QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS !
Will Alexander and Jaylah ever meet again?
Since this is the only question anyone will deeply care about, I'm going to be mysterious and say that I think there are so many possible outcomes. I can see them having a very sudden, very emotional reconnection in a few years (provided a certain someone hasn't actually gotten assassinated yet) just as much as I can see them spending the remainder of their lives barely passing by each other, never to meet again. I personally love the tragedy of the latter, but given how open-ended the final scene is, it could really be anything.
What kind of books would Alexander like to read?
Erotica.
What are their kill counts?
Alexander's is probably something modest in the 500 range, given how he massacred a good amount of politicians in his own motherland, plus his years of being paid to do horrible things were mostly individual killings. Jaylah, on the other hand... Roughly a million bazillion. I don't even want to know how much an entire country and a half would be.
What are their MBTIs?
After just taking the quiz on behalf of each of them, I can officially declare that Mr. Alexander is an ESTP-T, Entrepreneur: savvy, energetic, very perceptive people who truly enjoy living life on the edge. They feel a sense of urgency in their emotions and tend to be success-driven, perfectionistic, and eager to improve. That seems almost comically correct to me. Miss Jaylah is an ISTJ-T, Logistician, practical and fact-minded individuals whose reliability cannot be doubted. They value clarity, predictability, and closure, preferring structure and planning to spontaneity. I would consider that true for most of the book, however, at the end...
What would be Jaylah and Alexander's favorite thing about the other?
Firstly, they both really found a home in each other, given that Alexander hasn't had anything to call his own for years and Jaylah has nothing personal to fight for without him. Though I could go on and on about how their toxic initial relationship turned into a surprisingly healthy one, I'll narrow it down to one aspect each.
Since Jaylah puts so much emphasis on the lightness/ease Alexander brings to her life and how differently he makes her feel from everyone else (because he's so unapologetically himself, therefore respecting her enough to be honest when really no one else is), the vague answer would be his personality. But if we want to get deeper, I think she secretly really adores how he knows exactly how to make her laugh, because who else in her life is making her even crack a smile? Ermalai? She doesn't really have a way to enjoy her life without him.
I think it's clear that Alexander's favorite thing about Jaylah is how she dominates him.
No, for a serious answer, (going beyond her personality because that's a given) I think the thing that first really drew him to her aside from mere attraction was the way she's really the only person who does and will continue to go to bat for him no matter what. He needs a ride-or-die, and since they're so similar in their loneliness and isolation, Jaylah is more than willing to fulfill that essential for him. For better or worse, Jaylah's protective over the very few things she loves to a near animalistic degree, and that's what Alexander needs to feel safe and secure, so it all works out perfectly! Long story short, he loves her insane determination / dedication.
When are their birthdays / what are their zodiac signs?
This is subject to slight change, but Jaylah's a winter baby, so we'll say late November. That would mean she's a Scorpio or a Sagittarius, and after reading a little blurb about each online (Sagittarius: adventurous, optimistic, friendly, simple) I'm thinking Scorpio lol. Alexander's birthday was in early spring, either March or April. That would most likely make him an Aries.
Where might Saria be?
Not to be the bearer of bad news, but because she sees Jaylah as a sort of adoptive pseudo daughter, I don't think she'd wander too far from the palace. And given that Jaylah razed the capital to the ground, it's not looking too good for our queen Saria.
I feel like I should clarify that Jaylah will/does feel immense guilt about sending Saria away to die, she just has this complex that makes her ignore the existence of anyone who's ever really emotionally hurt her. We see this with Klymene too, although she was actually kind of toxic.
How did Zensa and Adelié fall in love?
I think since Adelié is kind of indecisive and flighty with the people she likes romantically, it took Zensa being her closest confidant and companion to make her feelings more solid, more long-term. In my head, she didn't even realize she liked Zensa for real until a long time after they grew close. We see tiny hints of her being attracted to boldness and decisiveness and people who just really step up, so I think she saw Zensa doing something boyfriendy and thought uh oh.
