fighting in her stead. I still think it could have been a good ending if it was executed correctly, though I’m definitely a sucker for bittersweet endings. But these characters aren’t done with me yet ;)
