The Unbroken: Deleted Scenes 4 & 5

Because you asked nicely and I’m a sucker. TWO POVs for the price of one.

This is the last excerpt that you’ll get unless you have pre-ordered The Sovereign and submitted the receipt to get your pre-order gift, which is all of the deleted scenes from across the trilogy.

In the meantime, more events are popping up, dates have been finalized, tickets are for sale! Check the Events page for updates. In addition to the physical locations, there is a virtual event planned with the intersectional, feminist bookshop Charis Books, in conversation with august clarke (of Metal from Heaven and Scapegracers fame; here is me interviewing HIM) on Oct. 9, 2025 - 5 PM EST//10:30 PM GMT. You can also pre-order the books from them.

If you want to read my latest, I’ve got another interview transcript for you, this time with Antonia Hodgson on The Raven Scholar, and also an essay about the race last weekend for a belated Medal Monday. The first of the “Muscles Like C. L.” series will go up later this week, so stay tuned for that.

That’s all for announcements, I think. Time for the story.

Bon appetit.

Thus, we continue from the same chapter we left off at in our previous deleted excerpt from the beginning of The Unbroken.

The spot they had chosen for tonight’s council meeting was all the way in the northernmost corner of the old medina, by the dark earth left by the river’s last floods. Beyond the city proper, rich farmland stretched to the banks and continued on the other side of the water. Beyond the easter farmland were the ruins of the Cursed City. Ruined, they said, by the hubris of the last Brigani emperor, before the Brigani became nomads. They said that it was haunted by his evil deeds. And who was Djasha to say anything about that? She had herself contemplated those same evil deeds, possibly for those same evil reasons. Perhaps she was going to commit more tonight. She sighed. The road was clear. No need to delay longer; they wouldn’t start the meeting without her.

She clicked her tongue in the secret pattern, a delicate sound in that poorest part of the city. The beggars, however, had been relocated for their own protection and to show their “loyalty to the council.” Djasha snorted, pressing her bloody palms together around Bilhal’s towel.

Djasha followed the noise up the stairs until she reached a dimly lit room. The stairs tired her more than she cared to admit. Elder Ebrahm sat in the corner on the thickest cushion, and his son, who was about Djasha’s own age, kept his hand on his father’s shoulder. Malika, the daughter of a merchant whose career had been ground to dust with the Balladairan’s arrival. An old student of hers, in the same class as Faran.

Malika stood opposite Faran as far away from him as she could, glaring at him occasionally. Faran stood, one muscular arm open to welcome Djasha while he patted the air with the other to quiet the rest of the council, as if he and not Elder Ebrahm held the authority.

Djasha inclined her head to Elder Ebrahm, nodded to everyone else, and sank onto a cushion. How she wanted nothing more than to lay out on her own bed and stretch her muscles. They were all a sorry lot to look at. The traditional welcoming food had been reduced to a small plate of sliced khubza. None of them were starved, but dirt caked their nail beds and lined the creases of their skin. Qazāl was a land of dust, and a city of dirt.

“You’re late,” Faran said. “Have you been practicing your witchy Brigani work again?” The small group chuckled or rolled its eyes at the jibe. Djasha smiled, tight-lipped. The Qazāli always found ways to remind her that she was different.

Faran was an impressive specimen. He was broad shouldered, with none of the indolence associated with the rich Qazāli who had taken on Balladairan ways and favors. Even his attempt at growing out his beard was impressive for his age; he was less than twenty or so, but his scruff of growth covered the lower half of his jaw uniformly. He would turn himself into the rebellion’s figurehead if they weren’t careful.

Faran’s white teeth were a marvel in his broad smile. He was in rare high spirits. That made Djasha nervous. He gestured to the middle of the floor and Djasha understood why Malika stood so close to the wall.

Several cages sat where he pointed. Each housed an individual death scorpion, gold as sand, with fat tails curled tight to their bodies. She blinked up at Faran, refusing to give him the reaction he wanted. It was a strange contradiction, Djasha found. Everyone thought she was a fearsome or powerful apostate or sorcerer, and yet they expected her to be easily afraid of anyone who made puppet shadows. They selectively remembered why she became an apostate, and that she hadn’t lived tamely in Qazāl all of her life.

“I take it this means we’ll finally get down to business?” she said.

Angry nods around the room. “The conscripts,” Malika said. “What do we do about them?”

“Qalal recognized one before he died,” Elder Ebrahm’s son said.

“He called her Hanan,” Djasha said. “Have any of the parents sought to air their grievances? To reunite?”

Faran went quiet, mulling over something. That made Djasha as wary as his ebullience did. He was too young to recognize the girl.

“None have spoken to me of their upset.” Elder Ebrahm crossed his hands across his belly. His white hat sat slightly askew on his head and his pale eyes regarded her carefully. Rumors, only rumors, that he had made the deal for the children twenty years ago. Rumors barely breathed. She had not been a party to the intimate political decisions back then. She had been too busy dabbling in magic best left alone.

Djasha nodded. “Alright. So we let them be for now. They will come to us, in one way or another. What then?”

“It’s too early to know,” Ebrahm’s son said. “Wait until the next meeting, when they’ve shown us themselves.”

“I think they’ve shown us enough already,” Faran interrupted. “We should dispose of them like any other Balladairan tool.”