Why The Sovereign Offshoot?

So, for anyone who doesn't already know, (at this point, I'll assume just about everyone that might read this) Sovereign Ithayleasin is a character in Ivory Chronicles: Call of the Dead. She was incredibly fun to write because she's so mysterious. Her motives and endgame are veiled, and even I want to know more about who she is and what made her that way. Because this is an offshoot, and because I'm planning on this book being very short, I wanted to write this out before continuing on with the main storyline in the Ivory Chronicles universe.

If you haven't had a chance to discover who Sovereign Ithayleasin is, this is a great time to find out. Without spoiling anything, Sovereign Ithayleasin is the leader (hence the title "Sovereign") of a city who is loosely tied to the main character. In that tie, only a small portion of her character is revealed and she remains an unsolved puzzle piece to the plot. I feel that, in order for both myself and my readers to understand why she is who she is, and where she's headed, we need to understand where she came from.

Truth be told, even before I finished Ivory Chronicles, I wrote out a short short story that serves as a basis for the offshoot. Even before I fully wrote in Sovereign Ithayleasin, I had to have some idea of her past in order to solidify her place in the first book, as was suggested by a good friend. It worked like a charm! Once I fleshed out her past, it became amazingly simple to write her character.

This new story will be a story all its own while still set in the IC universe, but it will guide the roadmap she follows in the main storyline (hint: she'll be back). Hopefully, you'll find it as interesting as I'm finding it to get a glimpse into this woman's past.