When she fled her home country, Zensa was just as emotionally stunted and closed-off as Jaylah is basically the entire story, which is to say a lot. Of course the huntresses were all welcoming to her when she became one of their group, but Adelie's mixture of unselfish kindness and easy charm really struck home with Zensa. I see her being the only one not put off by Zensa's natural frigidity. She also probably made her feel special for herself, rather than her grand accomplishments the way she was back in her home country.
This is kind of sad, but I see Adelié being the only person Zensa feels undeniably safe with. Not just physically, but emotionally and intimacy-wise. You know that feeling you get when you're just certain you can say any of your thoughts to someone—weird or horrible or heartbreaking—and they won't bat an eye before giving you the response you need? Even though Zensa unfortunately lost her baby, I think the warm, solid presence Adelié brings to her life is the perfect environment Zensa would have wanted to raise her daughter in.
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If you have any more strange, analytical, sad, or even just funny questions, feel free to ask!
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FUN FACTS !
-When I was first, first plotting this book—I'm talking before I had even written a single word in 2018—I flirted with the idea of having Alexander be a secret Prince the whole time. Like, that would be a plot twist at the end of the book. Thank god I grew up and realized how stupid and awful that trope is (in my opinion).
-Basically until it came time to write any of the actual scenes, I had planned for only a couple of deaths. I think only Sonia and Antinoch were supposed to go. Again, thank god I realized that war books need bigger stakes than a couple of measly deaths to be worthwhile/realistic.
-On that same train of thought, Jaylah was never supposed to personally sink a sizable chunk of her own country to hell, but I think it's a very fitting and ironic ending to her character arc.
-Also quite ironically, Jaylah becomes the very story of Lamia, the girl who kills herself by becoming so greedy she eats a star, that she was told by Klymene as a child. She was doomed from the start.
-The most fun fact of all: despite being in her most broken, wildly delusional state when she hallucinated her dead mother in her room, Jaylah could not even fathom Queen Euadne telling her she didn't hate her, not even to comfort herself with a hallucination in which her mother told her she loves and forgives her.
-I think my liking for the name Alexander originally came from the fact that I had a crush on this new boy in seventh grade with the same name. Sadly, he did not look or act like our king Mr. Khan.
-All of Jaylah's initial characterization can be attributed to the god awful Avatar the Last Airbender movie and the final thirty seconds in which Azula gets assigned the Big, Important mission from her insane, Aegeus Imperator-esque dad that her older brother failed, says something extremely menacing, and then the movie ends. When I tell you that shaped my entire world and sexuality as an eight year old... I mean, clearly it was enough to bring forth a whole ass duology ten years later.
-Jaylah's super old, cool swords were originally going to have some kind of magical element, but then I realized I love a fantasy world largely without magic (or at least the stereotypical kind) so much more. Plus, it meant she had to claw her way to her goals on her own without help.
-There was going to be a momentary fake dating situation with Alexander and Jaylah when they were on the run before I realized how unappealing I find that trope. Except when the fake dating is fake marriage and it's between Jaylah and a foreign Prince with a demon for a father. Haha.
-Although I find a lot of the worldbuilding that I originally put into place childish and shallow, I really like the idea of the Kingslayer world enough to write another whole series. I'm thinking Kingslayer 2.0 but gothic horror—Black Swan core, poisonings, hot evil women rivals, excruciating sexual tension, the Inquisition, Biblical irony, scary circuses, etc. etc.. You'll see. It'll be insane.
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If you still want more extras, I have a Pinterest account ( @Tencutepuppies ) with a lot of references I used to help write these characters. We also have a Discord server with about a hundred members in which we talk about books, pop culture, characters we like and despise, and basically anything else you can think of. If you haven't joined already and this interests you, feel free to ask here or DM me for a link! We would love to have you!!