Ask Aprille Legacy Absolutely Anything!! discussion

For anyone interested, here is the opening to my steampunk, Ruthless:

The gavel fell with unmistakable malice.
“Request for parole, denied.”
“But I haven’t done anything wrong.” The girl in chains whispered.
However, the sigh fell on deaf ears as she was led away.

~

Copper sunlight bathed her unsightly form in its tepid glow. She clutched her legs and hunched in tighter, trying to capture the warmth. Without warning, a cloud shuffled in front of the sun, and her cell lapsed into grey.

It had been too many years since she had been outside. Her skin was white and papery, her eyes as colourless as the lead sky. Strands of pale blonde hair fell across her thin shoulders, and she gave the impression that she was merely a ghost, a visitor of this time.

One of the guards who led her to and from her cell had once remarked: “I’m ‘fraid to touch her; girl feels like she’s made o’glass.”

One guard did not feel the way that the others did. This guard had realised over time that their charge was different from the rest of the rabble, and – she suspected - one who did not deserve to be in this place. The other prisoners boasted of the feats that landed them in the prison, and the guards preferred choice of gossip was usually along the same lines. Not once had she ever heard of why this prisoner was here.

Over the years, the guard had watched the prisoner become frail and weak. She had watched the prisoner fade into a ghostly image of her former self.

“It isn’t right,” she murmured darkly to the other guards one evening as they all prepared to leave the prison, though they decided not to hear her muttered sentence.

“Don’t, Ainsley,” one of the others said quietly after a few minutes of awkward silence. “You know we don’t ask the questions here.”

Ainsley clenched her teeth, knowing they could not see her expression beneath her cold steel mask.
So instead, we keep our faces hidden and our consciences buried. We imprison the innocent along with the guilty, she thought angrily.

The guard looked up as the other guards filed out of the room, a young man with sandy hair and eyes that had seen too much. He met her gaze for an instant before leaving her alone in the room.
Ainsley watched him go before heaving a sigh. She went about her duties for the rest of the day, though she had to look away whenever she passed that cell. The cell of the ghost.

She would’ve been pretty once, Ainsley thought one day as she hung up her mask on its designated hook, thinking of the girl’s delicate skin and facial features that seemed so unnatural in the prison. She would’ve been beautiful.

Walking home through the dirty streets cleared her mind. The sun was slowly beginning to sink below the horizon, illuminating the clouds that were gathering over the city. Lamplighters were dutifully lighting the gas lamps that lined the street, the early flicker of the flames making it easier to navigate the greasy puddles that gathered in cracks on the pavement.

Ainsley tucked her cap lower over her ears as a brittle wind whistled past. Beside her, horses pulled phaetons that contained those privileged enough to afford them, their hooves clattering against the uneven cobblestones. Ainsley eyed the nobles with distaste, pulling her scarf across her face to protect her nose and mouth from the weather.

A light rain was just starting to dampen her cap when she reached her home. She lived in a small cluttered room in the south of London, all she could afford on her docked pay. Despite the minimal living space, it suited her solitary life as a prison guard. She did not want to go out and see the horrors on the streets that she saw in the prisons.
Ainsley wound her way into the kitchenette, filling the copper kettle with water. She set it on the stove and dropped onto her couch. Part of her was glad that she lived some distance from the prison, despite the time it took her to get there. Being far away meant that people didn’t know what she did for a living, and she left her standard-issue metal mask at the prison where it belonged.

Later that night, as she watched the moon through the lace curtains and sipped tea, Ainsley thought of the girl, who by now would be curled up on the cot in her cell, oblivious to the beauty of outside. She thought of the sad, lonely ghost and her silence.
Who are you? She wondered, as she realised there had not been a day when the girl had spoken; and most of the prisoners were rather loud about their imprisonment. How did you come to be as you are?

I'm still wanting to know how this ends! All I know is that you were crying about it and you refused to tell us why... Tease :-P When do you think you're going to start working on it again? After Soul Blaze or after the trilogy is completely finished?

Sonya wrote: "I'm still wanting to know how this ends! All I know is that you were crying about it and you refused to tell us why... Tease :-P When do you think you're going to start working on it again? After S..."

A rough guesstimate puts it around sometime this year, I reckon, but I'm not going to put it down officially until I know :)

Cora wrote: "Wow this sounds fantastic!"

Aw, thanks!! :D

A.S. wrote: "Sounds intriguing! Can't wait to read the real deal one day."

Thanks! It has a goodreads record which will be updated with a release date soon :)